June 30, 2025 • 40 mins
We’ve hit the halfway checkpoint.
Let’s take a look back at some of the best moments from The Mentor this year — packed with powerful insights and lessons.
Who do you want to see next on The Mentor? Drop your suggestions below.
Here are some of the highlights so far…
Listen to the full podcasts via the links below.
- #478 Sam Kelly
- #483 Deb Sams
- #482 Tracy Sheen
- #481 Ben Crowley
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to the mentor. I'MRK Boris.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Can I get some quick sort of quick hits from you?
So from our small business community listens to us a
small business audience, maybe some tips as to what small
business owners in terms of marketing should not do.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
You know, what's something they shouldn't do?
Speaker 2 (00:24):
And maybe you've seen this happen, but there's some tips
says to what they should not do.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Yeah, I think most entrepreneurs are naturally reactive. They're always
switched on, They're always thinking. They see something, it gives
them idea, They text, they pivot, they change. So that
tenacity and I guess competitiveness and reactiveness is a good thing,
but it can also get you in a knot. So
I think, as I said before, it's about having that
(00:50):
fundamental strategy. And if it's a one pager on who's
my audience, how do they think?
Speaker 4 (00:54):
How do they buy?
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Here's our messages and you have that cheat sheet, put
it on your bed, put it on your desk in
your factory, just referencing that before you go and make
that snap decision and go. Does this comply with how
people are thinking of what we're doing? Yes, do it
because otherwise you'll be waking up every single day and
you'll see this social media trend or you'll see this,
or you'll hear someone saying be on radio, or change this,
(01:16):
or move your manufacturing to China, and you'll you'll try
and do it all.
Speaker 4 (01:20):
So I think have that north star and alignment.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Piece and as your guideline, as your guideline.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
So because entrepreneurs by usually by definition, tend to get
distracted easily. Yeah, and they hear something's gone really well,
or should I be doing that? I mean, you just
have something you've experienced with people. They're sort of bouncering
a lot.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
Absolutely, and I think it's actually quite interesting.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
We started working with small businesses who have their own money,
and now we've sort of worked our way up into
large enterprise because when you are dealing with the customer
and it's actually their money, Yeah, it's far more I
guess reactive, and there is there is pressure, so again
you have to be far more reactive. So yeah, naturally
entrepreneurs are are reactive, which is as a pro and
(02:02):
a con.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
That's your point too.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Before that you're making earlier too, because big organizations go
strategic and they roll it out small owners, small smaller
business owners spending their own money and they get influences.
You seed buy something else and then become tactical and
you forget about the strategy.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
And I think one of the.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Big takeaways from this discussion from a big organization looks
after your organization, looks after big clients, is that no
matter who you are, build a strategy yes day one,
and try and stick to it at least as you say,
it's your north star.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Try not to move way.
Speaker 4 (02:34):
Too much from it.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Is there something that you've seen and obviously you've seen
some good smaller businesses, good entrepreneurs. I mean it was
a great example that they kicked off as a small
business in Australia effectively now is a huge business. Are
there some things that you would tell small business owners
our audience that have worked and turned small businesses into
big business Apart from being strategic and sticking to the strategy,
(02:58):
I mean, are there are there some sort of guidelines
you could sort of leave us with what's worked.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
For some of your now bigger clients. Who what he
wants for small clients?
Speaker 2 (03:06):
And by the way, everybody, everybody at some stage or
other was a small business. They all start off a
small business. General Electric was invented by Thomas Edison in
eighteen fifty six and he invented a light bulb and
he turned it into a company called General Electric. Now
it's one of the biggest companies of the world, but
it started off as a small business. Every business starts
(03:27):
that way. Who included CBA comm with Bank Westpac whoever?
Speaker 1 (03:31):
You want to talk about. What have you seen that
makes that?
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Is there a one or two consistent things that seems
to be president of every small business that becomes a
successful bigger business.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
For me, at the beginning, it's all about revenue. How
do you make that phone ring? How do you make
that till ring? And that's where your focus should be.
Speaker 4 (03:50):
We get very.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
Obsessed when we're business owners around our brand and our
logo and our colors and making sure everything's perfect. The
focus should be on what makes the phone and ensuring
I look after my people. And so for me, small
business lead generation, sales generation, and those tactics need to
be your fundamental that you get right and then work
out the sexy stuff after that.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
And are there any particular right now, Are there any
particular platforms mediums that I'm a working better than others.
I mean it is under outstanding mediums.
Speaker 4 (04:23):
Yeah, look at it.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Obviously depends on the business and where you need to be.
I think, let's say retail retail, I think or the
issue that online digital retail you should be. You know,
your Google Search, Google Shop, and then obviously your performance
platforms like Meta and TikTok in terms of performance ads,
and by performance ads, I mean.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
What I mean, I don't know what that means.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
Yeah, it's a good question.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
So you've got your grid that you post on, which
is for your community, for your however many thousand followers,
and you go on there. But then it's your dark ads,
which run through a targeted platform where you can go
and punch in who you want to find. And let's
say I was trying to sell the hyperbaric chambers. I
say high net.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
Worth, active blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
Blah, And I get an ad and I post up
that single ad, and I say send it to those people.
So they're not necessarily a follower, but Facebook, Meta, Instagram
knows who they are and it will put those ads
in their feed. That is the quickest way to get
straight to exactly.
Speaker 4 (05:20):
Who you need to.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
And it's the most targeted, potent search criteria that there is.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Out there that's interesting. You call it dark as I
love that name.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
We've never actually gone out looking for anybody on now
because we're just a broadcaster.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
But we don't have a product.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
But what you're saying to me is that I can
do whatever I want on my stories and I can
put it everyone on my grid on Instagram for arguments sake,
But if we had a product that we wanted to sell,
then we'd be doing this so called. We would profile
the person who I have now as a result of
talking to have researched, and that's my buyer. I would
profile them off to whoever it is Instagram all meta way,
(05:58):
and then I'll pay feed and they'll find those people correct,
And then they will say then will develop the message,
and then or might come to you and you will
develop the message for me, and then we'll hit them.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
We'll hit them, and you can even go as far
as putting your objective in there around do I want
them to watch the video or do I want to
send them to my website?
Speaker 2 (06:16):
And just met it does do the platforms ask you,
do they prompt you, They.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Basically take you through a survey or a questionnaire where
you say, who's the person, what do you want them
to do? It's very intuitive and I think, you know,
most people can go through this platform themselves and build
something out.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
And I can't go.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
I can't let you go without asking one quick question.
Should I using chat white mads for me? As both
coming to you?
Speaker 4 (06:42):
It's a funny one, but you're not looking. You don't
laugh at that hard. Yeah, it's interesting, it's coming to talk.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
To me about it. How do you guys use it?
How will you use it?
Speaker 3 (06:52):
It's funny because we actually say that, you know, chat
GPT is amazing as a baseline and you can get
a lot of ideas from it. But we also have
a rule in our agency that we don't want to
be spitting out things that everyone else has access to.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Which CHATJP do will do?
Speaker 4 (07:06):
Which which it will do?
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Is it tastes one common denominator? It grab grabs everything.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
It's like a mass internet search and or can pull
pull all that together and spit out an answer. So
we say we run that process and say, well we
don't use anything that comes off on that list because
it's too generic. So for US in that sort of
you know, top tier, we say, well that's our don't
do list, But I guess for smaller medium sized business,
it's the power of that thing is phenomenal in terms
of and even that research we spoke about before of
(07:32):
understanding my audience, how do they think? Where do they buy?
You could ask chat GPT those questions and it could
be your strategist for you.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
So because someone might have already published something about exactly
that topic and chat top you'll go and find it somewhere.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
It'll go to the yeah, the dark depths and pull
everything that's relevant together and give you a you know,
a one page cheat sheet on.
Speaker 4 (07:50):
What you should do.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
It's not a bad starter.
Speaker 4 (07:51):
It's a great starter.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
It's funny, you know, because the US not that long ago,
about any months. I thought I'd tried it, and I
know I was making a speech and I asked already
written speech ars chat to be to write to miss speech.
I said, give me my coming. How many words was
this my audience is what I'm talking about? Blah blah,
And it gave me. It was not bad like it
was as you said, it was very generic. It wasn't
it wasn't what I wanted to deliver. It didn't have
(08:14):
enough personal stuff in there, my story stuff. But it
wouldn't have known about my story stuff because I not
published my story stuff, so it's not going to pick
up my stuff. But it was actually not a bad
yardstick meat for me to look at in terms of
what other people have talked about. It was about leadership
or something like that, and it wasn't a bad yards
to go on based on what you know, John F.
(08:36):
Kennedy might have said about leadership. You know, it drags
that sort of stuff in for you. It gives you
a few little nice markers and says to me, in
relationship with the speech i'd written, I'm on the right track.
