1 00:00:56,840 --> 00:00:59,080 So Angie, welcome to the show. How are you? 2 00:00:59,440 --> 00:01:02,600 Hi, I'm so excited to be here. One of my favorite podcasts in 3 00:01:02,600 --> 00:01:04,680 the whole wide world, so thank you so much. 4 00:01:05,319 --> 00:01:07,800 Oh, it's so kind of, I did say to Angie before we hit record 5 00:01:07,800 --> 00:01:09,680 everyone that she didn't need to say that. 6 00:01:09,720 --> 00:01:12,160 Like I'm very humbled to have you though, Angie, like so you, 7 00:01:12,160 --> 00:01:14,960 you've joined our growth hub. We'll signpost that a little 8 00:01:14,960 --> 00:01:16,920 bit. You chat so much in the in the 9 00:01:16,920 --> 00:01:18,920 different channels. You come to all of our round 10 00:01:18,920 --> 00:01:20,360 tables. So you've been such a great, 11 00:01:20,360 --> 00:01:22,840 great part of our community and I'm so excited to have you on 12 00:01:22,840 --> 00:01:24,120 today. But for anyone that's not heard 13 00:01:24,120 --> 00:01:26,720 of you, Angie, or seen your face or isn't part of Growth Hub yet, 14 00:01:26,800 --> 00:01:28,440 I'm going to say yet because everyone should join. 15 00:01:28,760 --> 00:01:31,160 There's the plug. But if anyone's not met you 16 00:01:31,160 --> 00:01:33,720 before, Angie, like tell us a bit about your background, tell 17 00:01:33,720 --> 00:01:36,400 us about your business, just to give us a bit of context as to 18 00:01:36,440 --> 00:01:38,600 what we're talking about today. Yeah. 19 00:01:38,680 --> 00:01:42,320 So hello world, my name is Angie Chua and I'm an artist and 20 00:01:42,320 --> 00:01:45,000 illustrator and the founder heart and soul of Bobo Design 21 00:01:45,000 --> 00:01:48,480 Studio where I design and create wanderlust and travel inspired 22 00:01:48,480 --> 00:01:51,360 stationary that encourages and enables people to explore the 23 00:01:51,360 --> 00:01:54,160 world around them. And I also own a brick and 24 00:01:54,160 --> 00:01:57,600 mortar retail shop in Palm Springs, CA called Bobo Palm 25 00:01:57,600 --> 00:02:01,720 Springs, where we curate a selection of stationary goods 26 00:02:01,720 --> 00:02:04,960 from primarily women of color artists, queer artists, and 27 00:02:05,160 --> 00:02:07,800 imports from Japan, as well as obviously the stuff that I 28 00:02:07,800 --> 00:02:10,400 design and create. Amazing, amazing. 29 00:02:10,680 --> 00:02:13,680 What I love is you've got bricks and mortar, you've got online, 30 00:02:13,680 --> 00:02:15,120 you do a lot of the creation yourself. 31 00:02:15,120 --> 00:02:18,320 There's a clear target market I'm looking forward to today. 32 00:02:18,320 --> 00:02:20,320 It feels like some really good stuff to go out, stuff that we 33 00:02:20,400 --> 00:02:22,680 often talk about on the show. And I don't know if you're under 34 00:02:22,680 --> 00:02:24,960 too much pressure, Angie, but I am very excited to have this 35 00:02:24,960 --> 00:02:26,760 conversation. So really appreciate your time 36 00:02:26,760 --> 00:02:30,880 and thank you for coming on. Let's start off at the beginning 37 00:02:30,880 --> 00:02:33,640 and talk about brands. And obviously you guys, even 38 00:02:33,640 --> 00:02:36,360 some of the things you've just mentioned, there's quite a clear 39 00:02:36,360 --> 00:02:40,000 and compelling brand story, a brand positioning, something 40 00:02:40,000 --> 00:02:42,480 people can buy into. That's so much more than and I'm 41 00:02:42,480 --> 00:02:44,560 sure you've heard me engine and other people have heard me say 42 00:02:44,720 --> 00:02:47,440 marketplace sites like just white background, there's loads 43 00:02:47,440 --> 00:02:49,680 of products and that's it. And it's about products. 44 00:02:49,680 --> 00:02:52,440 It's not about brand story and everything else, both healthy 45 00:02:52,440 --> 00:02:54,800 ways to run a business. But how do you start to build 46 00:02:54,800 --> 00:02:58,480 some of that authenticity, that brand, that compelling story for 47 00:02:58,520 --> 00:03:00,680 for customers to buy into? Yeah. 48 00:03:00,680 --> 00:03:03,160 Well, first of all, thank you for acknowledging, you know, 49 00:03:03,160 --> 00:03:06,360 even that we have a strong brand presence and brand voice because 50 00:03:06,360 --> 00:03:08,840 we do put a lot of time and effort into making sure that 51 00:03:08,840 --> 00:03:12,880 people know who we are. And I think a lot of that just 52 00:03:12,880 --> 00:03:16,480 comes from us taking the time to really know who our customer is. 53 00:03:16,520 --> 00:03:18,960 You know, I think the marketing one O 1 is who is your target 54 00:03:18,960 --> 00:03:21,360 customer? You know, if you yell free pizza 55 00:03:21,360 --> 00:03:23,240 in the town square, you're going to get all the weirdos. 56 00:03:23,280 --> 00:03:26,120 So we don't we don't want that, especially as a commodity brand. 57 00:03:26,120 --> 00:03:29,720 Like you can buy a journal from any store for a fraction of the 58 00:03:29,720 --> 00:03:33,200 price of what we sell ours. So in order for us to, you know, 59 00:03:33,200 --> 00:03:35,520 craft those messages and like really attract our core 60 00:03:35,520 --> 00:03:37,280 audience, we have to know who they are. 61 00:03:37,280 --> 00:03:40,000 And so we spend a lot of time figuring out who our person is 62 00:03:40,000 --> 00:03:43,360 and how we want to talk to them. And, you know, you, you said the 63 00:03:43,360 --> 00:03:47,040 word authenticity, which is like one of those words, such a 64 00:03:47,040 --> 00:03:49,480 buzzword that like people, I think kind of start to lose 65 00:03:49,480 --> 00:03:53,240 meaning of what that is. And so, you know, for us, I 66 00:03:53,240 --> 00:03:57,800 think the idea of authenticity isn't just about like be 67 00:03:57,800 --> 00:04:01,240 relatable or, you know, appear to be something that a mass 68 00:04:01,240 --> 00:04:04,040 audience will buy into. For us, it's really like, what 69 00:04:04,040 --> 00:04:06,560 is our brand voice? Like, how do we talk and who are 70 00:04:06,560 --> 00:04:08,960 we talking to? You know, my, my ideal customer 71 00:04:08,960 --> 00:04:10,440 is, is literally like one person. 72 00:04:10,440 --> 00:04:13,520 I know everything about her. She is this amalgam of a lot of 73 00:04:13,520 --> 00:04:17,120 different people in my life and, but, but every time I have a 74 00:04:17,120 --> 00:04:19,519 conversation about products or behind the scenes or anything, 75 00:04:19,519 --> 00:04:21,480 I'm, I'm literally just talking to this one person. 76 00:04:21,480 --> 00:04:23,720 And so my brand voice is really important. 77 00:04:23,960 --> 00:04:26,920 You know, our values and our ethos and, and having that be 78 00:04:26,920 --> 00:04:30,960 forward leading is so, so important, especially now with 79 00:04:31,720 --> 00:04:34,040 how people are consuming brands and how they interact with 80 00:04:34,040 --> 00:04:36,320 brands. And just I think the most 81 00:04:36,320 --> 00:04:39,240 important thing is letting people see themselves in your 82 00:04:39,240 --> 00:04:42,840 product rather than telling them why your product is cool because 83 00:04:42,840 --> 00:04:45,600 nobody wants to be told why they should buy something. 84 00:04:45,600 --> 00:04:47,440 They want to see themselves in it. 85 00:04:48,480 --> 00:04:51,000 Yeah, yeah. And I, I, I do see it work both 86 00:04:51,000 --> 00:04:52,880 ways and I think it does depend on the business. 87 00:04:52,880 --> 00:04:54,400 But I think for your business, absolutely. 88 00:04:54,400 --> 00:04:57,720 Like if you went to market and told people like you have to get 89 00:04:57,720 --> 00:05:01,480 this product, it's amazing that it's not your brand and I don't 90 00:05:01,480 --> 00:05:03,480 think would suit your products. And certainly, I mean, some of 91 00:05:03,480 --> 00:05:05,120 the things you've mentioned about like, you know, women of 92 00:05:05,120 --> 00:05:08,320 colour and people that are queer and all these different 93 00:05:08,320 --> 00:05:11,880 identifications or, or kind of groups of, of people in society. 94 00:05:12,600 --> 00:05:14,920 I think you go against that by trying to tell people to 95 00:05:14,920 --> 00:05:16,720 conform. Like it actually is the opposite 96 00:05:16,720 --> 00:05:18,760 of almost what the brand message you're trying to convey. 97 00:05:19,440 --> 00:05:22,040 I've got a really dry question for you compared to all that 98 00:05:22,040 --> 00:05:23,400 We've talked about some more fun stuff in a minute. 99 00:05:23,720 --> 00:05:26,360 But you spoke about like you, you imagine this one person is 100 00:05:26,360 --> 00:05:28,800 your customer and you, you try and talk to her, you know, she's 101 00:05:28,800 --> 00:05:30,040 almost like a one to one conversation. 102 00:05:30,040 --> 00:05:31,600 And no one's ever described it like that. 103 00:05:31,600 --> 00:05:32,880 I've worked with thousands of brands. 104 00:05:32,880 --> 00:05:35,440 I've done hundreds of episodes, not thousands yet, but I've done 105 00:05:35,440 --> 00:05:37,360 hundreds of episodes of this. No one's described it like that 106 00:05:37,360 --> 00:05:38,760 before. How? 107 00:05:38,880 --> 00:05:42,480 How do you like in terms of actual like verbs like talking 108 00:05:42,480 --> 00:05:44,920 to people, focus groups? How do you talk to your 109 00:05:44,920 --> 00:05:46,240 customers? How do you actually learn that 110 00:05:46,240 --> 00:05:50,360 stuff? I, you know, a lot of it has 111 00:05:50,360 --> 00:05:53,640 evolved over time. I think this idea of like who my 112 00:05:53,640 --> 00:05:58,000 person is, it's like art. Like if they're it never, it 113 00:05:58,000 --> 00:06:00,160 never ends. It just constantly changes. 114 00:06:00,160 --> 00:06:01,960 I have to revisit who my person is. 115 00:06:02,720 --> 00:06:04,800 A lot of that is getting feedback from people. 116 00:06:04,800 --> 00:06:07,240 A lot of is seeing what resonates on social. 