More 2 Marketing

more2marketing_wholebody_intuition 1.mp3
Transcript
Susan
More to marketing. Welcome to more 2 marketing, the podcast that explores marketing, product and everything business. I’m your host today, Susan Walsh, and today we’re going to be discussing what you do. If you’re in a fantastic situation and in the position where you may have to actually scale up your Business Today, I have Simon, the founder of Stempel. Starting his career as an engineer, he found a moment in time where there was a gap in the market and he could actually flex some of his entrepreneurial passion. So now he runs a global empire that partners businesses with photography and doing this brings joys to millions and millions of users. Welcome Simon, could you share a? Bit more about yourself.
Simon
Hi, Susan. Nice to be here. Thanks so much for that lovely intro. An empire is a little bit of an overstatement, I would say, but nonetheless thanks.
Susan
I don’t think so. You’re well on your way. So tell us a bit more about you and a bit about your journey.
Simon
Yeah. Great. So I’m Simon. I’m the founder of Stimpacks. I started a company 8 years ago already. Time flies, doesn’t it?
Susan
Oh, that is fast.
Simon
Yeah. And like you mentioned, I was in a completely different space and mindset back then as an engineer. You’re you’re trained to calculate risks and avoid them, and then as an entrepreneur you you have to embrace them and they get to risk because that’s inherent to any entrepreneurial venture. So yeah, it was, it was at that moment when in time when I became a father, which is of course, a big moment for any. Any man or woman to become a mother, of course. And and I realised that taking all these pictures of my my newborn. And I wasn’t even printing them. And and you have to know, Susan, you have a family background in photo printing. My, my grandfather launched back in the 60’s, the local equivalent of Kodak. So a local code of finishing company.
Susan
Oh wow.
Susan
It’s in. It’s in your soul.
Simon
Yes, exactly. So it was back in the 60s when you know that market was still emerge. It became a pretty big company at some point, and number 2IN. Europe. And but then, as everybody knows, the photo printing was one of the first industries to be disrupted by digital. In the early 2000s, and so we witnessed that me as a young lad back then, just in the in the front row. So it was. It was a striking moment back then when when I realised like, wow, I’m not even printing photos and so many photos stuck on my phone. That business model has to be broken, or at least there, that there’s an opportunity there. And. And we saw that opportunity by partnering with brands who could offer offer the photos, the photo prints. As a. Gift. At that point we still had a completely different business model in our heads as it usually goes. So we had to pivot towards where we are right now, but that’s how it all started, yeah.
Susan
Fantastic. And I love that it’s all about connecting a brand with a joyous moment. So there there’s a positive feeling and emotiveness that comes with that as well.
Simon
Exactly. Yeah. Because at that point already. We. Maybe we were a bit ahead in 2016 because digital was still emerging for many big brands, but it’s still for us as consumers, it’s already felt very habitual and there was already an overload a little bit I think in terms of social media and digital ads tracking you, things of that nature. So we we figured that the. The printed touch point would come back. Or was it at least a nice addition to an Omni channel mix?
Simon
And so we started pitching that we started going to brands. We built a little smartphone app where consumers could log on. With the chance to upload the pictures and receive them for free, but we would of course have to match that demand with the supply of advertisements, which we we would then target on these photos. So we we did throttle it. So you would, you would have to wait until you were, there was a print code, we called it available. And so we built this little community of people who were eager to print their photos again, just like the ourselves and and the gut feeling we had. And it was nice to see that that community grow organically. We didn’t have to raise any money. We didn’t have to do any advertising. It was. Just word of mouth.
Susan
Amazing.
Simon
And sometimes have to wait a month for their prints, but they didn’t mind because we we kept that promise. Realistically, so we didn’t promise them to get it delivered next day or next week it. Was. Like, as soon as we’ve got an advertiser, you’ll be able to receive your prints.
Susan
Exactly. No, I I love that model where it’s just naturally grew itself. But but then along this journey, you would have gotten to a point where it grew so big. And this is where scaling came in for. Do so are you able to? Share a bit more about what scaling meant for you and your business and how you identified you’re at that stage and what you did.