It wasn't what I was going to say, but I'm
on the right track. It gives you a bit of
confidence if you're you know, like not that I'm not
someone who's sort of lacking in confidence, but other people
(08:57):
are starting off business and they sort of go through that.
So as you're talking about and you know, and they've
done all the research and they've worked out the researching
says this is what the message should say, is perhaps
the language the message should be put into.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
And these are the platforms are going to go to.
You've done your work.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Yeah, try it out, give it a crack and see
if there's any variability between what you've come up with
and what someone else has already probably said problems. Chat
to Journey goes to twenty twenty one. It doesn't go
beyond that, but it doesn't matter. You're going to get
a bit of a guideline.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Yeah, correct, And I think you know there's a lot
of I guess when it's starting business. I guess you
know blind spots. You know I know how to make X,
and you know I don't know how to do the
financials or even the marketing. I think it can give
you a really nice I guess entry point into some
of these worlds. And yeah, writing ads and writing copy
for social posts certainly an area it can help you with,
(09:49):
for sure.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
And your brand is pronounced basic, but it's not spelt basic. Well,
it is spell basic, but it's not a spelt the
basic way basic. So what's the thinking of behind spelling
it be a do bless?
Speaker 5 (10:02):
Ok?
Speaker 6 (10:03):
So that was a decision based on trademarking, and when
that was it was actually difficult to choose a name.
We'd already designed the collection. It was the name, which
was the hardest thing, and we I don't know how
we came up with it, but we did. And then
we had to go through the trademarking process to make
sure that we could sell it in the US, sell
(10:26):
it in Europe that the brand had the name hadn't
already been used. And that was a real process actually,
and it's taken years and you have to renew.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
It and it's it's expensive, too.
Speaker 6 (10:37):
Super expensive, you get you know, there was one point
where we had so many rip off versions of our
brand coming out of China, people using our logo, people
spelling it with one s BA SIK.
Speaker 5 (10:52):
With a dot, like I mean, I just used to have.
Speaker 6 (10:55):
It was almost like I had a spies on the ground,
Like people just sending me stuff all the time. And
it was like I used to get really annoyed with that,
and then it was just like, you know, what can
you do. You're not going to fight every copy every brand.
Speaker 5 (11:09):
That pops up. It doesn't happen that much anymore.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
So touch Wood well these to say. There was an
old saying that the greatest form of admiration is emulation.
And you know, if you're doing well and you're admired,
someone will try to do the same thing. I do
remember also because when I used to work in the
law firm, we had a lot of rag trade clients,
and I remember quite often they would go overseas to
(11:33):
Milan or something like that, one of those sort of places,
sometimes Asia, and they would bring they're gone by a
whole lot of stuff, clothing, yeah, and they'll bring it
back and that when they came through customs. I remember
because I came back with the client one time and
he had a bag full of stuff. He'd been to
one of these shows whatever, but everything was cut so
that you couldn't wear it, so you didn't have to
(11:54):
pay a customs studio. But what they do is they
take the things and they would copy them. They would say, well,
this is the latest thing going.
Speaker 5 (12:00):
Yeah, oh no, that's standard.
Speaker 4 (12:02):
Ye stands all the time.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
So that would happen, so people would see your basic
stuff and do the same thing.
Speaker 6 (12:08):
Yeah, and you can't like, I mean, we've done this
pant that we cannot keep on the shelves.
Speaker 5 (12:13):
At the moment.
Speaker 6 (12:14):
That has basically revived our business because there was one point,
you know, after the GSC that was a nightmare, and
then we had COVID and everyone pivoted to casual clothing.
So we did really well during COVID because everyone was
working from home wearing like elevated basics. And then every
other brand decided to do that concept, so then the
(12:37):
whole market was flooded with it. So we had a
pretty tough time coming out of COVID. Anyway, We've designed
this new pant. Some customers have like fourteen pairs of
them in different colors. I'm not kidding, like it's crazy anyway.
Kmart Stunn a version of it, and you just I mean,
(13:00):
I don't get hung up about it anymore.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
But it's just part of being successful.
Speaker 5 (13:05):
I think it's fine. I'm cool with that.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Well, they weren't doing it. That probably may indicate you
that you're not doing anything right.
Speaker 5 (13:12):
Yeah, true, I know.
Speaker 6 (13:13):
Like I think, as you gain experience, you learn what
to where to put your energy, don't you. And it's
not into that kind of stuff anymot.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Try not to try to chill out a little bit
because you can't be worried about that sort of stuff
all time.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
But it's also about giving.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
One step ahead of everybody exactly, and sticking by your
own brand and your own brand values, the values of
your brand, so you know you've done.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
A great job at that.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
I do want to just quickly ask you about the
the intellectual property registration of your trademark?
Speaker 5 (13:48):
Has that?
Speaker 1 (13:49):
Nothing technical? But has that? Do you think that's worth
the payoff? Is it a payoff on that? Because it
is expensive, it's an excise going to get a trademark.
Speaker 5 (14:00):
Lately worth the payoff.
Speaker 6 (14:02):
I mean you have to invest in that from the start.
I mean I've worked for brands that had big intellectual
property cases in the past. You have to do that.
You have to get things right from the start. You
have to invest, Like we invested in a CFO in
(14:23):
our first two years of business.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Someone to run your numbers.
Speaker 5 (14:28):
Yeah, and she.
Speaker 6 (14:28):
Got paid ten times as much as us we can
pay ourselves. But she was and she's still with us today.
And you have to invest in the right areas. And
that's something that we've always done and it saves problems
down the track, I think, like big problems that you
don't want to be dealing with, Like it's very hard
(14:49):
to change your name after like five years of being
successful in business. I mean that is just a headache
you don't want.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Well, that's true, and because you've got to deal with
your your or your distribution point just about everybody. If
you're no longer in business with your original co founder,
are you able to talk about that?
Speaker 5 (15:09):
I mean it happened.
Speaker 6 (15:10):
Oh I was wondering if you're going to ask me that. Look,
I think partnerships come to a natural end. And lou
and I did really really well together for eighteen years
or seventeen years to get the brand to where we did.
Speaker 5 (15:27):
But you know, she wanted to do other things.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
And within your business, I mean, do you just sort
of say I don't want to do that, I'll buy
you out, or how does it all work?
Speaker 1 (15:37):
How does a partner exit.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
When you've been there together for sevens?
Speaker 5 (15:41):
It's like a divorce.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
It must be like a divorce.
Speaker 5 (15:44):
Yes, it's a lot, you know.
Speaker 6 (15:49):
I'm not going to talk too much about it, but yeah,
it was. It was difficult, and the company's reset now
and we're really in a good position. So basic two
point zero, it's good.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Do do do you? But do you miss?
Speaker 2 (16:07):
Because a lot of people when they're starting up, they
like a lot of people talk about having co found
it because it's comforting that have someone you can cry
on each other's shoulder, or you can sort of both
bitch to each other about how difficult a supplier.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
Is or whatever. That that comfort thing.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
When does it get to a certain point when you
no longer need that sort of thing because you know
you're success for you've been out of for a long time,
You're not as young anymore, You're you're less susceptible to
perhaps you know you're not going to fail, you know,
because you've already succeeded.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Do you does that.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
Co founder relationship evolve into something totally different?
Speaker 6 (16:46):
I think people you know you evolved, don't you as
a human being? And you you've either come together or
you go apart, grow apart. And I think you know,
alignment is key, particularly in leadership position, having alignment we
we really need, Like I have a great alignment with
(17:07):
our seeing my CEO, he's been with me for fourteen years.
He's amazing, he teaches me so much, He's built this
beautiful culture in our company. He's hard, but he's soft
at the same time. And I think it's really important
to have that alignment and that same vision, particularly as
(17:31):
your brand gets to a certain your business gets to
a certain stage, and it's critical then to get to
that next point, like critical for us, like we've we've
for three years we've had the same turnover, we have
not we've been stumbling at the same sort of stumbling blocks,
and so now it's like our time to get to
(17:52):
that next point. And I think that's the hardest part.
You know, it's like getting from a certain turnover to
the next, Like how do you do that in a
market that is so volatile? Like you think about what's
happening with the global economy, and you know, fashion is
something that is switched on and off based on what's
happening with the economy. And I think for us supply
(18:15):
chain tariffs, like there's just so much instability in the
world and lots of things that are out of your control.
Speaker 5 (18:26):
So so what.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Are you doing something out of your control? How do
you approach it?
Speaker 6 (18:31):
I think you make decisions on things you can control.
So for us, we had quite a strong international business
pre COVID, So we were in stores like Bergdorf Goodman
in New York. We had a really great business and
COVID hit and then it was just like no shipping.
(18:54):
We don't want to take orders we're not paying you
for I mean, we just put our business was at risk,
you know, and so we may decision at that point, Okay,
we're closing down international. We can control our own destiny
by having bricks and mortar stores, our own online.
Speaker 5 (19:10):
So we just.
