Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Apoche Production.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hello, I'm Naomi Simpson and Handpicked Season five is here,
and the entrepreneurs this time are not going easy on me.
Those questions just keep coming, whether it's about building a
brand in a taboo subject or what about sales, Oh yeah, sales, sales, sales.
We're all trying to find more customers. And what about
(00:34):
changing customer demands or balancing high tech with high touch.
These entrepreneurs and business owners are really really asking the
questions that will help every business owner and their team
just get more ideas on how to cope with everything
they're tackling in the day. Now. New episodes drop every Monday,
(00:57):
and remember to subscribe so that here the next Notus episode. Anyway,
join me on Handpicked on Mondays. Welcome to Handpicked. I'm
Naomi Simpson and today I'm speaking with Mark Garry who's
from Orange and his business is Orange Trikes. He's facing
(01:18):
a dilemma though, and many other tourism operators and small
business rural businesses are facing the same thing, which is
a slowdown in bookings, a slowdown in customers, and he
wants to know should he pivot to achieve group experience
or persist with his premium personalized service. Mask got three
great questions about search engine optimization, pricing, and finding the
(01:42):
right customers.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Let's dive in.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
First of all, perhaps if you gave a little introduction
to yourself why you went into business, and about your business.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Yeah, so it's a bit of an interesting startup mine.
I was previously in the airbnb business in Orange. It
didn't drop off, I guess, but there were more hotel
rooms being constructed around town, so I thought, yeah, there's
got to be something different. But just by chance, I
hired a trike from the importer of biom trikes up
(02:13):
on the Central Coast, and everywhere I went people were
wanting to take photos. And then I had a couple
of gray nomads saved me. Every time we go to
in New Town, first thing we do is look to
see if there's a trike tour operator there and we
book a trike tour because it's a fantastic way to
see the countryside. And that was really a light bulb moment.
(02:36):
I sourced a trike, which they are quite hard to find,
that German made, and not many of them for sale
in the market in Australia, and I started offering first
of all one hour tours and Christmas light tours and
proved to be very successful. We did wine tours shortly
after that in the new year, and it's been a
(02:59):
really good startup for me. I found that having lived
in Orange since nineteen seventy four, I already had quite
a good grasp of the history of Orange, and it
was just natural for me to tell people about Orange
and the wonderful city. We have here a bit more
research into Orange's history, and since then I've become a
(03:20):
prominent tour operator in the region. I collaborate with many
businesses around Orange, and I'm also listed on quite a
number of online travel agencies.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
So let's get to your first question.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
Okay, so orange Struck Tools rely heavily on Google search results,
particularly the search term things to do in Orange, New
South Wales. What are the three big things to focus
on to increase Google rankings without paying exuberant fees.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Yes, the cost of acquisition of a customer is really
the bane of all of our existence. And you know,
one day we spend five dollars and we get a customer.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
The next day we send ten and we don't. And
so this is the.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Hidden science of attracting customers. The reality is the world
keeps changing and so nothing that you do is ever
going to be set and forget. So search engine optimization
is really important thing and creating content that is relevant
to your business and able to be attached to your website.
(04:33):
The challenge that we're facing is that with Google, the
natural search, the search that we don't pay for, has
been moved down the page and so as such everybody
is bidding over the same terms, and so it's getting
more expensive. So the thing is to differentiate yourself. There's
one strategy which is called to go for the long tail.
(04:55):
So instead of saying you know things to do in
Orange which might be becoming more expensive, is trying things at
different sort of terms, which might be trike trails in
Orange like really quite specific. There are tools like sem
rush which can help you search on what people are
(05:17):
searching for and how many searchers. I use sem rush
all the time when I'm writing a blog or talking
about what words I should be putting in because it's
not always natural language, which is quite confusing because people
don't always put in their search natural language. So I
would use a tool like zem rush find out what
(05:37):
people are searching for the long tail is less expensive.