Simon
Yeah. So first in that business model, which I explained, which is what we call A2 sided market model, you’ve got advertisers on one hand and you’ve got users on your app. We identified it was very hard to scale that model because we’ve got a physical. Thing to print and ship. And there’s a cost associated. So that’s unlike at Facebook or any advertising medium, they can scale the user base and then you know any advertisement revenue is, is, is happily welcomed. But if it’s big nice. So if it’s not big, you first go for the users. So that’s a clear priority. We didn’t have that luxury because we had to keep those users. By printing to have them to receive the prints, we need to find the advertiser, so that put an enormous pressure on scaling up because we saw the the user side scaling but not the advertiser side. Because they want to see reach, they want to see low costs. They want to see a bunch of things we couldn’t offer. So that’s when we did a pivot and I think that’s crucial for any early venture is to have the flexibility to pivot. So one of the leading telecom operators here in Europe, orange. We were talking about a campaign and we we were very proud. We had like 2025 thousand people on our app active users, but they weren’t particularly impressed with that number. Of course from a reach or advertising perspective, it’s really peanuts, so.
Susan
Well, that’s only because of who they were in the market at that time. Cause.
Simon
Also drew.
Susan
Orange is, I think #1 then or very close to numb.
Simon
In Europe. Yeah, they may. Well, they then, you know, moved on to be different subsidiaries and different markets. They still exist today in Belgium where I live and in France. So they, they they suggested a different approach is pushing this as a gift for their loyal members. And so that’s when we entered the loyalty. Base but the product did not fit that market at all because we had an app where we owned the data and of course Orange didn’t want us to run away with their data, they wanted a web based. So they also didn’t want to push another app to their already app users who are on the loyalty app. So they just wanted to link, which was white labels. So not too much Stampex brand in there, just as a provider, we could be in there. And then most importantly, the data would be owned by them. So that’s when we pivot it to a purely B2B model and things to cough to where we are right now in in eight different markets with different telecom managed insurance companies and travel quite some less traction. And we can focus now purely on the B2B side. Which? Is so much nicer. We did keep that app on the background. We didn’t throw it all away. We we put a payment button in there and like, hey, if you want prints, we’re going to try and offer them to you at an affordable price point. And so that’s actually now resurfacing again. So you see. Eventually, there’s some sort of a circle because the app has now been extended with a with a web shop. Because we’ve reached so many consumers, they’re also coming to us actively asking, like I want to order more prints. Where can I do this? So.
Simon
A bit weird. If you then don’t have a solution for that in place, so, but we’ve split both businesses completely so it’s B2C and B2C but different approaches.
Susan
And I’d also assume that with your old business because you’re getting economies of scale now with the print going through with your white label, you’re able. To offer a. Quite attractive price for those prints, which is why you’re seeing that business start to grow organically over there again because you’re able to. Bring that pricing model through.
Simon
Exactly. That’s the the benefit and the the good thing about economies of scale, yeah.
Susan
It’s like a little cherry on top, isn’t it?
Simon
Yeah, it is.
Susan
I love it. And how did you identify then after your pivot that you needed to scale and do even more? Because naturally, you’ve got these big companies coming in, but you’ve got a white label which makes it semi easier to do because you’re not creating it from scratch every time. But there’s still effort involved. And then you’ve also, I’m assuming then with entering all these different regions. How do you source all these different printers?
Simon
Yeah, great question. So first thing, very important. We are only doing the white label and the technological layer. We’re not printing anything ourselves. So we’re integrating with print partners. Who do the printing, the shipping, the handling on behalf of us? And so that’s, that’s the first challenge. You’ve got to find those suitable partners. And we’ve developed a process for that to identify them, obviously price quality. But the good thing is there are. Global. Providers. In our case, we print on HP, so that’s a global brand. We can go through their brand theme and they can put us in contact with references in Spain, Italy, Australia, anywhere.
Susan
Perfect.
Simon
Yeah. So that’s the first pretty easy thing to do is to reach out to them, but still then they also want to see volume. They also have busy days. They also have strategic priorities. They’re not waiting for a scrappy startup. We’re completely new concept and no clients yet to be. You know, to spend 2 weeks integrating with them. So it’s still a bit of a hassle, but it’s doable. That bit is doable.
Susan
And the great thing is you’ve got some good case studies from other regions now that as you’re as you’re scaling up and moving to different areas, you might feel like you’re that scrappy little startup going to this new region. But when they see the numbers and can even talk to their own team members because it’s part of that same ecosystem in this exam.
Simon
1.
Susan
Even if you’re not scrappy, you are building something and you are, as I said before, building that empire.