Speaker 6 (19:10):
Pulled everything back into local and that's been our strategy.
And then it's just understanding like how much growth can
we have in this market and where does the growth
come from next. I think, you know, online is a
huge thing that you can control because of the the
(19:31):
money that you can spend on marketing, so you can
switch that on and off. It's different to bricks and mortar,
where you're investing in you know, rents inventory, like it's
to open a store, like a fit out. You know,
you can't do a fit out for a hundred million dollars. Wow,
you cannot. Like we can, but it's not going to
it's not going to look to the level that you
(19:53):
want it to look. So, I mean, you know there's
things you can control. We can control our supply chain,
you know. So it's looking at things like that, it's
looking at your margin, it's looking at your profitability. We
can control our our expenses to a point.
Speaker 5 (20:14):
Yeah, so there are those things.
Speaker 6 (20:16):
I can't control how many stores are going to close
down next week. I can't control my wholesale business. Like
I can create great relationships, I can create create great
products that sell, I can have great marketing, and I
can create brand brand demand. But I can't control anything else.
So that's the stuff that we focus on.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
And so just so what you're saying, though, and I
think I think what you're saying is, don't focus on
those things you can't control. Actually actually identify those things
you can control and put your time and lift into that.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (20:47):
Yeah, And it's like a four prong approach. You know,
it's like we're looking at profitability, we're looking at margin,
we're looking at product mikes, we're looking at people. Having
people in the right roles doing their things like that
is key. Like there's no point in having this great
sort of strategy around people if you don't have the
(21:10):
best talent, and if that you don't have the right
leadership and the right energy in the business. And that's
one thing for me that I work really hard on personally,
like bringing the right energy into the business. I do
a lot of work personally on that. I'm in the
gym really early, three or four days a week. I meditate,
(21:33):
I just do all that textbook stuff. I swim every day.
I because leadership is key and people want to come
to work and be inspired and have a good time
as well, you know, like you've got to enjoy the journey.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
And I think you to be the best version of yourself.
Speaker 6 (21:52):
I really do, And I take that pretty seriously. And
I'm like a human and I'm I've got all sorts
of like laws, I really do. But I'm super close
to my team and that I think is key, like
always checking in making sure they're okay. Like I don't
(22:15):
work as a boss so much. I work beside them.
I sit next to them and we work together.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Because there was only thinking a few days ago, and
actually again this morning about mortgage broking industry, which I mean,
I'm have a big mortage week business, and I can
see it sort of being AI driven at some stage.
And then AI, you know, you might want a mortgage.
You might be buying the house you just sold and
they need to borrow some money, and you could go
(22:43):
into whatever the protocol is and my groat AI and
that's your mortge broker.
Speaker 7 (22:50):
I'm already working with a few brokers to do something
smilar agents because they've we've identified that different segments within
the market may not necessarily want yeah exactly, or they
want to get to a certain point before they go okay,
well now I want to engage Mark and have a
proper conversation. But maybe they're shift workers, maybe they're you know,
(23:12):
for whatever reason, they want to do their due diligence
unto a point. So we've been developing protocols for these
people where yeah, you can just jump on and have
a chat, but not just a type chat, like you
can have a virtual conversation. So we're developing video AI
like video avatars and voice avatars that are multi lingual,
(23:36):
you know, So it gets over that issue.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
With that's not hard FORRAI to do that. It's really
easy exactly.
Speaker 7 (23:42):
It just comes down to, and this is what I
say to people now, like it's only limited by your imagination.
So if you are concerned that AI could take your job,
do something about it, like start to look into Okay,
well what don't I like about the job that I do?
Now that I could outsource to AI, that's going to
(24:04):
allow my skill set that I am really good at
to be of more value to the organization or to
my clients.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
That's very interesting.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
What are the things would you, apart from buying a book,
would you offer as tips to business owners in relation
to where artificial intelligence belongs in their business, for example,
at the coffee shop next door.
Speaker 7 (24:31):
You've just got to start having a play. So really,
you know, just open AI, Chat, GPT, Microsoft co Pilot,
whatever your choice is. Just start having a play. And
often it's about playing with something in your personal life
as opposed to a business. So as an example, a
(24:52):
couple of grand babies. So we write them Christmas book
every year. So we just kind of put in the
stuff that they've done through the year. Let the system
write a Christmas book and we put some photos to it.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
So you instructed.
Speaker 7 (25:04):
Yeah, so THEO and Charlie, they're this age, they do this,
they like going here, they hang out with mom and dad,
you know, all that kind of stuff. It writes a book,
we put some pictures to it, and you get a printed.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (25:15):
Create, Yeah, we create a scavenger hunt. You know, we
write the Christmas menu. So write grandma her a poem
for her birthday. So just start having a play with
it in a way that is non threatening or feels
like it's not going to have an impact if it
goes wrong right, And often people, particularly if their business owners,
(25:38):
go oh, I can't do this yet, because what if
it goes pair shaped? Okay, we'll play with something in
your personal life that is non threatening. And then once
you go, oh, okay, it's actually pretty good at that, well,
then what could that look like if you started using
that in your business.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
It's interesting because I do that.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
That's sort of where I started to and I start
asking questions about I talked about politics at one stage
because we just had some election. I started talking about health,
and then then I started to open it up a
little bit and like just gradually doing things to try
and try and beat the system sort of thing, if
you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
Just I want to see how.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
See how can I sort of get under its skin
or can I do? I know more about the topic
than it knows. It's funny, you know, I asked one
question about I said, well, but you just the answer
you just gave me.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
Is there any scholarly articles on this?
Speaker 2 (26:41):
And I knew two scholarly articles on it, and they
only gave me one of them, and I then said,
what about Is there a scholar another scholarly article on this,
like like more of an abstract, like a PhD s
type thing, And I said no, but I knew there
was because I've got it.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
I've seen it, I've read it. And is that example
of hallucination?
Speaker 5 (27:01):
Yeah?
Speaker 7 (27:01):
Or it may not have picked up that information yet,
depending on how well how recent that abstract you had. Okay,
then it's five years old. Yeah, then it's it's just
trying to pull one over you. It does happen again,
I think when it's doing the update to the new system,
(27:22):
like I've had to. And it's interesting that we notice this.
But if you type in.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
All caps, if you when you're putting in so.
Speaker 7 (27:34):
If you type in all caps, that's considered yelling, right,
not really Yeah, So if you send it someone a
text message in all caps or an email in all caps,
that's considered that you're yelling at aggressive. So if you
type in all.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Caps, you think you're being aggressive, and it will.
Speaker 7 (27:47):
Give you a better response. Really, Now, do it over
and over again, and it will start to get pete
off with you, and it will go the other way. No, no, no,
and they so that's great an emotion. But the thing
that concerns me is the architects behind these systems don't
know why it does that. So it's one thing to
(28:11):
kind of go, oh, that's kind of cool. Like the
other one. We know, on average, and this is a
rough average, if you say please and thank you when
you interact and you're polite, you will get on average
about a forty percent better result. No, but they don't
know why.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
That's freaking me out.
Speaker 7 (28:31):
Right, So they're the things that I kind of go, hey,
that's really cool. But the thing that freaks me out
is but they don't know why. They can't kind of
go oh, it's because it is learning emotion or it
is doing that. They don't know. That's the bit that
I kind of go. So always say please and thank
(28:53):
you Mark, because if the terminator does arrive, at least
it will look at you and go oh, he was
one of the nice one.
Speaker 8 (29:02):
When you sort of grow up and the way you
see yourself and sort of fitting into society and those
around you and are probably more identified it as a
bit of an outsider. And yeah, hence you know the
story with OLK two that was wa'ts the term disruptive,
you know, in terms of coming into an industry and
doing things quite differently.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
So you come over from Japan, Yeah, we actually I
was over in Japan.
Speaker 8 (29:22):
At the time and I was buying a lot of
products from.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
America and what type products?
Speaker 8 (29:26):
Yeah, so protein Powders, all of the brands you know,
opt nutrition, you know, the popular brands that big there,
buying them into Japan through like online stores, and then
realizing looking at it, going why do we pay so
much for this stuff in Australia? You know what's going
on here? You know, exactly the same products. And that's
when my first goal was to maybe import American products
(29:47):
into Australia. And the more research I did on manufacturing
the products where ingredients come from, the more I realized
that we could make these products in Australia.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
So so was it more about I mean, the typical
or the to build explanation or definition of someone who's
disrupting is to.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
Make a product more affordable and more accessible.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
Was this about just making it well, assuming the product quality,
We'll talk about the product quality of the moment, but
it was about make it more affordable?
Speaker 1 (30:17):
Yeah?
Speaker 8 (30:18):
Absolutely, But also quality. So what is most commonly the
case is people come to a market and they go,
how do I make a more sophisticated product. Now, I
realized at the time that what consumers wanted, and consumers
like myself was we actually want a more simple product.