The other thing is to make sure that your products
are available to the large language models. And there's more
tools available on that, and I'll have to put it
in the show notes. I think it's called AIOps is
(05:58):
a particular online subscription based tool that again can help
you optimize to be lit in the LLMS.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
Awesome, that sounds quite interesting and it's an approach I
haven't even thought of, to be honest in even realize
there were tools out there that would help.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Yes, And I know you've got the platform from Big
Red Group, which we call a COOM, which is based
on our experience as website that anybody can say, and
we are very busy making sure that we put in
as many tools as possible, so you know, things like cybersecurity,
payment efficiency of one click and so forth, and so
(06:39):
all of the kind of the best technology and we
are using tools like this to support But as a business,
you know, we offer these platforms to our partners like
yourselves to actually run them, and so you would still
need to be acquiring that traffic directly. Our job is
to make sure that when they come it's available to
(07:01):
those search engines. So that's that's one thing that we're
doing very very clearly good, very good.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
So my business has been built around providing private experiences,
both on the trike and in the van. We have
a six seat van. Basically we friends tours with friends.
You know, you don't hop on and do a tour
and you have a heap of people that you have
never met. You don't know how they're going to act
(07:29):
when they have a few drinks, so it's more intimate. However,
tourism is very quiet at the moment, as you probably
are well aware, the lack of have and above spend
that people have available to them. I'm finding that the
larger private groups are knowing there as plenty four as
(07:52):
they were twelve months ago or eighteen months ago. Should
I offer a second tier of tour experience and I'm
talking wine tools here predominantly, which would be a lower
rate per person, but you know, I opened it up
to two separate couples or three couples to try and
(08:13):
fill that gap in the meantime. Or should I just
ride out the downturn we're seeing and keep to my
original plan.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
So I wouldn't ride out, even though that's a nice
pun But one of the great things about your platform
is you can sell tickets, so you can sell individual
or double passes to a particular thing, so you know,
you can actually list this is when we're going and
sell tickets to that. Now I have to say I
(08:44):
did a tour with one of the businesses that I
invested in from Shark Tank, Crooker Compass, and the four
other people that went on the tour have become some
of their closest friends. We'll catch up all the time.
So for me, it's not about whether they're strangers together.
It's about what you create and you as a tour
(09:05):
and getting people together because actually we all want to
connect to other human beings, and so I think it's
a real opportunity. The other thing is you can test.
The great thing is you can create a product list
a few days. The other thing is you can do
different pricing on different days, and that's really important. So
you might have tight Tuesday, which is cheaper than your
(09:27):
busy Saturday, but to try different price points on different
days to see what you can do. And as I said,
if you're promoting specifically using that long tail, I think
that that's important. So pricing different on different days. Do
sell tickets to an individual and give it a go.
And the other thing is to adjust based on either
(09:49):
value adds or the length of time so that you
can try a different still profitable price point. But for instance,
you might have something that only they can get with you.
I don't know, a local artist meets them on the
way in. Who designed the labels, I don't know. It's
something that they're only going to get from you. That
(10:11):
uniqueness helps you stand out, It gives you the blogability.
Back to what we were talking before, It gives you
content and also helps you promote for that long tail.