117 00:06:07,240 --> 00:06:10,480 Although I don't recommend chasing likes or chasing 118 00:06:10,520 --> 00:06:14,920 virality, like it's really easy to get lost, but really 119 00:06:14,960 --> 00:06:17,520 understanding what products work and what people share with me. 120 00:06:17,520 --> 00:06:19,960 I think, you know, our flagship product is a travel journal, 121 00:06:20,560 --> 00:06:23,120 which is a very personal item. You know, people, it's not like 122 00:06:23,120 --> 00:06:25,280 clothing where people put it on and then they go like, this is 123 00:06:25,280 --> 00:06:26,760 what I'm wearing and I'm going to post it all over the 124 00:06:26,760 --> 00:06:28,480 Internet. People are writing about stories 125 00:06:28,480 --> 00:06:30,280 with their family, they're putting pictures of their kids 126 00:06:30,560 --> 00:06:33,080 and they still want to share this with me. 127 00:06:33,080 --> 00:06:35,440 So I get to feel like I'm going on these adventures with them. 128 00:06:35,920 --> 00:06:38,800 And so it, in that regard, I think it's, it's really like 129 00:06:38,800 --> 00:06:43,720 about just that connection and, and that connection gives me 130 00:06:43,720 --> 00:06:46,320 like a little bit more insight into who my person is. 131 00:06:47,320 --> 00:06:50,640 I love that and it's I just just had this moment in my head of 132 00:06:50,640 --> 00:06:53,960 thinking you're like, all of that is incredible. 133 00:06:54,000 --> 00:06:56,680 But and, and, and please notice the rude way, but you're selling 134 00:06:56,680 --> 00:06:59,320 them like a journal and a pen like it's stationary. 135 00:06:59,840 --> 00:07:02,720 But it's, I, I think what's amazing is how just something so 136 00:07:02,720 --> 00:07:04,040 simple. I mean, I'm holding a pen in my 137 00:07:04,040 --> 00:07:05,440 hand. We were joking as well. 138 00:07:05,440 --> 00:07:06,960 You won't be able to see because it won't focus. 139 00:07:06,960 --> 00:07:09,640 But I've got a Shopify pen. I didn't realise I've been using 140 00:07:09,640 --> 00:07:11,320 this for months and it says Shopify on it. 141 00:07:11,320 --> 00:07:12,720 I just haven't looked because the studio is dark. 142 00:07:13,880 --> 00:07:16,120 But you're taking like stationary and it's actually 143 00:07:16,120 --> 00:07:20,000 enabling a life change there from everything I've, you know, 144 00:07:20,000 --> 00:07:22,880 I'm in my 30s, mid 30s now. Everything I've experienced read 145 00:07:22,880 --> 00:07:26,400 about society and culture. Journaling is such a healthy 146 00:07:26,400 --> 00:07:29,400 thing When you exercise all the things that make you truly 147 00:07:29,400 --> 00:07:30,800 happy, it's like blessing people. 148 00:07:30,960 --> 00:07:33,200 What am I grateful for all those things? 149 00:07:33,200 --> 00:07:35,640 When actually again, it's like, it's just, it's a pen and it's, 150 00:07:35,840 --> 00:07:39,080 it's, it's a pad of paper. But the way you've branded it is 151 00:07:39,080 --> 00:07:40,480 actually creating a behavioural change. 152 00:07:40,480 --> 00:07:43,360 The product is very simple and easy to understand, but you're 153 00:07:43,360 --> 00:07:46,080 talking much more about the behavioural change in someone's 154 00:07:46,080 --> 00:07:48,760 life, which is really powerful. Like it's a really powerful. 155 00:07:48,760 --> 00:07:51,200 Thing to do, yeah. And that kind of goes back to 156 00:07:51,200 --> 00:07:54,160 this idea of like, if you build emotional resonance around the 157 00:07:54,160 --> 00:07:57,880 products that you create and how it's going to like impact 158 00:07:57,880 --> 00:08:01,000 people's lives like that, that's them seeing themselves in the 159 00:08:01,000 --> 00:08:02,920 product. Because you know, I mentioned 160 00:08:02,920 --> 00:08:05,760 like, we're a commodity brand. You can buy a journal and a pen 161 00:08:05,760 --> 00:08:07,440 anywhere for a fraction of the price. 162 00:08:07,720 --> 00:08:11,560 So like, what do we do? How is it special without like 163 00:08:12,000 --> 00:08:13,640 really being like into marketing? 164 00:08:13,640 --> 00:08:16,320 I, I don't want to feel like I'm conning people into buying 165 00:08:16,320 --> 00:08:19,840 something that they don't need, but I really want people to see, 166 00:08:20,480 --> 00:08:22,360 you know, what's so special about what I've created 167 00:08:22,520 --> 00:08:25,920 essentially like for myself. And that's where like having 168 00:08:25,920 --> 00:08:28,400 that one to one interaction with a friend. 169 00:08:28,680 --> 00:08:31,520 It's so easy to like hype each other up and get, get that 170 00:08:31,520 --> 00:08:33,960 person excited. And so I like to think of my 171 00:08:33,960 --> 00:08:36,120 whole audience as like that one person. 172 00:08:36,120 --> 00:08:39,280 And, and like any person, you know, there's different versions 173 00:08:39,280 --> 00:08:40,360 of you. There's, you know what, the 174 00:08:40,360 --> 00:08:42,320 person I am at work is different than the person I'm at home. 175 00:08:42,320 --> 00:08:44,000 It's just different than the person I am with my family. 176 00:08:44,000 --> 00:08:46,800 So like, even though I'm having this one conversation with them, 177 00:08:46,800 --> 00:08:49,040 I try and meet, meet this person where they are. 178 00:08:49,040 --> 00:08:52,240 And as a result, I attract all the right people and I don't 179 00:08:52,240 --> 00:08:54,400 have to worry about attracting the wrong people. 180 00:08:54,400 --> 00:08:57,640 Like the the weirdos in the town square looking for free pizza. 181 00:08:58,520 --> 00:09:00,080 They're great. We love them, but they're not my 182 00:09:00,080 --> 00:09:01,080 customer. And that's OK. 183 00:09:01,840 --> 00:09:04,600 Yeah, absolutely. And I, I guess what's really 184 00:09:04,600 --> 00:09:06,920 interesting, I'm just a parallel that's popped into my mind 185 00:09:06,920 --> 00:09:10,520 actually is about how we do SEO for a site that's got lots of 186 00:09:10,520 --> 00:09:12,080 SKUs. So like a lot of products 187 00:09:12,080 --> 00:09:15,120 available, we try to always like kind of cross reference. 188 00:09:15,240 --> 00:09:17,840 Yeah, exactly. We try to like cross reference 189 00:09:17,840 --> 00:09:21,320 actually like all the different verticals that you might use and 190 00:09:21,320 --> 00:09:24,640 then get keyword data support that to put into the strategy. 191 00:09:24,640 --> 00:09:27,040 So like I probably use this example before in the show, so 192 00:09:27,040 --> 00:09:29,880 apologies if you've heard this before, like reboil the kettle, 193 00:09:29,920 --> 00:09:32,120 top up the tea. And but we did one with the 194 00:09:32,120 --> 00:09:34,880 dress company years ago and they had like thousands upon 195 00:09:34,880 --> 00:09:38,040 thousands of dresses and we started asking kind of vertical 196 00:09:38,040 --> 00:09:39,400 questions. I would say to get this kind of 197 00:09:39,400 --> 00:09:41,480 cross analysis of like this dress. 198 00:09:41,480 --> 00:09:44,280 What tell me about it, The colour, the material, the size, 199 00:09:44,280 --> 00:09:46,600 the design, like maxi dress, cocktail dresses, etcetera. 200 00:09:46,600 --> 00:09:49,080 Like there's lots of designs. Then we get into like where you 201 00:09:49,080 --> 00:09:52,440 would wear this dress, There's like red carpet, there's prom, 202 00:09:52,440 --> 00:09:55,720 there's cocktail party, there's and Great Gatsby has grown like 203 00:09:55,720 --> 00:09:57,200 mad over the last few, certainly in the UK. 204 00:09:57,200 --> 00:10:00,240 Like there's so many 1920s Gatsby parties, you know, and 205 00:10:00,240 --> 00:10:02,440 the women wear like the little headwear and men are. 206 00:10:02,440 --> 00:10:04,360 Wearing that was my wedding. We had a Gatsby wedding. 207 00:10:04,560 --> 00:10:06,360 Oh really? That's so cool. 208 00:10:06,360 --> 00:10:09,240 But exactly my point is like you start to look at the verticals 209 00:10:09,240 --> 00:10:12,160 where I, I imagine there must have been part of you on day one 210 00:10:12,160 --> 00:10:15,400 going like I want to sell, sell a stationary like say SEO 211 00:10:15,400 --> 00:10:19,600 keyword notepad, journal pen. When you've probably evolved it 212 00:10:19,600 --> 00:10:21,680 a lot more now, like to where people are really looking into 213 00:10:21,680 --> 00:10:25,480 like, how do I journal about my family or family journaling? 214 00:10:25,760 --> 00:10:27,920 I, I haven't looked on your site in detail, but I imagine you 215 00:10:27,920 --> 00:10:29,840 must do quite a lot of content around those kind of things of 216 00:10:29,840 --> 00:10:33,320 like how to structure certain journals, which relates back to 217 00:10:33,320 --> 00:10:34,800 a good product that would support you with this. 218 00:10:34,800 --> 00:10:36,880 But it's trying to find all those other verticals, isn't it, 219 00:10:36,880 --> 00:10:39,280 of how do people engage with product, shop products, 220 00:10:39,280 --> 00:10:42,840 etcetera? Yeah, and I think you're, you're 221 00:10:42,840 --> 00:10:44,800 right. It's, it's about like, and that 222 00:10:44,800 --> 00:10:46,960 I think speaks to like meeting people where they are. 223 00:10:47,600 --> 00:10:51,280 There's different levels of, of people who might want to partake 224 00:10:51,280 --> 00:10:54,240 in, in a journaling journey or stationary journey. 225 00:10:54,480 --> 00:10:57,480 There's really creative people. There's, you know, people who 226 00:10:57,480 --> 00:10:59,560 like to write. There's people who are scared to 227 00:10:59,560 --> 00:11:02,200 do that because they're worried that their penmanship isn't 228 00:11:02,200 --> 00:11:03,760 great or that they're not artistic. 229 00:11:03,760 --> 00:11:05,640 And like, how do we engage those people? 230 00:11:05,920 --> 00:11:09,000 And so, and then on top of that, there's that the verticals of 231 00:11:09,000 --> 00:11:10,880 like activities, you know, what are they into? 232 00:11:10,880 --> 00:11:13,240 You know, we do a lot of travel theme stuff. 233 00:11:13,240 --> 00:11:15,240 There's, you know, there's people who love to road trip, 234 00:11:15,240 --> 00:11:17,800 there's people who love to fly around the world, there's people 235 00:11:17,800 --> 00:11:20,280 who love national parks and Disney adventure. 236 00:11:20,280 --> 00:11:23,800 So there's really like so many personalities that exist. 237 00:11:24,600 --> 00:11:27,960 And, you know, how do we tap into all of that as a constant, 238 00:11:28,680 --> 00:11:30,160 you know, SEO and content strategy? 239 00:11:30,440 --> 00:11:33,240 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And do you find it's quite, 240 00:11:33,240 --> 00:11:36,560 quite an interesting question, I think do you find the sorry, 241 00:11:36,560 --> 00:11:37,960 that's picking up my own question. 