So back then it was you know, American brands, lots
of claims, lots of ingredients, lots of smoke and mirrors,
(30:38):
and it was really clear that people just said, look,
if someone gives us a protein powder as pure as
possible with a little bit of flavoring and sweetener in there,
that's what we want. And so what we did is
we said, look, it'll be a more simple product, it
will be much more pure, and you'll buy it directly
from us. So our manufacturer direct model the ideas that
we source all the ingredients, lots of Australian New Zealand proteins,
(31:01):
blend them all up and then sell them to the
customer and through through the online shop and so there's
no distributors, no importers, no one else that will sort
of middleman retail, et cetera earning their chunk.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
So then that's so can we just talk about your
let's call it the business model in terms of making
it more more affordable, more less expensive, if we could,
I do want to talk about the product and ingredients
in the moment, just put out a side of seat,
but just in terms of the.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
Structure of how you make something more affordable.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
I was gonna say tribute, but no, that's sort of
more affordable. That sort of suggests something and the ingredients
or something like that, so more affordable.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
The business model is that what did you do first?
Speaker 2 (31:47):
Did you sit down and examine every single stage of
what everybody else is doing, in other words, produced the product, produced, paggaging, distributed,
distribution costs. Did you sit down and then break down
that down and sort of say these things I can
get rid of basically?
Speaker 8 (32:05):
Yeah, and if we look, let's just run through a scenario.
Let's say Mark Morris gooes, Look, I want to have
a protein company. If you want to be as easy
as possible, what you do, as you'll reach out to
a contractor. Now they will manufacture.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
The product a food, A food that's.
Speaker 8 (32:18):
Right, a nutritional supplement manufacturer. And there's lots of those,
lots of you know, certainly good quality establishments around Australia
to this contracting they would then most commonly get their
ingredients from Australian supplier. Now that Australian supplier deals with
overseas suppliers deals with Australian dairies, but they're also another middleman. Now,
(32:39):
once that company, that contractor for you buys those ingredients
through the supplier, that's obviously a margin there. They're manufacturing
that product, they're putting a margin on, and then if
you want to sell that same product through retailers, that's
another margin there. Now, pretty much from day one, we
went directly to supplies in Australia, so actual dairies and
pharmaceutical ingredient manufacturers overseas and we're buying direct from them
(33:02):
and again getting the ingredients to us, doing the manufacturing,
and then selling direct to the customer. So there's about
three different people there that will normally have a margin
that don't have a margin with our model.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
Which means it doesn't reflect them in the business model pricing.
Speaker 8 (33:16):
That's right, yeah, yeah, yeah, And look it's a great
way of saying that we can use were used to advertising,
you get what you pay for because I like that,
and it's like with bog nutrients, it's what you're not
paying for and so you're not paying for that extra supplier,
the extra importer, the contractor and the retailer. It's just
going from our factory and we're sourcing lots of ingredients
at one time, manufacturing the product, and then sending it
(33:38):
straight to the customer.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
So let's just pick on protein from a moment. Let's
pick on Way protein because that's one of your products.
And you weren't like a you're not a food scientist
or anything like that. No, no, but you get food
signists in so, yeah, you have to have someone to
tell you how it formulates.
Speaker 8 (33:57):
Yeah, and look, look lots of our team. We've got
massive experienced our team for many decades.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
We'll just go back to two thousand and six, whatever
it was when it started. Yes, how did you do that?
Speaker 8 (34:06):
So the original formulations for the Way proteins not particularly complex.
So all you're dealing with is getting a really high
quality protein. In the first place, it tell us what
way is it? So way, so when they make the
during the cheese making process, way is what's extracted from
the cheese. So you probably know the nursery rhyme about
the curds in the way. Now Once upon a time
(34:27):
they used to throw liquid Way in the bin and
they realized it was full of protein. But to get
that protein they have to go through a pretty complex
filtrations process and system.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
It's sort of like a milky.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
It's not a milky like, it's like it's sort of
not clear, but it's translucent sort of.
Speaker 8 (34:45):
That's right now. Turning that, I think that liquid Way
is only about one percent or maybe five percent solids.
But to get that into a way protein is quite
a process because you've got to get rid of all
the water. I've got to get rid of the fats
and things, and the lactose too, and so that's a
pretty complicated process. But basically when we get the ingredient
(35:05):
from a dairy. There's only about two or three dairies
in Australia that actually manufacture Way protein, and luckily for us,
one of those is in Tasmania, which is pretty cool. Yeah,
but some of the highest quality proteins are made in
New Zealand and Australia.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
What do you term its highest quality good good question?
Speaker 8 (35:22):
Well, it would be the cows, what foods they're fed,
you know, predominantly grass fed. A lot of people make
claims around grass fed, and it's a bit difficult in
Australia because you can never guarantee something's one hundred percent
grass fed, but you know, for the most part it
will be a lack of certain hormones and things using
the cattle. So we tend to not use the same
(35:43):
hormones that you know, let's say I'm all free in
set of Europe and America. But then when it comes
to the finished product, what you're wanting is a product
that's really high in protein and then low in facts
and cobo hydrates. So we're very specific about accepting only
proteins that are especially our isolate. It's very high protein
and low and fats and carbs.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
So what did you do when you first kicked it off?
Did you go around to some dairy farmers in Tazi
because it's quae few. In fact, I had one on
the show here or about two years ago, who is
one of the biggest dairy farmers in Tasmania. And did
you just go knock on doors and say, hey, dude, look,
I want to buy your way.
Speaker 8 (36:22):
A kind of But so we don't deal with the
dairies themselves, but it's the people that own the processing plants,
so that might be fon Terror which are a massive
sort of New Zealand Australian conglomerate and basically you know,
emailing them, having meetings with them and supplies that they
deal with. Two and just yeah, coming to terms on
you know what quality product do you have? Getting some samples,
(36:45):
trying things out, and the symbols of the actual of
the way protein ply not not the way itself, no
no no, So when we get it, so we don't
do the actual processing of the way protein. We get
in dry usable form and then we're doing the blending society.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
So Fonterra that's a well known company around the place,
and Fonterra will go get the picks the way up
from everybody and they, I don't know whatever, boil it
and reduce get rid of all the water anywhere and
reduce it down to like a like a solid form
which and they somehow they make it into powder.
Speaker 8 (37:21):
It's all dryers and things too. Like it's quite a completent.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
It sounds like a complex process. But you buy it
from them, correct, and but you specify this and I
don't want well, so in terms of provenance of what
you're buying from them or what they're offering for you
to buy in terms of you're being clear on the
providence of it. And for example, that is not being
ways not coming from cow's milk, that's sort of where
(37:46):
the herd has been sitting in some being eating. You know,
how do you know that that's not the case? Is
Fonterra give you a certificate or something correct?
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 8 (37:58):
Yeah, So there's there's a lot of back and forth
with dairies and processes about you know, what's done in Australia.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
We have very strict rules actually.
Speaker 8 (38:07):
Yeah, so there's for dairy to come into Australia in
the first place, it has to be normally very high
standard and very safe, so free and foot in mouth
disease and all of that kind of thing. So I
think we have one of the higher standards in the world.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
But when it comes to it comes to dairy. Yeah,
so do we import the milk sometimes?
Speaker 8 (38:23):
I don't think we import the milk, but we certainly
import completed wig protein powders. So yeah. I mean, look,
we also use American way proteins and some of those
are really high quality. But again we've got some very
fussy standards in terms of how height needs be in protein,
how the carbohydrates are, and then other information about being
(38:43):
hormone free.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
And so because I saw something the other day, I
can't remember where it was, I was listening to it.
But let's say they make a batch of protein which
is protein powdered, and it might have been a big
one ton machine or what if we call it a
big container of one time, and they and that they
were saying that now in the United States you can
(39:05):
get batch testing done.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
Yes, per batch, No, it was, let's call it per
ton yep.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
So someone goes into that one batch and scrip a
little bit out from where I don't know, and sends
it off to a lab and get its test, gets
it tested for contaminants.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
I guess, yes, what were they testing for?
Speaker 8 (39:21):
Normally, if you're doing away protein, you could be testing
for micros.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
So that's microbes, yes, yeah, bacteria, yep, exactly.
Speaker 8 (39:29):
But the more common testing that we do and others
in our industry should be doing is the protein quality testing.
So that's basically, if I'm paying for away protein isolate
that says it's ninety percent protein, I want to ensure
that I've keven giving that to customers. Now, something unique
about Polk Nutrients. For look, it's probably twelve or thirteen
years we've been testing four batches of protein every single month,
(39:51):
and we have all of those results from you know,
twelve years ago to now that they'd be close to
one thousand lab tests on our website. So if you're
buying away protein ice later or concentrate from us or
one of our protein blends, literally you can go back
more than ten years and check, you know, what batch
was that, what protein level do we claim it was,
and then what it was and where the only company
(40:13):
Australia that people do sporadic tests and might have a
few things on their website that might be a couple
of years old or whatever else, but we literally have
I think it would be close to a thousand lab
reports on our website.