So wherever possible, I would also say, work with your
local community. There's safety in numbers, and there's safety in
you being part of the big red group. Because we're
(10:33):
acquiring customers on all of our three or more websites,
include Virgin and all of the rest, we are acquiring
customers for you, So that makes sense. But then also,
and I'm sure you do all of this, but not
all of our listeners might is what is the local
tourism office doing? How can you work with others? Can
(10:54):
you do a united product? Put it on your website,
maybe promoted through us, but I would never sit on
your hands and wait it out. It might be a
very long wait. I work for IBM. When the CEO said,
we're just waiting for people to come back and buy mainframes,
and in the meantime they launched PCs and the rest
is history. That was the end of that.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Yeah, okay, that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Yeah, yeah, great. Have you got one last question for I.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
Have a number of products at a lower price point
under two hundred and fifty dollars per person, which no
problem filling available sessions for It's also have some very
niche products at a higher price point then, include lunchers,
extended binary tours, sessions with a wine maker, as well
(11:43):
as a indigenous cultural tour. These higher price tours I'm
really struggling with to get uptake on. Am I better
to keep trying to market them locally? Or am I
better off looking to market those sorts of things exclusively
(12:04):
to the inbound tourism market? And what is the best
way to access that inbound tourism market.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Yeah, inbound tourism is a challenge. I'm still not sure
that it's back to pre COVID numbers. We're very unclear
about that. But we're seeing inconsistency around the country in
terms of occupancy and inbound so it'll be interesting to
see what the official data says. But with those products,
(12:32):
I would find a unique partner, so I know that
through the relationships that we have. For instance, I would
do some special offers and say, I want to find
a premium audience for this product. You know, Reballoon, who
have you got in your distribution partner range that I
can sell that to? And so I would look to
(12:52):
partner rather than try to find audiences necessarily yourself, because
as you know, I don't know how many OTAs inbound
tour operators like that we.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Sell offshore to.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
But you might say, I'm designing a product for your
inbound from India, which is a really strong market for us,
and you might say, I've just got this for this audience,
can you push it through your OTAs? So because you're
on that platform, you don't have to go at alone,
design the product, talk to your account manager and let's get.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Those pushed through.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
I didn't think we were having this sort of a conversation,
but you know, I'm all about driving growth as much
as I possibly can. But I suppose to a broader audience.
It's who is already talking to the customers that you
want to talk to. As I said, there's safety in numbers.
You want to find and approach people. So when I
(13:45):
think about how do I form I mentioned about the
tourism offers, But if I think of businesses operating in
Sydney and Melbourne, if somebody is in gifting, well, at
some point they want a Red Balloon Vauschi, but other
points they might need flowers, at other points they might
want perfume, We'll go and speak to them. A customer
shared is a much cheaper customer to acquire than buying
(14:08):
every customer. So I have been specifically talking about your business,
but there's a broader thing. Find out who is already
talking to those customers and go and talk to them,
and a shared customer is more valuable and cheaper to find.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
Yeah, yeah, very good.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Look, this has been terrific Mark, and I think it's
really important that also our listeners know the importance of
regional and rural businesses. And you know, I didn't realize
back in the day when I started Red Balloon the
economic impact that we would have in regional and rural Australia.
So I know for every person who comes out and
(14:46):
has one of your tours or your trips, they also
are having accommodation, they're going to local restaurants, they're going
to wineries, they're spending money. And we did an assessment
and found out that for every person this has been
the Hunter Vlley not in Orange, but for every person
going to the Hunter for a hot air balloon, right,
we know they're spending at least another thousand dollars in
(15:08):
community and that is providing jobs, infrastructure and security.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
And that's why we believe.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
This is the best way to go is to join
forces and make sure you're working with others.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
So you know, thank you for all the work you do.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
So we've got fabulous and interesting things to do in
Orange when we come to visit.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
Awesome, Thank you, Naomi, and totally agree. You know that
the regions aren't that far away now. The roads have
become much better than they were, say twenty years ago.
It's sunny, little hill to come over the mountains a
little bit past cu Timber and Lura and you're in
beautiful wine country in Orange, which was actually the name
by Holidays. Is the number one Wine region in your
(15:49):
South Wales.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
It's fantastic.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
I do have a few special drops from there. I
must have meant well. Thank you again Mark for being
on the podcast hand Picked, and I look forward to
seeing you in person soon.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
Awesome, Thanks Naomi.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
So thank you to Mark for being so great about
asking really important questions. They're practical and hopefully they'll support
other people in similar circumstances. So remember sometimes the answer
isn't to pivot or to persist. It's a little bit
of both. Test new approaches while maintaining what makes you special.
(16:28):
Thanks for listening to Handpoop. Make sure you follow the
show and remember episodes drop Mondays