242 00:11:37,960 --> 00:11:39,760 What what I mean is I'm interested in your answer to 243 00:11:39,760 --> 00:11:42,040 this. Sorry, it's late on a Tuesday 244 00:11:42,040 --> 00:11:44,360 when we're recording this and my head is quite fuzzy today. 245 00:11:45,080 --> 00:11:48,520 But I think with it, do you find or how much do you find that 246 00:11:48,520 --> 00:11:51,520 some people are like you're, you feel like they've gone like what 247 00:11:51,520 --> 00:11:54,040 is journalling and you're trying to explain to them why they 248 00:11:54,040 --> 00:11:57,120 should journal versus people that are already doing it and 249 00:11:57,120 --> 00:12:00,040 they want to sort of join your community, buy your products and 250 00:12:00,040 --> 00:12:01,600 use your products. Like how many are you convincing 251 00:12:01,800 --> 00:12:04,360 this is a good idea versus people that already want it? 252 00:12:04,360 --> 00:12:05,840 You're going. This is a great option. 253 00:12:06,920 --> 00:12:09,600 Oh gosh, that's a, that's a tough question. 254 00:12:09,600 --> 00:12:12,400 That's almost like a funnel question, especially with our 255 00:12:12,440 --> 00:12:15,000 like our flagship product for e-commerce is, is a travel 256 00:12:15,000 --> 00:12:16,960 journal. So it's, it's a little bit more 257 00:12:16,960 --> 00:12:19,080 education. So it's like guiding them 258 00:12:19,080 --> 00:12:21,600 through this process of this is what it is. 259 00:12:21,600 --> 00:12:24,720 You know, they're intrigued to, I can maybe see myself using 260 00:12:24,720 --> 00:12:27,160 this to like, Oh my God, this changes my life. 261 00:12:27,160 --> 00:12:29,480 How do I, I want to incorporate this into my life? 262 00:12:29,760 --> 00:12:32,240 And then for our brick and mortar store, it's kind of like 263 00:12:32,240 --> 00:12:34,600 a different process. They're so much more impulse 264 00:12:34,600 --> 00:12:39,240 driven and like you have to make that, that conversion on the 265 00:12:39,240 --> 00:12:41,720 spot, especially like for us in particular, we're in a tourist 266 00:12:41,720 --> 00:12:42,800 town. We, we don't get a second 267 00:12:42,800 --> 00:12:44,280 opportunity with a lot of customers. 268 00:12:45,200 --> 00:12:49,440 And how do, how do we, how do we bridge that gap from I'm curious 269 00:12:49,640 --> 00:12:52,160 or I'm impulsive and I'm going to buy it to like this is 270 00:12:52,160 --> 00:12:54,520 something that I want and I can see myself using for a really 271 00:12:54,520 --> 00:12:58,120 long time and it's it, there's no secret sauce. 272 00:12:58,120 --> 00:13:01,480 It's really tricky to try and and figure out what that is, but 273 00:13:02,800 --> 00:13:05,840 it it's such a fun journey to be a part of, to see people kind of 274 00:13:06,040 --> 00:13:10,120 go from curiosity to like, I love this and I want to use it 275 00:13:10,120 --> 00:13:12,320 forever. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. 276 00:13:12,600 --> 00:13:15,240 And the thing I always find hilarious is like when you look 277 00:13:15,240 --> 00:13:17,800 at analytics data to try and answer some of these questions, 278 00:13:17,800 --> 00:13:20,320 you know, you come up with a hypothesis going, if I knew how 279 00:13:20,320 --> 00:13:22,760 many people kind of want the product and we just needed to 280 00:13:22,760 --> 00:13:25,160 convince them to buy our products and engage with us 281 00:13:25,480 --> 00:13:27,240 versus people that don't know if they want it yet. 282 00:13:27,240 --> 00:13:28,960 So we're going to convince them you do want it and this is the 283 00:13:28,960 --> 00:13:31,640 one you want. You go into analytics and it 284 00:13:31,640 --> 00:13:33,040 tells you what's happened, but not why. 285 00:13:33,240 --> 00:13:35,920 And that's always the most into my very first question of like, 286 00:13:36,480 --> 00:13:38,240 you know, how do you talk to your customers? 287 00:13:38,240 --> 00:13:39,800 What's that engagement actually like? 288 00:13:41,160 --> 00:13:43,880 Obviously you've got the physical store, which is almost 289 00:13:43,880 --> 00:13:46,880 like a bit of a bit of a wild card to get to play against just 290 00:13:46,880 --> 00:13:49,280 pure e-commerce players is you actually get to meet customers, 291 00:13:49,280 --> 00:13:51,240 don't you face to face and engage with them? 292 00:13:51,240 --> 00:13:53,360 Like what brings you to you mentioned, you know, you're in a 293 00:13:53,480 --> 00:13:56,120 specific type of town. What brings you to the town and 294 00:13:56,120 --> 00:13:59,320 have a conversation with them. I certainly like, I mean, I, as 295 00:13:59,320 --> 00:14:00,400 everyone will know, listens to the show. 296 00:14:00,400 --> 00:14:02,520 I love to talk. I love to chat to people when I 297 00:14:02,520 --> 00:14:04,000 go. And I bought a coffee yesterday 298 00:14:04,000 --> 00:14:06,200 lunchtime, went to the gym, bought a coffee next door. 299 00:14:06,680 --> 00:14:09,560 And she she said to me and she said, do you come in here often? 300 00:14:09,560 --> 00:14:11,880 I said, Oh, no, I've walked past this place the 1000 times I've 301 00:14:11,880 --> 00:14:14,720 never been in, but you've got a sign that says best coffee in 302 00:14:14,720 --> 00:14:17,440 Reigate and the Reigate's the town near where I live. 303 00:14:17,960 --> 00:14:19,800 And I said I thought I'd better test this coffee. 304 00:14:19,800 --> 00:14:21,720 And she goes, that's interesting. 305 00:14:21,720 --> 00:14:23,000 And I said, is it working for your marketing? 306 00:14:23,000 --> 00:14:24,280 And next thing we'll talk about marketing. 307 00:14:24,680 --> 00:14:27,360 So you must have a bit more engagement than you obviously 308 00:14:27,360 --> 00:14:30,080 would if it was purely online. You must find that super useful 309 00:14:30,080 --> 00:14:32,200 having the the physical store and that face to face 310 00:14:32,200 --> 00:14:35,680 connection. Yeah, real time feedback is 311 00:14:35,680 --> 00:14:38,840 great. It's also sometimes painful. 312 00:14:39,400 --> 00:14:43,280 I remember the first time I had a brick and mortar, that retail 313 00:14:43,280 --> 00:14:45,680 store was only stuff that I designed and created. 314 00:14:46,000 --> 00:14:49,000 And before I was pivoted to stationary, I did a lot of 315 00:14:49,000 --> 00:14:51,040 handcrafted items. And as an illustrator, I did a 316 00:14:51,040 --> 00:14:54,400 lot of my own graphic apparel and to have that customer that 317 00:14:54,400 --> 00:14:57,040 would come in and like, look at something and be like, and like 318 00:14:57,040 --> 00:15:00,160 put it down like that was, you know, so horrifying, but in 319 00:15:00,160 --> 00:15:03,680 retrospect was so helpful. Like, where else could you get 320 00:15:03,680 --> 00:15:07,560 that kind of real time feedback? Not that you know, every artist, 321 00:15:07,560 --> 00:15:09,960 designer or business owner should make decisions based on 322 00:15:09,960 --> 00:15:13,360 initial feedback that way. But there's, there's something 323 00:15:13,360 --> 00:15:18,200 so valuable about seeing people react to your products and in 324 00:15:18,200 --> 00:15:21,080 the, in the slog of the day-to-day of running a 325 00:15:21,080 --> 00:15:24,840 business, which is really difficult, really lonely, really 326 00:15:24,840 --> 00:15:28,640 stressful, having that real time feedback and seeing people react 327 00:15:28,800 --> 00:15:30,800 reminds you why you get up every day. 328 00:15:30,800 --> 00:15:34,320 Like for me, I could have just the worst day and I see someone 329 00:15:34,320 --> 00:15:38,080 get so excited about something that they picked up in my store 330 00:15:38,080 --> 00:15:40,400 and I'm like, that's why I do this. 331 00:15:40,760 --> 00:15:41,760 That's why I do this. You are? 332 00:15:42,080 --> 00:15:43,760 Yeah. You are literally describing my 333 00:15:43,760 --> 00:15:45,440 wife. Now we go into a shop and she 334 00:15:45,440 --> 00:15:47,800 picks something up and I go, that's kind of cute. 335 00:15:47,800 --> 00:15:50,400 And it ran and show. Her eyes are tearing and I'm 336 00:15:50,400 --> 00:15:54,800 like, OK, let's go to the till. Because really, Are we sure? 337 00:15:54,800 --> 00:15:57,160 I'm like, yeah, it's like 2 lbs. Like we're just going by it. 338 00:15:57,240 --> 00:15:59,280 It's fun. She's like for me. 339 00:15:59,280 --> 00:16:01,680 And I'm like, just because she's had that emotional attachment. 340 00:16:01,680 --> 00:16:03,960 Yes, yeah. And then she asked me a few 341 00:16:03,960 --> 00:16:05,520 years ago, like, why don't I get that? 342 00:16:05,520 --> 00:16:08,680 And I was like, no, no, no ID just different things like 343 00:16:08,680 --> 00:16:12,440 sometimes when I'm whenever it's time to change the car months, 344 00:16:12,440 --> 00:16:14,720 she hates it. I made it, I made a slideshow 345 00:16:14,800 --> 00:16:17,440 last time. Honey, we're playing this Audi 346 00:16:17,440 --> 00:16:20,520 because it's, it's the best. It's a plug in hybrid. 347 00:16:20,520 --> 00:16:22,000 I can charge it. And I thought about every 348 00:16:22,000 --> 00:16:23,520 aspect. The seats are amazing. 349 00:16:23,520 --> 00:16:25,000 And she was like, and where do we get one from? 350 00:16:25,000 --> 00:16:27,880 And I was like, the nearest 1 is a four hour drive away and she's 351 00:16:27,880 --> 00:16:30,120 like, I'm not driving 4 hours. I was like, do you trust me? 352 00:16:30,120 --> 00:16:31,760 And she's like, go and get it. Go on, off you. 353 00:16:32,000 --> 00:16:35,080 I went and bought it. But it's like, that was me going 354 00:16:35,080 --> 00:16:37,320 like, Oh my gosh, cards, what do I want next? 355 00:16:37,320 --> 00:16:40,320 What colour, you know, and I get excited about, you know, just 356 00:16:40,320 --> 00:16:42,280 different things, but I think that emotional connection and 357 00:16:42,280 --> 00:16:44,240 you you say absolutely right. It's you. 358 00:16:44,720 --> 00:16:47,200 You can kind of see in the data online of someone like look to 359 00:16:47,200 --> 00:16:49,840 this product bounced off. What you can't see is them kind 360 00:16:49,840 --> 00:16:53,600 of going like, oh, that's nice picking it up or I don't like 361 00:16:53,600 --> 00:16:57,120 the texture, put it back down. You're like, that's way more 362 00:16:57,120 --> 00:17:00,000 interesting than just seeing a bounce rate and say I I love how 363 00:17:00,000 --> 00:17:01,000 you do that. Yeah. 364 00:17:01,600 --> 00:17:04,800 Obviously with with with online, there's so much data. 365 00:17:04,800 --> 00:17:09,160 So you kind of have to make assumptions, but there's enough 366 00:17:09,160 --> 00:17:10,839 data for you to make a good assumption. 