Welcome to the mentor. I'MRK Boris.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Can I get some quick sort of quick hits from you?
So from our small business community listens to us a
small business audience, maybe some tips as to what small
business owners in terms of marketing should not do.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
You know, what's something they shouldn't do?
Speaker 2 (00:24):
And maybe you've seen this happen, but there's some tips
says to what they should not do.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Yeah, I think most entrepreneurs are naturally reactive. They're always
switched on, They're always thinking. They see something, it gives
them idea, They text, they pivot, they change. So that
tenacity and I guess competitiveness and reactiveness is a good thing,
but it can also get you in a knot. So
I think, as I said before, it's about having that
(00:50):
fundamental strategy. And if it's a one pager on who's
my audience, how do they think?
Speaker 4 (00:54):
How do they buy?
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Here's our messages and you have that cheat sheet, put
it on your bed, put it on your desk in
your factory, just referencing that before you go and make
that snap decision and go. Does this comply with how
people are thinking of what we're doing? Yes, do it
because otherwise you'll be waking up every single day and
you'll see this social media trend or you'll see this,
or you'll hear someone saying be on radio, or change this,
(01:16):
or move your manufacturing to China, and you'll you'll try
and do it all.
Speaker 4 (01:20):
So I think have that north star and alignment.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Piece and as your guideline, as your guideline.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
So because entrepreneurs by usually by definition, tend to get
distracted easily. Yeah, and they hear something's gone really well,
or should I be doing that? I mean, you just
have something you've experienced with people. They're sort of bouncering
a lot.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
Absolutely, and I think it's actually quite interesting.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
We started working with small businesses who have their own money,
and now we've sort of worked our way up into
large enterprise because when you are dealing with the customer
and it's actually their money, Yeah, it's far more I
guess reactive, and there is there is pressure, so again
you have to be far more reactive. So yeah, naturally
entrepreneurs are are reactive, which is as a pro and
(02:02):
a con.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
That's your point too.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Before that you're making earlier too, because big organizations go
strategic and they roll it out small owners, small smaller
business owners spending their own money and they get influences.
You seed buy something else and then become tactical and
you forget about the strategy.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
And I think one of the.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Big takeaways from this discussion from a big organization looks
after your organization, looks after big clients, is that no
matter who you are, build a strategy yes day one,
and try and stick to it at least as you say,
it's your north star.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Try not to move way.
Speaker 4 (02:34):
Too much from it.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Is there something that you've seen and obviously you've seen
some good smaller businesses, good entrepreneurs. I mean it was
a great example that they kicked off as a small
business in Australia effectively now is a huge business. Are
there some things that you would tell small business owners
our audience that have worked and turned small businesses into
big business Apart from being strategic and sticking to the strategy,
(02:58):
I mean, are there are there some sort of guidelines
you could sort of leave us with what's worked.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
For some of your now bigger clients. Who what he
wants for small clients?
Speaker 2 (03:06):
And by the way, everybody, everybody at some stage or
other was a small business. They all start off a
small business. General Electric was invented by Thomas Edison in
eighteen fifty six and he invented a light bulb and
he turned it into a company called General Electric. Now
it's one of the biggest companies of the world, but
it started off as a small business. Every business starts
(03:27):
that way. Who included CBA comm with Bank Westpac whoever?
Speaker 1 (03:31):
You want to talk about. What have you seen that
makes that?
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Is there a one or two consistent things that seems
to be president of every small business that becomes a
successful bigger business.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
For me, at the beginning, it's all about revenue. How
do you make that phone ring? How do you make
that till ring? And that's where your focus should be.
Speaker 4 (03:50):
We get very.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
Obsessed when we're business owners around our brand and our
logo and our colors and making sure everything's perfect. The
focus should be on what makes the phone and ensuring
I look after my people. And so for me, small
business lead generation, sales generation, and those tactics need to
be your fundamental that you get right and then work
out the sexy stuff after that.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
And are there any particular right now, Are there any
particular platforms mediums that I'm a working better than others.
I mean it is under outstanding mediums.
Speaker 4 (04:23):
Yeah, look at it.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Obviously depends on the business and where you need to be.
I think, let's say retail retail, I think or the
issue that online digital retail you should be. You know,
your Google Search, Google Shop, and then obviously your performance
platforms like Meta and TikTok in terms of performance ads,
and by performance ads, I mean.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
What I mean, I don't know what that means.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
Yeah, it's a good question.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
So you've got your grid that you post on, which
is for your community, for your however many thousand followers,
and you go on there. But then it's your dark ads,
which run through a targeted platform where you can go
and punch in who you want to find. And let's
say I was trying to sell the hyperbaric chambers. I
say high net.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
Worth, active blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
Blah, And I get an ad and I post up
that single ad, and I say send it to those people.
So they're not necessarily a follower, but Facebook, Meta, Instagram
knows who they are and it will put those ads
in their feed. That is the quickest way to get
straight to exactly.
Speaker 4 (05:20):
Who you need to.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
And it's the most targeted, potent search criteria that there is.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Out there that's interesting. You call it dark as I
love that name.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
We've never actually gone out looking for anybody on now
because we're just a broadcaster.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
But we don't have a product.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
But what you're saying to me is that I can
do whatever I want on my stories and I can
put it everyone on my grid on Instagram for arguments sake,
But if we had a product that we wanted to sell,
then we'd be doing this so called. We would profile
the person who I have now as a result of
talking to have researched, and that's my buyer. I would
profile them off to whoever it is Instagram all meta way,
(05:58):
and then I'll pay feed and they'll find those people correct,
And then they will say then will develop the message,
and then or might come to you and you will
develop the message for me, and then we'll hit them.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
We'll hit them, and you can even go as far
as putting your objective in there around do I want
them to watch the video or do I want to
send them to my website?
Speaker 2 (06:16):
And just met it does do the platforms ask you,
do they prompt you, They.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Basically take you through a survey or a questionnaire where
you say, who's the person, what do you want them
to do? It's very intuitive and I think, you know,
most people can go through this platform themselves and build
something out.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
And I can't go.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
I can't let you go without asking one quick question.
Should I using chat white mads for me? As both
coming to you?
Speaker 4 (06:42):
It's a funny one, but you're not looking. You don't
laugh at that hard. Yeah, it's interesting, it's coming to talk.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
To me about it. How do you guys use it?
How will you use it?
Speaker 3 (06:52):
It's funny because we actually say that, you know, chat
GPT is amazing as a baseline and you can get
a lot of ideas from it. But we also have
a rule in our agency that we don't want to
be spitting out things that everyone else has access to.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Which CHATJP do will do?
Speaker 4 (07:06):
Which which it will do?
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Is it tastes one common denominator? It grab grabs everything.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
It's like a mass internet search and or can pull
pull all that together and spit out an answer. So
we say we run that process and say, well we
don't use anything that comes off on that list because
it's too generic. So for US in that sort of
you know, top tier, we say, well that's our don't
do list, But I guess for smaller medium sized business,
it's the power of that thing is phenomenal in terms
of and even that research we spoke about before of
(07:32):
understanding my audience, how do they think? Where do they buy?
You could ask chat GPT those questions and it could
be your strategist for you.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
So because someone might have already published something about exactly
that topic and chat top you'll go and find it somewhere.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
It'll go to the yeah, the dark depths and pull
everything that's relevant together and give you a you know,
a one page cheat sheet on.
Speaker 4 (07:50):
What you should do.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
It's not a bad starter.
Speaker 4 (07:51):
It's a great starter.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
It's funny, you know, because the US not that long ago,
about any months. I thought I'd tried it, and I
know I was making a speech and I asked already
written speech ars chat to be to write to miss speech.
I said, give me my coming. How many words was
this my audience is what I'm talking about? Blah blah,
And it gave me. It was not bad like it
was as you said, it was very generic. It wasn't
it wasn't what I wanted to deliver. It didn't have
(08:14):
enough personal stuff in there, my story stuff. But it
wouldn't have known about my story stuff because I not
published my story stuff, so it's not going to pick
up my stuff. But it was actually not a bad
yardstick meat for me to look at in terms of
what other people have talked about. It was about leadership
or something like that, and it wasn't a bad yards
to go on based on what you know, John F.
(08:36):
Kennedy might have said about leadership. You know, it drags
that sort of stuff in for you. It gives you
a few little nice markers and says to me, in
relationship with the speech i'd written, I'm on the right track.
It wasn't what I was going to say, but I'm
on the right track. It gives you a bit of
confidence if you're you know, like not that I'm not
someone who's sort of lacking in confidence, but other people
(08:57):
are starting off business and they sort of go through that.