367 00:17:11,880 --> 00:17:14,079 You have a much smaller set with a brick and mortar, a much 368 00:17:14,079 --> 00:17:15,920 smaller sample size. And so you're trying to make 369 00:17:15,920 --> 00:17:20,440 decisions based off sales data, based off of how the movement of 370 00:17:20,440 --> 00:17:22,599 certain products and then try and make assumptions about how 371 00:17:22,599 --> 00:17:25,000 do you grow a product selection based off of some of that 372 00:17:25,000 --> 00:17:28,400 criteria. So it's all data, it's just how 373 00:17:28,400 --> 00:17:30,160 it's presented is completely different. 374 00:17:30,680 --> 00:17:32,080 Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. 375 00:17:32,320 --> 00:17:35,360 And obviously you didn't always have online and store like talk 376 00:17:35,360 --> 00:17:37,240 us through that process, like which one did you start with? 377 00:17:37,240 --> 00:17:39,680 And obviously you mentioned the first store just had your 378 00:17:39,680 --> 00:17:41,360 personal designs and stuff in it. 379 00:17:41,360 --> 00:17:43,160 Like talk us through that process, like some of the 380 00:17:43,160 --> 00:17:44,960 mistakes you made, some of the things that were really 381 00:17:44,960 --> 00:17:46,520 successful that led you to where you are today. 382 00:17:47,240 --> 00:17:50,880 Yeah, so I started online. Well, you know, I'm, I'm an 383 00:17:50,880 --> 00:17:53,040 artist and a maker. So if you go back far enough, 384 00:17:53,040 --> 00:17:55,680 like in 2008, I was, you know, selling at little markets and 385 00:17:55,680 --> 00:17:57,720 pop up events. So, you know, whether or not you 386 00:17:57,720 --> 00:18:00,000 consider that physical, but, you know, it's very much like a 387 00:18:00,000 --> 00:18:03,600 hyperlocal thing just to build, build some trust and, you know, 388 00:18:03,600 --> 00:18:05,680 sell to friends and, and things like that. 389 00:18:05,680 --> 00:18:08,400 But I would say like the real start was really pivoting to 390 00:18:08,400 --> 00:18:12,400 online and, you know, getting into more of a, a larger mass 391 00:18:12,400 --> 00:18:14,480 market and, you know, diving into ads. 392 00:18:14,480 --> 00:18:18,560 But e-commerce has been, you know, the, the bread and butter 393 00:18:18,560 --> 00:18:21,160 of our business. And so when I had the 394 00:18:21,160 --> 00:18:24,920 opportunity to open a store here in Palm Springs, which is 2 395 00:18:24,920 --> 00:18:27,040 hours from LA, we're like in the middle of the desert. 396 00:18:27,040 --> 00:18:30,200 You know, it's a great tourist town, seasonal, but there there 397 00:18:30,200 --> 00:18:33,680 are so many challenges because 1 you know, in the summer here it 398 00:18:33,680 --> 00:18:38,200 gets to, it can be 125°F, which is like what, 51°C. 399 00:18:38,200 --> 00:18:39,920 So like there, there's nobody in town. 400 00:18:40,160 --> 00:18:44,280 Yeah, it's pretty bad. So like the, the challenges, you 401 00:18:44,280 --> 00:18:48,000 know, just come from them being completely too two different 402 00:18:48,000 --> 00:18:49,360 businesses. We sell the same things online 403 00:18:49,360 --> 00:18:52,080 and in store, 2 totally different businesses from an 404 00:18:52,080 --> 00:18:55,800 operations level, like you know, the overhead, managing the 405 00:18:55,800 --> 00:18:59,360 inventory, labor, how we market it, totally different 406 00:18:59,360 --> 00:19:02,160 businesses. But some of like the less 407 00:19:02,160 --> 00:19:06,400 obvious things are just, you know, like the, the, the people 408 00:19:06,400 --> 00:19:09,080 aspect, the customers like, you know, we talked about like how 409 00:19:09,080 --> 00:19:10,960 do you convert them in a much shorter window? 410 00:19:10,960 --> 00:19:14,280 You have like one shot, you know, how do you connect 411 00:19:14,480 --> 00:19:17,680 products, you know, to people that have just wandered in as 412 00:19:17,680 --> 00:19:19,440 we're online? You know, they have to like seek 413 00:19:19,440 --> 00:19:22,160 you out or they've they've been served enough of your content to 414 00:19:22,160 --> 00:19:23,800 really know who you are and to build that trust. 415 00:19:24,040 --> 00:19:26,160 We don't have any trust, You know, the minute that someone 416 00:19:26,160 --> 00:19:27,640 walks in that door for the first time. 417 00:19:29,280 --> 00:19:32,400 But I think kind of the the other challenge was actually are 418 00:19:32,400 --> 00:19:36,400 aesthetics, like the aesthetics of our, our online store at the 419 00:19:36,400 --> 00:19:38,840 time was a little bit like earthy and like really travel 420 00:19:38,840 --> 00:19:41,920 centric. Palm Springs is sort of this mid 421 00:19:41,920 --> 00:19:45,200 century modern, like bright and colorful place. 422 00:19:45,200 --> 00:19:48,320 Everything is pink and bright orange and you know, very 423 00:19:48,320 --> 00:19:50,120 different aesthetics. And so like, how do I bridge 424 00:19:50,120 --> 00:19:54,760 that gap? That was really challenging, but 425 00:19:54,760 --> 00:19:57,680 you know, we, we've done it and, and it's, it's been great. 426 00:19:57,680 --> 00:20:02,080 I think it's helped both aspects of the business, both our online 427 00:20:02,080 --> 00:20:06,080 store presence and having the offline to help, you know, get 428 00:20:06,080 --> 00:20:08,480 people to our online store. Yeah, yeah. 429 00:20:08,480 --> 00:20:10,480 And I think you're right. It's, it's so different. 430 00:20:10,720 --> 00:20:14,240 We, we often talk so much in the online world about how do we 431 00:20:14,240 --> 00:20:17,280 make the online experience like the offline experience. 432 00:20:18,120 --> 00:20:19,320 But I think the grass is always greener. 433 00:20:19,320 --> 00:20:22,240 If you look at the online, like the offline world going, oh, 434 00:20:22,280 --> 00:20:24,120 online it's easy. You've got no overheads. 435 00:20:24,120 --> 00:20:25,880 You don't have to pay all these different taxes. 436 00:20:25,880 --> 00:20:28,760 Like you don't have to maintain a store, get the windows cleaned 437 00:20:28,760 --> 00:20:32,360 regularly, like open the shop in the morning and all this kind of 438 00:20:32,360 --> 00:20:33,720 stuff. It swings and roundabouts 439 00:20:33,720 --> 00:20:35,000 though, isn't it? Like we have all our own 440 00:20:35,000 --> 00:20:37,280 challenges online compared to the offline world. 441 00:20:38,000 --> 00:20:39,880 Oh my gosh. Well, I have, you know, brick 442 00:20:39,880 --> 00:20:42,040 and mortar folks that say like, oh, it must be really easy to 443 00:20:42,040 --> 00:20:43,560 run it online. You just have it like people or 444 00:20:43,560 --> 00:20:46,280 like I built an online store, like how come no one's shopping? 445 00:20:46,280 --> 00:20:48,640 And it's like you can't, you know, if you build it, people 446 00:20:48,640 --> 00:20:51,000 won't come. And for a long time, you know, 447 00:20:51,000 --> 00:20:54,240 when we had the brick and mortar store, the cost of overhead, the 448 00:20:54,240 --> 00:20:59,040 labor, the inventory, the the property, like we were robbing 449 00:20:59,040 --> 00:21:01,640 Peter to pay Paul our online store with our profit margins, 450 00:21:01,640 --> 00:21:04,320 having it mostly, you know, pretty much our products that we 451 00:21:04,320 --> 00:21:08,280 designed in house was carrying the cost of running the brick 452 00:21:08,280 --> 00:21:11,040 and mortar. But the cost to run online is so 453 00:21:11,040 --> 00:21:15,200 expensive between, you know, all the fees paid ad spent, any 454 00:21:15,200 --> 00:21:20,080 vendors, contractors, retainer fees, shipping is, is so 455 00:21:20,080 --> 00:21:22,600 expensive now and the amazonification of everything 456 00:21:22,600 --> 00:21:24,360 where people want things faster and cheaper. 457 00:21:24,640 --> 00:21:28,320 It's like the the store, the brick and mortar store is now 458 00:21:28,320 --> 00:21:31,800 almost having to offset the costs of the online store and 459 00:21:31,800 --> 00:21:34,200 the warehouse. And so it's really interesting 460 00:21:34,200 --> 00:21:35,280 to see. And I think a lot of people 461 00:21:35,280 --> 00:21:39,480 don't understand how difficult it is to, to run 2 or to to make 462 00:21:39,480 --> 00:21:40,880 the switch from 1:00 to the other. 463 00:21:41,320 --> 00:21:43,240 It's it's really not a one to one at all. 464 00:21:43,960 --> 00:21:45,800 Yeah. And we talked to a lot of 465 00:21:45,800 --> 00:21:49,360 businesses and some of them that are doing like lots of physical 466 00:21:49,360 --> 00:21:50,880 face to face sales in their stores. 467 00:21:51,240 --> 00:21:53,520 They then come to us and say, look, we've got all this sale, 468 00:21:53,600 --> 00:21:55,600 all these sales on our website, but it's no, it's not even the 469 00:21:55,600 --> 00:21:58,080 same as one of our 100 stores or whatever. 470 00:21:58,720 --> 00:22:01,200 And then when we look at it, we're like, OK, in the data, it 471 00:22:01,200 --> 00:22:03,200 looks like most people are just, they know how to get to your 472 00:22:03,200 --> 00:22:05,800 website because they've seen your store before or they're 473 00:22:05,800 --> 00:22:07,880 searching for your brand on Google because they've seen your 474 00:22:07,880 --> 00:22:11,400 store before. I won't say who, but more than 475 00:22:11,400 --> 00:22:16,280 one major retailer, one in the US, one in the UK, they were 476 00:22:16,280 --> 00:22:18,400 just riding this wave. And we actually like one of them 477 00:22:18,400 --> 00:22:19,880 in particular. We said like, turn your 478 00:22:19,880 --> 00:22:22,080 advertising spend off 1,000,000 per year. 479 00:22:22,360 --> 00:22:24,440 They turned it off. No difference in sales. 