So as you're talking about and you know, and they've
done all the research and they've worked out the researching
says this is what the message should say, is perhaps
the language the message should be put into.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
And these are the platforms are going to go to.
You've done your work.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Yeah, try it out, give it a crack and see
if there's any variability between what you've come up with
and what someone else has already probably said problems. Chat
to Journey goes to twenty twenty one. It doesn't go
beyond that, but it doesn't matter. You're going to get
a bit of a guideline.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Yeah, correct, And I think you know there's a lot
of I guess when it's starting business. I guess you
know blind spots. You know I know how to make X,
and you know I don't know how to do the
financials or even the marketing. I think it can give
you a really nice I guess entry point into some
of these worlds. And yeah, writing ads and writing copy
for social posts certainly an area it can help you with,
(09:49):
for sure.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
And your brand is pronounced basic, but it's not spelt basic. Well,
it is spell basic, but it's not a spelt the
basic way basic. So what's the thinking of behind spelling
it be a do bless?
Speaker 5 (10:02):
Ok?
Speaker 6 (10:03):
So that was a decision based on trademarking, and when
that was it was actually difficult to choose a name.
We'd already designed the collection. It was the name, which
was the hardest thing, and we I don't know how
we came up with it, but we did. And then
we had to go through the trademarking process to make
sure that we could sell it in the US, sell
(10:26):
it in Europe that the brand had the name hadn't
already been used. And that was a real process actually,
and it's taken years and you have to renew.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
It and it's it's expensive, too.
Speaker 6 (10:37):
Super expensive, you get you know, there was one point
where we had so many rip off versions of our
brand coming out of China, people using our logo, people
spelling it with one s BA SIK.
Speaker 5 (10:52):
With a dot, like I mean, I just used to have.
Speaker 6 (10:55):
It was almost like I had a spies on the ground,
Like people just sending me stuff all the time. And
it was like I used to get really annoyed with that,
and then it was just like, you know, what can
you do. You're not going to fight every copy every brand.
Speaker 5 (11:09):
That pops up. It doesn't happen that much anymore.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
So touch Wood well these to say. There was an
old saying that the greatest form of admiration is emulation.
And you know, if you're doing well and you're admired,
someone will try to do the same thing. I do
remember also because when I used to work in the
law firm, we had a lot of rag trade clients,
and I remember quite often they would go overseas to
(11:33):
Milan or something like that, one of those sort of places,
sometimes Asia, and they would bring they're gone by a
whole lot of stuff, clothing, yeah, and they'll bring it
back and that when they came through customs. I remember
because I came back with the client one time and
he had a bag full of stuff. He'd been to
one of these shows whatever, but everything was cut so
that you couldn't wear it, so you didn't have to
(11:54):
pay a customs studio. But what they do is they
take the things and they would copy them. They would say, well,
this is the latest thing going.
Speaker 5 (12:00):
Yeah, oh no, that's standard.
Speaker 4 (12:02):
Ye stands all the time.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
So that would happen, so people would see your basic
stuff and do the same thing.
Speaker 6 (12:08):
Yeah, and you can't like, I mean, we've done this
pant that we cannot keep on the shelves.
Speaker 5 (12:13):
At the moment.
Speaker 6 (12:14):
That has basically revived our business because there was one point,
you know, after the GSC that was a nightmare, and
then we had COVID and everyone pivoted to casual clothing.
So we did really well during COVID because everyone was
working from home wearing like elevated basics. And then every
other brand decided to do that concept, so then the
(12:37):
whole market was flooded with it. So we had a
pretty tough time coming out of COVID. Anyway, We've designed
this new pant. Some customers have like fourteen pairs of
them in different colors. I'm not kidding, like it's crazy anyway.
Kmart Stunn a version of it, and you just I mean,
(13:00):
I don't get hung up about it anymore.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
But it's just part of being successful.
Speaker 5 (13:05):
I think it's fine. I'm cool with that.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Well, they weren't doing it. That probably may indicate you
that you're not doing anything right.
Speaker 5 (13:12):
Yeah, true, I know.
Speaker 6 (13:13):
Like I think, as you gain experience, you learn what
to where to put your energy, don't you. And it's
not into that kind of stuff anymot.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Try not to try to chill out a little bit
because you can't be worried about that sort of stuff
all time.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
But it's also about giving.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
One step ahead of everybody exactly, and sticking by your
own brand and your own brand values, the values of
your brand, so you know you've done.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
A great job at that.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
I do want to just quickly ask you about the
the intellectual property registration of your trademark?
Speaker 5 (13:48):
Has that?
Speaker 1 (13:49):
Nothing technical? But has that? Do you think that's worth
the payoff? Is it a payoff on that? Because it
is expensive, it's an excise going to get a trademark.
Speaker 5 (14:00):
Lately worth the payoff.
Speaker 6 (14:02):
I mean you have to invest in that from the start.
I mean I've worked for brands that had big intellectual
property cases in the past. You have to do that.
You have to get things right from the start. You
have to invest, Like we invested in a CFO in
(14:23):
our first two years of business.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Someone to run your numbers.
Speaker 5 (14:28):
Yeah, and she.
Speaker 6 (14:28):
Got paid ten times as much as us we can
pay ourselves. But she was and she's still with us today.
And you have to invest in the right areas. And
that's something that we've always done and it saves problems
down the track, I think, like big problems that you
don't want to be dealing with, Like it's very hard
(14:49):
to change your name after like five years of being
successful in business. I mean that is just a headache
you don't want.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Well, that's true, and because you've got to deal with
your your or your distribution point just about everybody. If
you're no longer in business with your original co founder,
are you able to talk about that?
Speaker 5 (15:09):
I mean it happened.
Speaker 6 (15:10):
Oh I was wondering if you're going to ask me that. Look,
I think partnerships come to a natural end. And lou
and I did really really well together for eighteen years
or seventeen years to get the brand to where we did.
Speaker 5 (15:27):
But you know, she wanted to do other things.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
And within your business, I mean, do you just sort
of say I don't want to do that, I'll buy
you out, or how does it all work?
Speaker 1 (15:37):
How does a partner exit.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
When you've been there together for sevens?
Speaker 5 (15:41):
It's like a divorce.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
It must be like a divorce.
Speaker 5 (15:44):
Yes, it's a lot, you know.
Speaker 6 (15:49):
I'm not going to talk too much about it, but yeah,
it was. It was difficult, and the company's reset now
and we're really in a good position. So basic two
point zero, it's good.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Do do do you? But do you miss?
Speaker 2 (16:07):
Because a lot of people when they're starting up, they
like a lot of people talk about having co found
it because it's comforting that have someone you can cry
on each other's shoulder, or you can sort of both
bitch to each other about how difficult a supplier.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
Is or whatever. That that comfort thing.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
When does it get to a certain point when you
no longer need that sort of thing because you know
you're success for you've been out of for a long time,
You're not as young anymore, You're you're less susceptible to
perhaps you know you're not going to fail, you know,
because you've already succeeded.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Do you does that.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
Co founder relationship evolve into something totally different?
Speaker 6 (16:46):
I think people you know you evolved, don't you as
a human being? And you you've either come together or
you go apart, grow apart. And I think you know,
alignment is key, particularly in leadership position, having alignment we
we really need, Like I have a great alignment with
(17:07):
our seeing my CEO, he's been with me for fourteen years.
He's amazing, he teaches me so much, He's built this
beautiful culture in our company. He's hard, but he's soft
at the same time. And I think it's really important
to have that alignment and that same vision, particularly as
(17:31):
your brand gets to a certain your business gets to
a certain stage, and it's critical then to get to
that next point, like critical for us, like we've we've
for three years we've had the same turnover, we have
not we've been stumbling at the same sort of stumbling blocks,
and so now it's like our time to get to
(17:52):
that next point. And I think that's the hardest part.
You know, it's like getting from a certain turnover to
the next, Like how do you do that in a
market that is so volatile? Like you think about what's
happening with the global economy, and you know, fashion is
something that is switched on and off based on what's
happening with the economy. And I think for us supply
(18:15):
chain tariffs, like there's just so much instability in the
world and lots of things that are out of your control.
Speaker 5 (18:26):
So so what.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Are you doing something out of your control? How do
you approach it?
Speaker 6 (18:31):
I think you make decisions on things you can control.
So for us, we had quite a strong international business
pre COVID, So we were in stores like Bergdorf Goodman
in New York. We had a really great business and
COVID hit and then it was just like no shipping.
(18:54):
We don't want to take orders we're not paying you
for I mean, we just put our business was at risk,
you know, and so we may decision at that point, Okay,
we're closing down international. We can control our own destiny
by having bricks and mortar stores, our own online.
Speaker 5 (19:10):
So we just.
Speaker 6 (19:10):
Pulled everything back into local and that's been our strategy.