480 00:22:24,920 --> 00:22:27,560 Sales remain flat. They didn't drop at all. 481 00:22:28,040 --> 00:22:30,520 And yeah, I, I don't know if anyone got fired at the end of 482 00:22:30,520 --> 00:22:34,000 it, but I look like a hero. The finance director was like, I 483 00:22:34,000 --> 00:22:36,800 want to take you out for lunch. And I remember saying to him, is 484 00:22:36,800 --> 00:22:38,760 it a two and a half million pound lunch? 485 00:22:38,760 --> 00:22:42,040 And he said, no. I said, how hard do I need to 486 00:22:42,040 --> 00:22:43,680 work for a two and a half million pound lunch? 487 00:22:44,280 --> 00:22:46,480 He said, make me 25,000,000. You can have a two half million. 488 00:22:46,480 --> 00:22:47,360 That's like talent. Expensive. 489 00:22:47,960 --> 00:22:50,040 Well, saving a dollar is the same as earning a dollar if you 490 00:22:50,040 --> 00:22:52,320 ask me so. Yeah, exactly. 491 00:22:52,360 --> 00:22:54,920 And I, I think there's, there's two ways to look at all this 492 00:22:54,920 --> 00:22:56,960 stuff is how much can we save? How much can we invest in the 493 00:22:56,960 --> 00:22:58,840 right things? Do you ever find that in your 494 00:22:58,840 --> 00:23:01,640 warehouse you have dead stock, you can't sell it, no one wants 495 00:23:01,640 --> 00:23:03,080 to buy it and you can't get a refund on it. 496 00:23:03,360 --> 00:23:06,440 Or alternatively, you're missing inventory in your warehouse that 497 00:23:06,440 --> 00:23:08,600 you need, you've got sales coming in and you're low on 498 00:23:08,600 --> 00:23:10,640 stock and you haven't ordered more stock. 499 00:23:10,720 --> 00:23:12,640 In time, all these things hit profit. 500 00:23:12,680 --> 00:23:14,600 And I've been there, I've run my own Shopify store and had 501 00:23:14,600 --> 00:23:17,000 exactly that problem. But we've partnered up with 502 00:23:17,000 --> 00:23:19,440 Inventory Planner who have the most incredible app to help you 503 00:23:19,440 --> 00:23:23,280 manage that and forecast exactly what products, what skews even 504 00:23:23,280 --> 00:23:26,600 down to what colour of products you need to order in advance to 505 00:23:26,600 --> 00:23:29,360 make sure stock levels remain consistent throughout. 506 00:23:29,720 --> 00:23:31,360 They're also running a seven day boot camp. 507 00:23:31,360 --> 00:23:33,400 And if you want to go and sign up to that, it's 7 emails every 508 00:23:33,400 --> 00:23:36,200 seven days and it takes the same amount of time as your morning 509 00:23:36,240 --> 00:23:38,280 coffee. And in seven days, like me, you 510 00:23:38,280 --> 00:23:40,080 can become an inventory management pro. 511 00:23:40,520 --> 00:23:42,160 Both links are in the description. 512 00:23:42,400 --> 00:23:44,960 Enjoy. I think with the physical stores 513 00:23:44,960 --> 00:23:46,840 though, there there are definitely things that every 514 00:23:46,840 --> 00:23:49,800 time I go into a physical shop that really hits me. 515 00:23:49,800 --> 00:23:52,200 You know, you talk about that kind of emotional relevance. 516 00:23:52,440 --> 00:23:55,680 When something is emotionally relevant to me, I start buzzing 517 00:23:55,680 --> 00:23:58,080 with ideas. Going all of our online, you 518 00:23:58,080 --> 00:23:59,720 know online shops, we work with spec. 519 00:23:59,720 --> 00:24:02,080 We need to do this, do this, do this, we need to improve these 520 00:24:02,080 --> 00:24:04,920 things. I also listen to quite a lot of 521 00:24:05,320 --> 00:24:09,240 guys that talk about psychological solutions to real 522 00:24:09,240 --> 00:24:12,440 world problems, like particularly things like, OK, we 523 00:24:12,440 --> 00:24:14,920 don't have enough buses going between this town and this town, 524 00:24:15,120 --> 00:24:18,160 let's get more buses. And then some smart ass looks at 525 00:24:18,160 --> 00:24:20,640 it and goes, we don't need more buses. 526 00:24:20,640 --> 00:24:22,800 Half of them are empty at these hours of the day. 527 00:24:22,800 --> 00:24:25,080 Let's just make those tickets cheaper and advertise it. 528 00:24:25,360 --> 00:24:26,880 And now they're full during those hours. 529 00:24:26,880 --> 00:24:28,760 And the ones during the day, I've always got a spare seat or 530 00:24:28,760 --> 00:24:30,640 two. We now have more customers 531 00:24:30,640 --> 00:24:33,440 across the same fleet of buses like, oh, it's genius. 532 00:24:33,440 --> 00:24:36,000 Like it those kind of things, those kind of solutions. 533 00:24:36,000 --> 00:24:38,840 But I think when you're stuck just in the online world and a 534 00:24:38,840 --> 00:24:40,720 lot of you guys listening are obviously listening because 535 00:24:40,720 --> 00:24:43,480 we're talking about Shopify a lot and Angie is using Shopify, 536 00:24:43,480 --> 00:24:45,920 we're pleased to hear. But because we talk about 537 00:24:45,920 --> 00:24:48,920 Shopify a lot, we don't think too much about some of the kind 538 00:24:48,920 --> 00:24:52,240 of left field solutions to stuff, you know, and I've 539 00:24:52,240 --> 00:24:54,360 written loads of these myself. Every blog post you read says 540 00:24:54,360 --> 00:24:56,720 like, here's how to increase your conversion rate by, you 541 00:24:56,720 --> 00:24:59,880 know, 50% overnight. And we did have one last year. 542 00:24:59,880 --> 00:25:02,880 We doubled their conversion rate overnight by changing 2 words on 543 00:25:02,880 --> 00:25:04,200 the page. We'll talk about that. 544 00:25:04,200 --> 00:25:06,960 I remember that episode. Yeah, fascinating. 545 00:25:07,600 --> 00:25:09,040 We haven't had them on the show yet. 546 00:25:09,040 --> 00:25:10,840 I know you guys listen though, because that's how you reached 547 00:25:10,840 --> 00:25:13,120 out to us. But yeah, we are trying to get a 548 00:25:13,120 --> 00:25:14,440 case study about that at the moment. 549 00:25:14,760 --> 00:25:16,520 We've got a conversation a couple of weeks to get that off 550 00:25:16,520 --> 00:25:17,480 the ground, which would be brilliant. 551 00:25:17,760 --> 00:25:19,880 Certainly share of everybody. But thank you so much for 552 00:25:19,880 --> 00:25:21,800 sharing that because I I love what you're saying Angie about 553 00:25:21,800 --> 00:25:24,680 like just it's so difficult and actually one business like 554 00:25:24,680 --> 00:25:26,400 carried the other for a while as well. 555 00:25:27,240 --> 00:25:29,120 I think a lot of people that just have physical stores think 556 00:25:29,120 --> 00:25:31,400 online is easy and let's just start a store and people come by 557 00:25:31,400 --> 00:25:35,520 from us and that'll only get you that trickle of five, 5 or 10% 558 00:25:35,520 --> 00:25:37,240 of people that go. I wonder if they have a website 559 00:25:37,600 --> 00:25:39,240 and it's like no one's told them to do that. 560 00:25:41,400 --> 00:25:44,320 But what would you say is the one of the biggest issues in 561 00:25:44,320 --> 00:25:46,640 trying to get your two businesses to integrate Or you 562 00:25:46,880 --> 00:25:48,360 mentioned, obviously they run different inventory. 563 00:25:48,360 --> 00:25:50,200 Have you like completely separated them now? 564 00:25:50,200 --> 00:25:53,320 Or do you use the physical store for online content? 565 00:25:53,320 --> 00:25:55,560 Do you use the online store to drive people to the physical 566 00:25:55,560 --> 00:25:57,320 store? Like how do you see that 567 00:25:57,320 --> 00:25:58,760 crossover? Or you're very much just like 568 00:25:58,760 --> 00:26:01,400 you can shop at either you decide and let people kind of 569 00:26:01,400 --> 00:26:03,240 sit in one one or one or other community. 570 00:26:04,280 --> 00:26:07,560 Yeah, You know, that's also something we're always trying to 571 00:26:07,560 --> 00:26:09,800 figure out. If we'd if we've mastered that, 572 00:26:10,600 --> 00:26:11,760 we might be too big to talk to you. 573 00:26:11,760 --> 00:26:16,440 No, I'm just kidding. I'd be, I'd be far too busy. 574 00:26:18,360 --> 00:26:24,400 Yeah, it's gosh, it's, that's a hard one to answer, mainly 575 00:26:24,400 --> 00:26:28,920 because, you know, what we do for for the store is it is a 576 00:26:28,920 --> 00:26:31,240 little bit different. We we've had to merge the two 577 00:26:31,240 --> 00:26:32,480 together. And I mentioned that that was 578 00:26:32,480 --> 00:26:36,160 such a big struggle. The aesthetics, the the brand 579 00:26:36,160 --> 00:26:38,840 voice is relatively similar just because it's it's me and I think 580 00:26:38,840 --> 00:26:42,520 about my target customer. But then, you know, that Target 581 00:26:42,520 --> 00:26:45,080 customer was sort of the guiding light about how do I bridge 582 00:26:45,080 --> 00:26:48,000 these two, right? You know, does my customer come 583 00:26:48,000 --> 00:26:51,000 to Palm Springs like to a certain degree, yes. 584 00:26:51,320 --> 00:26:55,440 So let's just think about like the values of my brand, you 585 00:26:55,440 --> 00:26:58,320 know, for me, like I'm, you know, for the people who can see 586 00:26:58,320 --> 00:27:00,880 this on on YouTube, if it's going to be on YouTube is I'm an 587 00:27:00,880 --> 00:27:02,640 Asian woman. There's not a lot of Asian women 588 00:27:02,640 --> 00:27:06,160 talking about travel themed. I, you know, discussions and, 589 00:27:06,160 --> 00:27:08,480 and being in the outdoor space, especially here in the state. 590 00:27:08,480 --> 00:27:11,440 So I really wanted to give like my perspective and my voice. 591 00:27:11,440 --> 00:27:15,800 So I liked the idea of like, how do I carry that into a brick and 592 00:27:15,800 --> 00:27:17,080 mortar shop? Like, OK, great, let's carry 593 00:27:17,080 --> 00:27:19,320 women of color artist and clear artist products and let their 594 00:27:19,320 --> 00:27:21,560 voices and their products and the, the cool things that they 595 00:27:21,560 --> 00:27:22,880 make kind of be front and center. 596 00:27:23,040 --> 00:27:27,000 So really taking the aspects of, of the core and ethos of, of the 597 00:27:27,000 --> 00:27:30,440 brand and like building that into the brick and mortar space. 598 00:27:30,840 --> 00:27:34,480 And what that essentially does is again, it removes me as being 599 00:27:34,480 --> 00:27:36,960 a commodity. So we've, we've built such a 600 00:27:36,960 --> 00:27:41,520 great community around, around the ethos of our brand and, and 601 00:27:41,520 --> 00:27:45,760 the visual aspects and kind of the engagement level that you 602 00:27:45,760 --> 00:27:48,160 get in the store, the experience that you get in the store that 603 00:27:48,360 --> 00:27:51,200 if another stationary store opened in town like that would 604 00:27:51,200 --> 00:27:52,960 suck and it would be a competition. 