And then it's just understanding like how much growth can
we have in this market and where does the growth
come from next. I think, you know, online is a
huge thing that you can control because of the the
(19:31):
money that you can spend on marketing, so you can
switch that on and off. It's different to bricks and mortar,
where you're investing in you know, rents inventory, like it's
to open a store, like a fit out. You know,
you can't do a fit out for a hundred million dollars. Wow,
you cannot. Like we can, but it's not going to
it's not going to look to the level that you
(19:53):
want it to look. So, I mean, you know there's
things you can control. We can control our supply chain,
you know. So it's looking at things like that, it's
looking at your margin, it's looking at your profitability. We
can control our our expenses to a point.
Speaker 5 (20:14):
Yeah, so there are those things.
Speaker 6 (20:16):
I can't control how many stores are going to close
down next week. I can't control my wholesale business. Like
I can create great relationships, I can create create great
products that sell, I can have great marketing, and I
can create brand brand demand. But I can't control anything else.
So that's the stuff that we focus on.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
And so just so what you're saying, though, and I
think I think what you're saying is, don't focus on
those things you can't control. Actually actually identify those things
you can control and put your time and lift into that.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (20:47):
Yeah, And it's like a four prong approach. You know,
it's like we're looking at profitability, we're looking at margin,
we're looking at product mikes, we're looking at people. Having
people in the right roles doing their things like that
is key. Like there's no point in having this great
sort of strategy around people if you don't have the
(21:10):
best talent, and if that you don't have the right
leadership and the right energy in the business. And that's
one thing for me that I work really hard on personally,
like bringing the right energy into the business. I do
a lot of work personally on that. I'm in the
gym really early, three or four days a week. I meditate,
(21:33):
I just do all that textbook stuff. I swim every day.
I because leadership is key and people want to come
to work and be inspired and have a good time
as well, you know, like you've got to enjoy the journey.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
And I think you to be the best version of yourself.
Speaker 6 (21:52):
I really do, And I take that pretty seriously. And
I'm like a human and I'm I've got all sorts
of like laws, I really do. But I'm super close
to my team and that I think is key, like
always checking in making sure they're okay. Like I don't
(22:15):
work as a boss so much. I work beside them.
I sit next to them and we work together.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Because there was only thinking a few days ago, and
actually again this morning about mortgage broking industry, which I mean,
I'm have a big mortage week business, and I can
see it sort of being AI driven at some stage.
And then AI, you know, you might want a mortgage.
You might be buying the house you just sold and
they need to borrow some money, and you could go
(22:43):
into whatever the protocol is and my groat AI and
that's your mortge broker.
Speaker 7 (22:50):
I'm already working with a few brokers to do something
smilar agents because they've we've identified that different segments within
the market may not necessarily want yeah exactly, or they
want to get to a certain point before they go okay,
well now I want to engage Mark and have a
proper conversation. But maybe they're shift workers, maybe they're you know,
(23:12):
for whatever reason, they want to do their due diligence
unto a point. So we've been developing protocols for these
people where yeah, you can just jump on and have
a chat, but not just a type chat, like you
can have a virtual conversation. So we're developing video AI
like video avatars and voice avatars that are multi lingual,
(23:36):
you know, So it gets over that issue.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
With that's not hard FORRAI to do that. It's really
easy exactly.
Speaker 7 (23:42):
It just comes down to, and this is what I
say to people now, like it's only limited by your imagination.
So if you are concerned that AI could take your job,
do something about it, like start to look into Okay,
well what don't I like about the job that I do?
Now that I could outsource to AI, that's going to
(24:04):
allow my skill set that I am really good at
to be of more value to the organization or to
my clients.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
That's very interesting.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
What are the things would you, apart from buying a book,
would you offer as tips to business owners in relation
to where artificial intelligence belongs in their business, for example,
at the coffee shop next door.
Speaker 7 (24:31):
You've just got to start having a play. So really,
you know, just open AI, Chat, GPT, Microsoft co Pilot,
whatever your choice is. Just start having a play. And
often it's about playing with something in your personal life
as opposed to a business. So as an example, a
(24:52):
couple of grand babies. So we write them Christmas book
every year. So we just kind of put in the
stuff that they've done through the year. Let the system
write a Christmas book and we put some photos to it.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
So you instructed.
Speaker 7 (25:04):
Yeah, so THEO and Charlie, they're this age, they do this,
they like going here, they hang out with mom and dad,
you know, all that kind of stuff. It writes a book,
we put some pictures to it, and you get a printed.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (25:15):
Create, Yeah, we create a scavenger hunt. You know, we
write the Christmas menu. So write grandma her a poem
for her birthday. So just start having a play with
it in a way that is non threatening or feels
like it's not going to have an impact if it
goes wrong right, And often people, particularly if their business owners,
(25:38):
go oh, I can't do this yet, because what if
it goes pair shaped? Okay, we'll play with something in
your personal life that is non threatening. And then once
you go, oh, okay, it's actually pretty good at that, well,
then what could that look like if you started using
that in your business.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
It's interesting because I do that.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
That's sort of where I started to and I start
asking questions about I talked about politics at one stage
because we just had some election. I started talking about health,
and then then I started to open it up a
little bit and like just gradually doing things to try
and try and beat the system sort of thing, if
you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
Just I want to see how.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
See how can I sort of get under its skin
or can I do? I know more about the topic
than it knows. It's funny, you know, I asked one
question about I said, well, but you just the answer
you just gave me.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
Is there any scholarly articles on this?
Speaker 2 (26:41):
And I knew two scholarly articles on it, and they
only gave me one of them, and I then said,
what about Is there a scholar another scholarly article on this,
like like more of an abstract, like a PhD s
type thing, And I said no, but I knew there
was because I've got it.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
I've seen it, I've read it. And is that example
of hallucination?
Speaker 5 (27:01):
Yeah?
Speaker 7 (27:01):
Or it may not have picked up that information yet,
depending on how well how recent that abstract you had. Okay,
then it's five years old. Yeah, then it's it's just
trying to pull one over you. It does happen again,
I think when it's doing the update to the new system,
(27:22):
like I've had to. And it's interesting that we notice this.
But if you type in.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
All caps, if you when you're putting in so.
Speaker 7 (27:34):
If you type in all caps, that's considered yelling, right,
not really Yeah, So if you send it someone a
text message in all caps or an email in all caps,
that's considered that you're yelling at aggressive. So if you
type in all.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Caps, you think you're being aggressive, and it will.
Speaker 7 (27:47):
Give you a better response. Really, Now, do it over
and over again, and it will start to get pete
off with you, and it will go the other way. No, no, no,
and they so that's great an emotion. But the thing
that concerns me is the architects behind these systems don't
know why it does that. So it's one thing to
(28:11):
kind of go, oh, that's kind of cool. Like the
other one. We know, on average, and this is a
rough average, if you say please and thank you when
you interact and you're polite, you will get on average
about a forty percent better result. No, but they don't
know why.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
That's freaking me out.
Speaker 7 (28:31):
Right, So they're the things that I kind of go, hey,
that's really cool. But the thing that freaks me out
is but they don't know why. They can't kind of
go oh, it's because it is learning emotion or it
is doing that. They don't know. That's the bit that
I kind of go. So always say please and thank
(28:53):
you Mark, because if the terminator does arrive, at least
it will look at you and go oh, he was
one of the nice one.
Speaker 8 (29:02):
When you sort of grow up and the way you
see yourself and sort of fitting into society and those
around you and are probably more identified it as a
bit of an outsider. And yeah, hence you know the
story with OLK two that was wa'ts the term disruptive,
you know, in terms of coming into an industry and
doing things quite differently.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
So you come over from Japan, Yeah, we actually I
was over in Japan.
Speaker 8 (29:22):
At the time and I was buying a lot of
products from.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
America and what type products?
Speaker 8 (29:26):
Yeah, so protein Powders, all of the brands you know,
opt nutrition, you know, the popular brands that big there,
buying them into Japan through like online stores, and then
realizing looking at it, going why do we pay so
much for this stuff in Australia? You know what's going
on here? You know, exactly the same products. And that's
when my first goal was to maybe import American products
(29:47):
into Australia. And the more research I did on manufacturing
the products where ingredients come from, the more I realized
that we could make these products in Australia.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
So so was it more about I mean, the typical
or the to build explanation or definition of someone who's
disrupting is to.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
Make a product more affordable and more accessible.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
Was this about just making it well, assuming the product quality,
We'll talk about the product quality of the moment, but
it was about make it more affordable?
Speaker 1 (30:17):
Yeah?
Speaker 8 (30:18):
Absolutely, But also quality. So what is most commonly the
case is people come to a market and they go,
how do I make a more sophisticated product. Now, I
realized at the time that what consumers wanted, and consumers
like myself was we actually want a more simple product.