605 00:27:52,960 --> 00:27:54,920 But I would never actually have to worry about it because no one 606 00:27:54,920 --> 00:27:57,600 could really replicate what we do because we've really doubled 607 00:27:57,600 --> 00:28:00,760 down on that, that personality, that voice and, and, and our 608 00:28:00,760 --> 00:28:03,000 person and merging the two together. 609 00:28:03,000 --> 00:28:05,040 So I try and stick to that as much as possible. 610 00:28:05,760 --> 00:28:07,640 Yeah, that and that, that's really cool actually, because 611 00:28:07,640 --> 00:28:10,680 they're online like competitors just pop up like one a day. 612 00:28:11,280 --> 00:28:14,160 It's it's carnage. And people have so much money. 613 00:28:14,200 --> 00:28:16,600 It's like we, I, you know, we don't have the ads budget to 614 00:28:16,600 --> 00:28:19,600 just compete at that level. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. 615 00:28:19,600 --> 00:28:22,800 And we, we talk so much with our clients and it sounds like you 616 00:28:22,800 --> 00:28:24,040 guys have built a good brand of this anyway. 617 00:28:24,040 --> 00:28:26,920 But just about what happens post sale, like how do you get that 618 00:28:26,920 --> 00:28:28,440 second, that third, that 4th order? 619 00:28:28,640 --> 00:28:32,280 It's in terms of economics guys, the cost to get a new customer 620 00:28:32,280 --> 00:28:34,800 and it's always infinitely more than getting a an existing 621 00:28:34,800 --> 00:28:38,480 customer to buy again. So if you're still like over 50% 622 00:28:38,480 --> 00:28:41,960 reliant on new customer traffic and people just buy once, then 623 00:28:41,960 --> 00:28:44,000 you have the biggest problem on your hands. 624 00:28:44,640 --> 00:28:47,120 I guess as much as I love marketing and we're really good 625 00:28:47,120 --> 00:28:49,400 at it, we cannot predict the future. 626 00:28:49,400 --> 00:28:51,880 And there will be icebergs that your business is going to hit at 627 00:28:51,880 --> 00:28:54,480 some point and it's going to survive that collision. 628 00:28:54,480 --> 00:28:57,520 Much, much better. If actually you've got such a 629 00:28:57,520 --> 00:29:01,160 big e-mail database of people, not not just even one thing, but 630 00:29:01,440 --> 00:29:02,560 you just keep revolving those people. 631 00:29:02,560 --> 00:29:03,720 Is that how do you guys approach that? 632 00:29:03,720 --> 00:29:06,320 How do you keep people engaged? How do you keep them talking, 633 00:29:06,320 --> 00:29:08,440 thinking about you? But and most importantly, like 634 00:29:08,600 --> 00:29:10,320 that's all great, but let's not beat around the Bush. 635 00:29:10,320 --> 00:29:12,840 Like you got to buy products. If you don't buy products, we 636 00:29:12,840 --> 00:29:14,040 have no money. We can't do this anymore. 637 00:29:14,040 --> 00:29:16,120 Like how do you approach that lifetime value, that community 638 00:29:16,120 --> 00:29:18,920 Dr., that second, third order? Yeah. 639 00:29:19,080 --> 00:29:22,720 Well, you know, from a technical standpoint, e-mail obviously, 640 00:29:22,720 --> 00:29:24,560 like it's the only place where you own your customer. 641 00:29:25,720 --> 00:29:28,280 You know, I think here in the States as of a couple days ago, 642 00:29:28,280 --> 00:29:31,000 like there was the whole implosion of TikTok and people 643 00:29:31,000 --> 00:29:33,200 lost their entire businesses overnight. 644 00:29:33,440 --> 00:29:34,640 You know, I think it's coming back. 645 00:29:34,640 --> 00:29:36,760 I'm, you know, I haven't been paying close attention in the 646 00:29:36,760 --> 00:29:39,600 last few days, but just. To cut in Angie, sorry, I, I, I 647 00:29:39,800 --> 00:29:42,080 never cut across guests, but just to add on that, guys, we 648 00:29:42,080 --> 00:29:43,360 are going to do an episode on it. 649 00:29:43,600 --> 00:29:45,640 I'm just waiting for all this and I don't use this word very 650 00:29:45,640 --> 00:29:47,080 often. I'm waiting for the to calm 651 00:29:47,080 --> 00:29:49,080 down, right? I don't swear that much until, 652 00:29:49,080 --> 00:29:52,840 but when the show comes down, we'll do an episode and we'll 653 00:29:52,840 --> 00:29:55,080 highlight opportunities of Sorry to cut across Angie. 654 00:29:55,720 --> 00:29:59,920 No, I mean, it's, yeah, it's wild times as I like to say that 655 00:29:59,920 --> 00:30:01,520 we are living in very wild times. 656 00:30:01,760 --> 00:30:06,720 But it's just such a the kind of implosion of that is like the 657 00:30:07,120 --> 00:30:10,000 biggest reminder of like you need to build a connection with 658 00:30:10,000 --> 00:30:13,560 your customer off of a platform that you do not own. 659 00:30:14,160 --> 00:30:18,480 So newsletters are so important for us and it's a way that we 660 00:30:18,480 --> 00:30:22,080 like, you know, communicate with our folks, but it's never, you 661 00:30:22,080 --> 00:30:23,960 know, we have a percentage of our stuff where we're promoting 662 00:30:23,960 --> 00:30:26,640 product because that's what, you know, essentially people want, 663 00:30:26,640 --> 00:30:30,480 you know, but I think, you know, the education, the behind the 664 00:30:30,480 --> 00:30:34,120 scenes, we talked a little bit earlier about like this idea of 665 00:30:34,120 --> 00:30:35,880 like authenticity and what that that looks like. 666 00:30:35,880 --> 00:30:39,840 You know, I think pre COVID, the idea of, you know, if you were a 667 00:30:39,840 --> 00:30:42,000 brand, you were sort of faceless, you were about 668 00:30:42,000 --> 00:30:45,080 product, you were about a vibe and like, let's sell this, that 669 00:30:45,080 --> 00:30:47,560 that's that was the mark of a successful brand. 670 00:30:49,080 --> 00:30:51,520 Don't talk about yourself, don't show behind the scenes. 671 00:30:51,520 --> 00:30:54,960 Like that seems like kind of a DIY ish kind of a thing, right? 672 00:30:55,800 --> 00:30:59,800 COVID completely changed that. I think amazonification of of 673 00:30:59,960 --> 00:31:02,000 buying has changed that. People now want to know who are 674 00:31:02,000 --> 00:31:04,400 they buying from? They they want to see the messy 675 00:31:04,400 --> 00:31:05,600 bits, they want to see the behind the scenes. 676 00:31:05,600 --> 00:31:08,440 They want to know why you created something and they want 677 00:31:08,440 --> 00:31:10,200 to support that with their dollars. 678 00:31:10,200 --> 00:31:12,000 You know, they're voting with their dollars in essence. 679 00:31:12,000 --> 00:31:15,880 And so that that's something that we really, really hone in 680 00:31:15,880 --> 00:31:18,160 on and focus on. And we use our e-mail very much 681 00:31:18,160 --> 00:31:21,040 to convey that message. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. 682 00:31:21,320 --> 00:31:23,960 And I guess even with e-mail, I don't want to scare you today 683 00:31:23,960 --> 00:31:27,520 Andrew, but even e-mail like we we've had businesses before for 684 00:31:27,520 --> 00:31:31,520 no fault of their own, someone has like targeted them and got 685 00:31:31,520 --> 00:31:35,200 their their domain band with like Google and Outlook. 686 00:31:35,200 --> 00:31:38,000 So people who didn't receive their emails and there's a row, 687 00:31:38,000 --> 00:31:39,760 I think you're on one of our round tables, food scale where 688 00:31:39,760 --> 00:31:42,240 we spoke about this. I can't remember if you, if you 689 00:31:42,240 --> 00:31:45,000 came along enough with Saguino, but we spoke about this a bit 690 00:31:45,000 --> 00:31:47,160 and how like how to improve that sentiments and more of your 691 00:31:47,160 --> 00:31:48,680 emails get through the spam bots. 692 00:31:48,960 --> 00:31:51,160 So I think there's also part of like diversifying. 693 00:31:51,160 --> 00:31:53,240 Even if that happened, the reassuring thing for you and 694 00:31:53,240 --> 00:31:56,160 others who are doing this really effectively is you've still got 695 00:31:56,160 --> 00:31:57,880 your social channels. You've also got everyone's 696 00:31:57,880 --> 00:31:59,480 addresses, some of their phone numbers. 697 00:31:59,680 --> 00:32:01,960 There are other ways of contacting these guys to say 698 00:32:01,960 --> 00:32:04,360 like this is what we're doing. And it's honestly, it's one of 699 00:32:04,360 --> 00:32:06,840 the reasons why we didn't create a Facebook group or we didn't 700 00:32:06,840 --> 00:32:09,680 make a WhatsApp channel, why we've gone down the road with 701 00:32:09,680 --> 00:32:12,480 when we shot fire building a, an actual platform and a couple of 702 00:32:12,480 --> 00:32:14,200 the guys in the platform been really vocal. 703 00:32:14,200 --> 00:32:15,920 You know who you are, Robert, you are one of them. 704 00:32:15,920 --> 00:32:17,880 And they listen to the podcast who said, like, this just 705 00:32:17,880 --> 00:32:19,360 doesn't work for me. Can't we say, what's the group 706 00:32:19,360 --> 00:32:21,440 saying? No, because we can't control 707 00:32:21,440 --> 00:32:22,760 that. And we're trying to future proof 708 00:32:22,760 --> 00:32:24,480 this thing for like the next 50 years. 709 00:32:24,480 --> 00:32:25,880 We don't think Shopify is going anywhere. 710 00:32:25,880 --> 00:32:29,600 So I think having those other channels as well, which in terms 711 00:32:29,600 --> 00:32:31,800 of your view and it must come down to everything from like the 712 00:32:31,800 --> 00:32:35,120 packaging we use, the leaflets we put in products like we have 713 00:32:35,120 --> 00:32:37,280 to build the barren connection where they will just come back 714 00:32:37,640 --> 00:32:40,800 at some point. Every aspect, you know, we 715 00:32:40,800 --> 00:32:44,480 talked about that with our staff too, like, you know, why, why is 716 00:32:44,480 --> 00:32:45,800 it important that you do these things? 717 00:32:45,800 --> 00:32:48,320 And every touch point that we have with the customer, I like 718 00:32:48,320 --> 00:32:50,760 to call it concierge level service, even if it's online or 719 00:32:50,760 --> 00:32:54,240 if it's in person is, you know, really making them feel as 720 00:32:54,240 --> 00:32:57,720 special as possible and talking to them like a human being and 721 00:32:57,720 --> 00:33:02,720 not like a brand that's so vital to, to kind of the core of who 722 00:33:02,720 --> 00:33:05,120 we are. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. 723 00:33:05,320 --> 00:33:08,120 And I think the I saw some stats the other day and I can't 724 00:33:08,120 --> 00:33:10,040 remember the exact numbers. Guys, I read so many reports. 725 00:33:10,280 --> 00:33:13,440 I'm so sorry about this. But it was dramatically higher 726 00:33:13,440 --> 00:33:17,520 when the e-mail had been signed off by somebody rather than it 727 00:33:17,520 --> 00:33:22,160 just being a like Many thanks, cool brand like you say, like, 728 00:33:22,160 --> 00:33:26,200 you know, Many thanks, Steven. Or we, we saw, we saw one, one 729 00:33:26,200 --> 00:33:28,360 thing the other day actually in a report where there's a case 730 00:33:28,360 --> 00:33:31,240 study we read and in this case study reported, it spoke about 731 00:33:31,240 --> 00:33:35,400 how this company diversified their whole segmentation of 732 00:33:35,400 --> 00:33:38,200 e-mail by going, right. We're going to come up with 10 733 00:33:38,200 --> 00:33:41,360 personas. These are 10 real people who are 734 00:33:41,360 --> 00:33:44,360 in our customer service team. And we're going to segment our 735 00:33:44,360 --> 00:33:46,640 e-mail by those 10 segmentations now. 736 00:33:47,080 --> 00:33:49,920 And whichever flow, whichever e-mail newsletter they receive, 737 00:33:50,280 --> 00:33:53,200 each of those 10 will be tagged with one of our 10 customer 738 00:33:53,200 --> 00:33:56,000 service reps and it will be signed off by them. 739 00:33:56,200 --> 00:33:58,560 And the first thing we're going to do is e-mail just the first 740 00:33:58,560 --> 00:34:01,880 10% from one person and see what kind of engagement get say, hey, 741 00:34:01,880 --> 00:34:05,440 I'm Joe, I'm your, you know, new customer service Rep here. 742 00:34:05,640 --> 00:34:07,440 If you're looking at any products, if you buy anything, 743 00:34:07,440 --> 00:34:08,880 have any issues, please e-mail me. 744 00:34:09,000 --> 00:34:11,639 And it actually comes from Joe at their brand.com. 745 00:34:11,639 --> 00:34:14,639 And I thought, this is so smart. Hey, it's a real person. 746 00:34:15,159 --> 00:34:16,400 Me. It's like, wow, I've got an 747 00:34:16,400 --> 00:34:18,239 account manager at this brand. All right, great. 748 00:34:18,239 --> 00:34:19,400 I'm thinking of buying this soon. 749 00:34:19,400 --> 00:34:21,880 What could you do for me? And customer service were like, 750 00:34:21,880 --> 00:34:23,600 I just dropped my pen. The customer service were 751 00:34:23,600 --> 00:34:27,239 completely swamped, but the advantage of this is now like 752 00:34:27,239 --> 00:34:29,960 people were engaging with them and customer service were doing 753 00:34:29,960 --> 00:34:32,080 what customer service should be doing, which is like I'm trying 754 00:34:32,080 --> 00:34:33,880 to buy a new T-shirt. Do you have one that's made of 755 00:34:33,880 --> 00:34:36,040 this material? Because I bought 1-6 months ago 756 00:34:36,040 --> 00:34:38,800 and it's really itchy. Customer service said send the 757 00:34:38,800 --> 00:34:41,880 itchy 1 back, full refund. Yeah, you should buy one of 758 00:34:41,880 --> 00:34:44,080 these if you struggle with eczema or anything else that 759 00:34:44,080 --> 00:34:48,159 actually is making you itchy. Plus we also have a moisturizer 760 00:34:48,159 --> 00:34:50,000 which works really well. When people have said it works 761 00:34:50,000 --> 00:34:51,679 really well. We're going to launch that. 762 00:34:51,679 --> 00:34:53,800 Would you be interested in it if we launched it, having a free 763 00:34:53,800 --> 00:34:54,840 one and telling us how good it is? 764 00:34:55,159 --> 00:34:56,400 Yeah, of course I would. Great. 765 00:34:56,400 --> 00:34:58,800 We've got AVIP customer for life and all it took was two or three 766 00:34:58,800 --> 00:35:00,600 miles backwards and forwards in a free moisturizer. 767 00:35:01,040 --> 00:35:02,640 Like, that's pretty simple stuff. 768 00:35:03,120 --> 00:35:05,800 That's the girl equivalent of like, hey, I really like your 769 00:35:05,800 --> 00:35:07,720 skirt. And they reply, it has pockets. 770 00:35:07,720 --> 00:35:10,080 Get it from here. It's just this idea of like give 771 00:35:10,080 --> 00:35:12,680 them a little bit more and get them a little bit more excited 772 00:35:13,400 --> 00:35:16,840 and they're they're sold so or in my case. 773 00:35:16,840 --> 00:35:18,680 My friend turns up in a new car and goes. 774 00:35:18,880 --> 00:35:21,160 My car does this. I'm like, where can I get that? 775 00:35:21,200 --> 00:35:23,680 Where? I need that, yes. 776 00:35:23,960 --> 00:35:28,080 Give me a name, give me a card. But yeah, no, I think the other, 777 00:35:28,160 --> 00:35:32,600 the other important like aspect to that is oh, shoot, it's like 778 00:35:32,600 --> 00:35:34,120 now leaving my head. You said something that was 779 00:35:34,120 --> 00:35:35,800 really cool and I'm like, oh. Sorry. 780 00:35:36,440 --> 00:35:39,400 It's OK, it's gone. I'm like car shiny car. 781 00:35:40,000 --> 00:35:42,760 Yes, no, I, I, I completely. Oh, I remember what it was. 782 00:35:43,640 --> 00:35:46,040 But to, to your, to what you were saying. 783 00:35:46,200 --> 00:35:49,880 I think the moment that I knew that our communication was 784 00:35:49,880 --> 00:35:55,680 working was when I started getting replies to our emails to 785 00:35:55,680 --> 00:35:58,920 our news blasts written directly to me. 786 00:35:59,000 --> 00:36:01,040 And I think it's because, you know, all of our emails were 787 00:36:01,040 --> 00:36:03,680 signed off for me. And I don't know, I don't know 788 00:36:03,680 --> 00:36:07,040 anyone that like gets people that writes personal letters to 789 00:36:07,040 --> 00:36:09,880 their their newsletter inbox. So that was really cool. 790 00:36:10,920 --> 00:36:13,280 Yeah, they're very good. We we had Stephen from keep 791 00:36:13,280 --> 00:36:17,920 candles about Keap on years ago and I've had a lot of guests on 792 00:36:17,920 --> 00:36:19,120 and some of them have slipped my mind. 793 00:36:19,120 --> 00:36:20,320 But Stephens always stay with me. 794 00:36:20,560 --> 00:36:22,720 He's partly because he was British and he was living in the 795 00:36:22,720 --> 00:36:24,400 US and I was like, come on, let's do this for Britain. 796 00:36:25,320 --> 00:36:28,200 But he said that any certainly in the early days and he still 797 00:36:28,200 --> 00:36:31,640 does it quite a lot now is he was manually 1 by 1 replying to 798 00:36:31,640 --> 00:36:33,880 customers like building that connection because he was like, 799 00:36:34,120 --> 00:36:35,400 I need to get this thing off the ground. 800 00:36:35,400 --> 00:36:38,200 And if replying to every single customer personally and saying I 801 00:36:38,200 --> 00:36:39,720 thank you so much for buying our product. 802 00:36:39,760 --> 00:36:42,520 It's going to arrive tomorrow morning and I hope you love it. 803 00:36:42,520 --> 00:36:44,840 Please do leave me a review. Like it's still a really new 804 00:36:44,840 --> 00:36:46,240 business. We'd love your support. 805 00:36:46,840 --> 00:36:48,920 And also you can have 15% of your next products. 806 00:36:48,920 --> 00:36:51,720 Let me know what it is and I'll get that sent out to you so that 807 00:36:51,720 --> 00:36:54,320 they reply. And he said, he said like a good 808 00:36:54,560 --> 00:36:56,600 percentage of those people in that first year, he emailed us 809 00:36:56,600 --> 00:36:59,440 still their VIP customers now. So he's now embedded that into 810 00:36:59,440 --> 00:37:02,040 their customer service model. And I think it's such a powerful 811 00:37:02,040 --> 00:37:05,440 thing having someone talk to you and like you mentioned earlier 812 00:37:05,440 --> 00:37:07,720 about how things have changed and the, you know, Amazon 813 00:37:08,120 --> 00:37:11,040 Amazonification is it. Amazonification. 814 00:37:11,040 --> 00:37:13,520 Yeah. And Amazonification, I love that 815 00:37:13,520 --> 00:37:15,240 word. So amazonification of of 816 00:37:15,240 --> 00:37:18,520 society, which means like, OK, I'm just talking to the robots. 817 00:37:18,520 --> 00:37:21,240 Everything's a system, which I think consumers then start to 818 00:37:21,240 --> 00:37:23,640 look at and go, what can I get out of this as much as possible, 819 00:37:23,640 --> 00:37:25,920 which for a business owner is a nightmare. 820 00:37:26,080 --> 00:37:28,680 That means people are going to try and get lowest price as much 821 00:37:28,680 --> 00:37:30,920 as possible, complain until it's free. 822 00:37:30,920 --> 00:37:34,760 Like these are all bad outcomes for a business owner and they're 823 00:37:34,760 --> 00:37:36,560 not going to help your PNL. So I think having that 824 00:37:36,560 --> 00:37:38,560 connection is, is super, super important. 825 00:37:39,400 --> 00:37:42,760 So last question before we come into land then Angie, apart from 826 00:37:42,760 --> 00:37:44,560 telling us how to get hold of you, that will be the last 827 00:37:44,560 --> 00:37:45,960 question. But second to last question, 828 00:37:46,320 --> 00:37:49,600 where are you guys heading? Like what do you see in 2025? 829 00:37:49,600 --> 00:37:51,960 That is a big thing. Like what's without spilling the 830 00:37:51,960 --> 00:37:53,720 secret sauce? You know what, what is on the 831 00:37:53,720 --> 00:37:55,920 horizon that you guys are planning wanting to try this 832 00:37:55,920 --> 00:37:57,080 year? Stuff you've not done before. 833 00:37:58,280 --> 00:38:04,240 Yeah, 2025, we're 21 days in at this point of this recording. 834 00:38:04,240 --> 00:38:07,880 And it is very hard to tell what things are going to look like, 835 00:38:08,680 --> 00:38:12,200 especially here in the US And there is nothing worse than 836 00:38:12,200 --> 00:38:14,760 trying to plan for something that is, you know, 837 00:38:15,040 --> 00:38:17,200 unprecedented. Everything is so unprecedented. 838 00:38:18,160 --> 00:38:22,240 But I think my, my, you know, I've done a lot of work into 839 00:38:22,240 --> 00:38:25,040 thinking of like, what's our, our two year execution, 3 year, 840 00:38:25,040 --> 00:38:27,120 five year. And this year we're really just 841 00:38:27,120 --> 00:38:31,240 about horse blinders on staying really focused and running 842 00:38:31,240 --> 00:38:34,480 things as efficiently as we can. Because if there's, if there's 843 00:38:34,480 --> 00:38:39,240 anything that we know, it's that small business can be gone 844 00:38:39,240 --> 00:38:41,920 tomorrow. For whatever reason, our social 845 00:38:41,920 --> 00:38:46,560 channels could disappear are we could make a mistake in our 846 00:38:46,680 --> 00:38:50,880 e-mail, you know, our town could just stop getting traffic. 847 00:38:50,880 --> 00:38:54,320 So we're really just constantly thinking about how do we stay as 848 00:38:54,320 --> 00:38:55,760 efficient, efficient as possible? 849 00:38:55,760 --> 00:38:58,680 How do we continue to serve our people So when they need 850 00:38:58,680 --> 00:39:02,640 something, we're there for them. And, and really staying hyper 851 00:39:02,640 --> 00:39:06,360 focused on on staying true to what we're currently doing and 852 00:39:06,360 --> 00:39:08,560 what works. Not doing a ton of testing at 853 00:39:08,560 --> 00:39:11,640 this point in time. But I think, you know, for us, 854 00:39:11,640 --> 00:39:14,520 like wholesale has been a channel we've always neglected. 855 00:39:14,520 --> 00:39:18,040 So we're really doubling down on wholesale and really trying to 856 00:39:18,040 --> 00:39:20,600 reach our having the retail store has been really great. 857 00:39:20,600 --> 00:39:23,040 It gives us a lot of insight as to what works well in a retail 858 00:39:23,040 --> 00:39:24,320 store. So now we're we're really 859 00:39:24,320 --> 00:39:26,040 focused on that. It's going to be a very exciting 860 00:39:26,040 --> 00:39:29,000 growth opportunity for us. Nice, nice. 861 00:39:29,000 --> 00:39:33,520 And I think all businesses reach the point of I, I use this word 862 00:39:33,520 --> 00:39:35,640 loosely, but like maturity where you're kind of like, right, 863 00:39:35,640 --> 00:39:37,040 we've got a good thing going on now. 864 00:39:37,360 --> 00:39:40,200 We need to both continue to grow this thing, not be scared to 865 00:39:40,200 --> 00:39:42,280 take the odd risk, but we also need to be a bit more risk 866 00:39:42,280 --> 00:39:44,960 averse in going. How do we protect what we got? 867 00:39:45,040 --> 00:39:47,440 And yeah, I've certainly been through that phase myself. 868 00:39:47,440 --> 00:39:49,920 And the beautiful thing on the other side of this phase, if 869 00:39:49,920 --> 00:39:52,080 anyone else is going through this at the moment or you're 870 00:39:52,080 --> 00:39:55,440 heading towards this point, the beautiful thing I find is you 871 00:39:55,440 --> 00:39:58,120 sleep so much better at night when you've got a bit more of a 872 00:39:58,120 --> 00:39:59,840 security plan under your belt, like. 873 00:40:00,680 --> 00:40:03,760 I know society tells you today to like live loose and buy a 874 00:40:03,760 --> 00:40:06,080 super yacht, but couldn't be further from the truth. 875 00:40:06,080 --> 00:40:08,480 I think and actually like, you know, having having some good 876 00:40:08,480 --> 00:40:12,080 cash reserves to go right? You know, your town closes or 877 00:40:12,080 --> 00:40:14,840 they relay the road and it takes six months outside the store. 878 00:40:15,160 --> 00:40:18,200 You've lost everyone like no one's coming to you anymore. 6 879 00:40:18,200 --> 00:40:21,120 competitors open over the road, no one's having cash in the bank 880 00:40:21,120 --> 00:40:23,920 and a right that that's happened, that's fine. 881 00:40:23,920 --> 00:40:26,720 We're resilient to that. We've now got six months of cash 882 00:40:27,080 --> 00:40:28,840 to see us through. But I think the fact you've got 883 00:40:28,840 --> 00:40:30,960 a physical and online store as well gives you a bit of an 884 00:40:30,960 --> 00:40:33,720 advantage in that space. Yeah, it's about the 885 00:40:33,720 --> 00:40:36,880 diversification. Yeah, Yeah, absolutely. 886 00:40:37,400 --> 00:40:39,520 We spoke to 1 brand actually earlier today before of 887 00:40:39,520 --> 00:40:41,600 recording this, who make their own product. 888 00:40:41,600 --> 00:40:44,200 And they, they basically do wholesaling to lots of little 889 00:40:44,200 --> 00:40:47,160 retailers, a lot of which I said to them, they're actually 890 00:40:47,160 --> 00:40:50,400 smaller than you and say they're buying like tiny quantities of 891 00:40:50,400 --> 00:40:52,160 your products, plus loads of other people's products. 892 00:40:52,160 --> 00:40:54,160 They're smaller than you are in terms of turnover and trade. 893 00:40:54,160 --> 00:40:56,520 And the problem is you've just moaned to me that you, like, 894 00:40:56,520 --> 00:40:58,440 they keep just disappearing and closing down. 895 00:40:58,440 --> 00:41:01,080 And like, you need to assess, I'm not in wholesale. 896 00:41:01,080 --> 00:41:02,840 We're just looking at the baseline numbers. 897 00:41:03,040 --> 00:41:05,680 You need to assess your wholesale strategy and change it 898 00:41:05,680 --> 00:41:07,520 like they could all disappear next month. 899 00:41:07,520 --> 00:41:10,240 And that, that that actually shouldn't surprise you if it 900 00:41:10,240 --> 00:41:12,480 happens. What you need to do really is go 901 00:41:12,480 --> 00:41:16,440 let's get a few more big flagship 50 year long retailers 902 00:41:16,440 --> 00:41:19,120 that are not going to disappear overnight and own more of our 903 00:41:19,120 --> 00:41:21,160 direct customers. Like that's a way of 904 00:41:21,160 --> 00:41:23,400 diversification. Those are new markets to go in. 905 00:41:23,400 --> 00:41:25,120 There are people who are not buying your product could be 906 00:41:25,120 --> 00:41:27,680 buying your products like I think, and a lot of the things 907 00:41:27,680 --> 00:41:30,000 you said resonate, I think, and it sounds like quite an exciting 908 00:41:30,000 --> 00:41:32,120 plan. So I say it's to quite a few of 909 00:41:32,120 --> 00:41:33,960 our guests and Byron's looking through the archives at the 910 00:41:33,960 --> 00:41:36,000 moment as well. And for anyone who never heard 911 00:41:36,000 --> 00:41:38,560 of Byron, Byron runs the show. I just get to sit here and have 912 00:41:38,560 --> 00:41:41,880 all the fun and Byron organizes Angie to come on and does all 913 00:41:41,880 --> 00:41:43,680 the and gets all the editing done, etcetera. 914 00:41:43,960 --> 00:41:45,920 And but Byron's looking through the archives the moment as well 915 00:41:45,920 --> 00:41:48,240 going, we had these guys on a year ago or two years ago. 916 00:41:48,280 --> 00:41:50,200 Let's get them back on and see what they're up to do a bit of a 917 00:41:50,200 --> 00:41:52,440 rewind, like remind us where we were two years ago, Where are we 918 00:41:52,440 --> 00:41:54,080 now? So we'll probably get you on it 919 00:41:54,080 --> 00:41:56,200 again in a year, Angie, and we can see if any of the things 920 00:41:56,200 --> 00:41:58,120 you've just said of, you know, it's like running a business 921 00:41:58,120 --> 00:42:00,880 day, wake up tomorrow with an idea, or as you say, social 922 00:42:00,880 --> 00:42:03,120 media platforms disappeared. And it's like, you got to keep 923 00:42:03,120 --> 00:42:05,400 evolving. But yeah, Yeah, very exciting. 924 00:42:06,000 --> 00:42:07,920 Amazing. Well, Angie, thank you so much. 925 00:42:07,920 --> 00:42:09,080 I said there'll be one more question. 926 00:42:09,320 --> 00:42:11,240 How can people find you? Like, what's the website URL, 927 00:42:11,240 --> 00:42:13,640 what your social handles for platforms that still exist? 928 00:42:14,080 --> 00:42:15,760 How can people reach out and see what you guys are up to? 929 00:42:16,240 --> 00:42:20,000 Yeah, so we're Bobo designstudio.com and that's Bobo 930 00:42:20,000 --> 00:42:23,320 Design Studio across all socials, including YouTube where 931 00:42:23,320 --> 00:42:26,360 we do a lot of tutorial videos and I share a lot of our 932 00:42:26,360 --> 00:42:29,440 personal journals and it's really fun, exciting place. 933 00:42:29,840 --> 00:42:34,960 And Bobo Palm Springs, our our Instagram handle is Bobo Palm 934 00:42:34,960 --> 00:42:37,240 Springs for the store. Super fun. 935 00:42:37,240 --> 00:42:39,880 We have a lot of really cool installations in our shop, so we 936 00:42:39,880 --> 00:42:42,520 like to share a lot of those and the fun humor from all the 937 00:42:42,520 --> 00:42:45,160 brands that we carry. But we would love to be friends 938 00:42:45,160 --> 00:42:47,800 on the internets and come and seek us out. 939 00:42:48,600 --> 00:42:50,040 Amazing, amazing. Well, thank you so much, Angie. 940 00:42:50,040 --> 00:42:52,160 And if you're nearby, do check the store out. 941 00:42:52,160 --> 00:42:54,200 I've never been there, but Angie's been in the store a 942 00:42:54,200 --> 00:42:56,200 couple of times when we've spoken to her and just seeing 943 00:42:56,200 --> 00:42:57,960 the background looks incredible, certainly. 944 00:42:57,960 --> 00:43:00,400 Compared to. Yeah, the pure online ECOM 945 00:43:00,400 --> 00:43:02,320 players we talked to normally said, yeah, it certainly looks 946 00:43:02,320 --> 00:43:03,640 like a really fun place. So cool. 947 00:43:03,680 --> 00:43:05,440 Thank you so much, Angie. Really appreciate your time. 948 00:43:05,440 --> 00:43:07,720 For everybody listening at home, thank you for tuning in again 949 00:43:07,720 --> 00:43:09,200 this week. We post every Friday. 950 00:43:09,200 --> 00:43:11,080 If you haven't already, hit the subscribe button. 951 00:43:11,080 --> 00:43:12,200 Thanks to Angie and a few others. 952 00:43:12,200 --> 00:43:15,400 We've just hit 1000 Subs on YouTube literally in the last 953 00:43:15,400 --> 00:43:17,080 few days. And a big shout out to Tara 954 00:43:17,080 --> 00:43:20,160 because she followed us on 6 different accounts, I shouldn't 955 00:43:20,160 --> 00:43:23,960 say, but we're over the 1000 limit on 1000 threshold now on 956 00:43:23,960 --> 00:43:25,240 on YouTube. So definitely check out your 957 00:43:25,240 --> 00:43:27,560 channel, hit subscribe button already, leave us a review. 958 00:43:27,560 --> 00:43:30,200 Check out the growth hub. It's under the community drop 959 00:43:30,200 --> 00:43:32,440 down on our website as well. Thanks for tuning in. 960 00:43:32,440 --> 00:43:33,280 Back again next Friday.