So back then it was you know, American brands, lots
of claims, lots of ingredients, lots of smoke and mirrors,
(30:38):
and it was really clear that people just said, look,
if someone gives us a protein powder as pure as
possible with a little bit of flavoring and sweetener in there,
that's what we want. And so what we did is
we said, look, it'll be a more simple product, it
will be much more pure, and you'll buy it directly
from us. So our manufacturer direct model the ideas that
we source all the ingredients, lots of Australian New Zealand proteins,
(31:01):
blend them all up and then sell them to the
customer and through through the online shop and so there's
no distributors, no importers, no one else that will sort
of middleman retail, et cetera earning their chunk.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
So then that's so can we just talk about your
let's call it the business model in terms of making
it more more affordable, more less expensive, if we could,
I do want to talk about the product and ingredients
in the moment, just put out a side of seat,
but just in terms of the.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
Structure of how you make something more affordable.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
I was gonna say tribute, but no, that's sort of
more affordable. That sort of suggests something and the ingredients
or something like that, so more affordable.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
The business model is that what did you do first?
Speaker 2 (31:47):
Did you sit down and examine every single stage of
what everybody else is doing, in other words, produced the product, produced, paggaging, distributed,
distribution costs. Did you sit down and then break down
that down and sort of say these things I can
get rid of basically?
Speaker 8 (32:05):
Yeah, and if we look, let's just run through a scenario.
Let's say Mark Morris gooes, Look, I want to have
a protein company. If you want to be as easy
as possible, what you do, as you'll reach out to
a contractor. Now they will manufacture.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
The product a food, A food that's.
Speaker 8 (32:18):
Right, a nutritional supplement manufacturer. And there's lots of those,
lots of you know, certainly good quality establishments around Australia
to this contracting they would then most commonly get their
ingredients from Australian supplier. Now that Australian supplier deals with
overseas suppliers deals with Australian dairies, but they're also another middleman. Now,
(32:39):
once that company, that contractor for you buys those ingredients
through the supplier, that's obviously a margin there. They're manufacturing
that product, they're putting a margin on, and then if
you want to sell that same product through retailers, that's
another margin there. Now, pretty much from day one, we
went directly to supplies in Australia, so actual dairies and
pharmaceutical ingredient manufacturers overseas and we're buying direct from them
(33:02):
and again getting the ingredients to us, doing the manufacturing,
and then selling direct to the customer. So there's about
three different people there that will normally have a margin
that don't have a margin with our model.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
Which means it doesn't reflect them in the business model pricing.
Speaker 8 (33:16):
That's right, yeah, yeah, yeah, And look it's a great
way of saying that we can use were used to advertising,
you get what you pay for because I like that,
and it's like with bog nutrients, it's what you're not
paying for and so you're not paying for that extra supplier,
the extra importer, the contractor and the retailer. It's just
going from our factory and we're sourcing lots of ingredients
at one time, manufacturing the product, and then sending it
(33:38):
straight to the customer.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
So let's just pick on protein from a moment. Let's
pick on Way protein because that's one of your products.
And you weren't like a you're not a food scientist
or anything like that. No, no, but you get food
signists in so, yeah, you have to have someone to
tell you how it formulates.
Speaker 8 (33:57):
Yeah, and look, look lots of our team. We've got
massive experienced our team for many decades.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
We'll just go back to two thousand and six, whatever
it was when it started. Yes, how did you do that?
Speaker 8 (34:06):
So the original formulations for the Way proteins not particularly complex.
So all you're dealing with is getting a really high
quality protein. In the first place, it tell us what
way is it? So way, so when they make the
during the cheese making process, way is what's extracted from
the cheese. So you probably know the nursery rhyme about
the curds in the way. Now Once upon a time
(34:27):
they used to throw liquid Way in the bin and
they realized it was full of protein. But to get
that protein they have to go through a pretty complex
filtrations process and system.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
It's sort of like a milky.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
It's not a milky like, it's like it's sort of
not clear, but it's translucent sort of.
Speaker 8 (34:45):
That's right now. Turning that, I think that liquid Way
is only about one percent or maybe five percent solids.
But to get that into a way protein is quite
a process because you've got to get rid of all
the water. I've got to get rid of the fats
and things, and the lactose too, and so that's a
pretty complicated process. But basically when we get the ingredient
(35:05):
from a dairy. There's only about two or three dairies
in Australia that actually manufacture Way protein, and luckily for us,
one of those is in Tasmania, which is pretty cool. Yeah,
but some of the highest quality proteins are made in
New Zealand and Australia.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
What do you term its highest quality good good question?
Speaker 8 (35:22):
Well, it would be the cows, what foods they're fed,
you know, predominantly grass fed. A lot of people make
claims around grass fed, and it's a bit difficult in
Australia because you can never guarantee something's one hundred percent
grass fed, but you know, for the most part it
will be a lack of certain hormones and things using
the cattle. So we tend to not use the same
(35:43):
hormones that you know, let's say I'm all free in
set of Europe and America. But then when it comes
to the finished product, what you're wanting is a product
that's really high in protein and then low in facts
and cobo hydrates. So we're very specific about accepting only
proteins that are especially our isolate. It's very high protein
and low and fats and carbs.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
So what did you do when you first kicked it off?
Did you go around to some dairy farmers in Tazi
because it's quae few. In fact, I had one on
the show here or about two years ago, who is
one of the biggest dairy farmers in Tasmania. And did
you just go knock on doors and say, hey, dude, look,
I want to buy your way.
Speaker 8 (36:22):
A kind of But so we don't deal with the
dairies themselves, but it's the people that own the processing plants,
so that might be fon Terror which are a massive
sort of New Zealand Australian conglomerate and basically you know,
emailing them, having meetings with them and supplies that they
deal with. Two and just yeah, coming to terms on
you know what quality product do you have? Getting some samples,
(36:45):
trying things out, and the symbols of the actual of
the way protein ply not not the way itself, no
no no, So when we get it, so we don't
do the actual processing of the way protein. We get
in dry usable form and then we're doing the blending society.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
So Fonterra that's a well known company around the place,
and Fonterra will go get the picks the way up
from everybody and they, I don't know whatever, boil it
and reduce get rid of all the water anywhere and
reduce it down to like a like a solid form
which and they somehow they make it into powder.
Speaker 8 (37:21):
It's all dryers and things too. Like it's quite a completent.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
It sounds like a complex process. But you buy it
from them, correct, and but you specify this and I
don't want well, so in terms of provenance of what
you're buying from them or what they're offering for you
to buy in terms of you're being clear on the
providence of it. And for example, that is not being
ways not coming from cow's milk, that's sort of where
(37:46):
the herd has been sitting in some being eating. You know,
how do you know that that's not the case? Is
Fonterra give you a certificate or something correct?
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 8 (37:58):
Yeah, So there's there's a lot of back and forth
with dairies and processes about you know, what's done in Australia.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
We have very strict rules actually.
Speaker 8 (38:07):
Yeah, so there's for dairy to come into Australia in
the first place, it has to be normally very high
standard and very safe, so free and foot in mouth
disease and all of that kind of thing. So I
think we have one of the higher standards in the world.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
But when it comes to it comes to dairy. Yeah,
so do we import the milk sometimes?
Speaker 8 (38:23):
I don't think we import the milk, but we certainly
import completed wig protein powders. So yeah. I mean, look,
we also use American way proteins and some of those
are really high quality. But again we've got some very
fussy standards in terms of how height needs be in protein,
how the carbohydrates are, and then other information about being
(38:43):
hormone free.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
And so because I saw something the other day, I
can't remember where it was, I was listening to it.
But let's say they make a batch of protein which
is protein powdered, and it might have been a big
one ton machine or what if we call it a
big container of one time, and they and that they
were saying that now in the United States you can
(39:05):
get batch testing done.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
Yes, per batch, No, it was, let's call it per
ton yep.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
So someone goes into that one batch and scrip a
little bit out from where I don't know, and sends
it off to a lab and get its test, gets
it tested for contaminants.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
I guess, yes, what were they testing for?
Speaker 8 (39:21):
Normally, if you're doing away protein, you could be testing
for micros.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
So that's microbes, yes, yeah, bacteria, yep, exactly.
Speaker 8 (39:29):
But the more common testing that we do and others
in our industry should be doing is the protein quality testing.
So that's basically, if I'm paying for away protein isolate
that says it's ninety percent protein, I want to ensure
that I've keven giving that to customers. Now, something unique
about Polk Nutrients. For look, it's probably twelve or thirteen
years we've been testing four batches of protein every single month,
(39:51):
and we have all of those results from you know,
twelve years ago to now that they'd be close to
one thousand lab tests on our website. So if you're
buying away protein ice later or concentrate from us or
one of our protein blends, literally you can go back
more than ten years and check, you know, what batch
was that, what protein level do we claim it was,
and then what it was and where the only company
(40:13):
Australia that people do sporadic tests and might have a
few things on their website that might be a couple
of years old or whatever else, but we literally have
I think it would be close to a thousand lab
reports on our website.
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