Simon
That’s right. That’s right. No, it’s true. We have beautiful logos and reference cases, and that’s that’s usually what gets them across the line to take that investment. Take that bet that it’s also gonna reach heights in their region. And that they then then gonna reap the fruits of that. So that’s the operational side and the the real challenge, of course getting the business development side without or with boots on the ground rolling. And so that’s that’s the what we’re currently focusing on a lot and but it’s it’s working quite well again for those seem we’re seeing reasons. And we have the logos, there is a nice international community of loyalty marketeers and they’re very open to to speak, to exchange to, you know, showcase studies on on, on the conferences that that are around. So I tried to try to take part in. With those.
Susan
Networking can’t be undervalued.
Simon
Exactly. Maybe another interesting thing we had to figure out is which markets you go after because.
Susan
Oh yes, where are they at in these stages? Yeah.
Simon
Exactly. I always say entrepreneurship is a. Allocating resources and mitigating risks, and so that’s really one about allocating resources. You don’t have endless resources nor time, so you got to pick the right markets. And so we made a matrix on countries where with the size of their loyalty market.
Susan
MHM.
Simon
The maturity of that market, the number of inhabitants, because the downside of Belgium is that we’re only 10 million or 11. Million so.
Susan
Yeah.
Simon
Find a little market with three languages and a lot of different cultural it’s it’s an interesting country, but but it’s not necessarily, you know, giving you the biggest revenues. Or reach. So we really quickly had to go outside of our borders.
Susan
Hmm.
Simon
Because as you know and I think it’s the same in Australia, you only have a limited number of telcos or insurance companies or.
Susan
Exactly.
Simon
Energy companies. So it’s it’s really, you know, once you’ve spoken to all of them and some of them buy some of them down it’s and also they don’t want all the competitors to have that same loyalty reward in their offering. So you can’t just flirt with everyone. So that’s why we had to immediately look across the border. And so we made that matrix and one of the elements that’s also important for us is the quality and the speed of the Postal Service.
Susan
That’s extremely important. You don’t want soggy photos arriving or crumpled up photos.
Simon
Like so, South Africa, for example. Great markets, a lot of loyalty going on big markets, but the sappo, the South African Postal Service is not reliable. We did a test there. We shipped 100 parcels and I think only 5 arrived or something.
Susan
All that shocking.
Simon
Million level. Yeah. And then you have to go to Courier services, which are way more expensive, putting a lot of pressure on. Your. Capabilities and your price of value, so yeah.
Susan
Yeah. No, I I think that’s that’s a great thing to consider and definitely a key factor when you’re looking at scaling up is what impacts does it have for your downstream because you’re you’re partnering with hopefully quality partners like you just said the the hostage because you want to make sure that the deal that you have made, you keep that. Promise.
Simon
Exactly.
Susan
Is there any other key factors that should be considered as part of it? Because we know. Costs are always going to be there and we’ve talked a bit about resources. Are there any other key factors that you find really important that even other people should consider for their business?
Simon
If you’re in a situation with recurring revenue or a SaaS model, we’re we’re not purely SaaS. We’re doing the prints, but we’ve got the technological layer which which is sort of a SaaS model. Then I think at least you have to have a solid base of recurring revenue before starting. And often times you know you want to move on to the next lower the next client. And we definitely had that hunch as well or that that need a little bit in the early days. But making sure you’ve got a solid stream reliable clients that are generating recurring revenue and and having those metrics. Healthy before scaling up I think would be a key advice.
Susan
Definitely. I think that’s one reason why a lot of startups unfortunately fail is they don’t predict the cost that could be associated and they’ve got nowhere to go to get any more funds because of wherever they get to in that in their in their business model when they’re going out. That’s why a lot of them probably disappear because they don’t realise either the audience the product. All the costings behind it.
Simon
Yeah, exactly.
Susan
What other key challenges and common challenges have you seen when scaling up and how have you overcome? Them. Or seen others overcome them.
Simon
Yeah, it’s a great question. There’s. There’s, there’s a lot. A lot of entrepreneurs are talking about the need for local people to do between sales, and we’ve seen examples of companies that were able to do it from within their own market. And but we are also experiencing that as a key. Challenge. Is for us to do business in the UK or Spain without having a local entity. You know, requires us to have a. Lot of credibility.
Susan
Hmm.
Simon
And and so we’re we’re, we’re still trying to work locally, but with I mean locally, I mean from our domestic team with with full time employees. But we did find a model with local partners and partners could be agencies. Could be loyalty. Specialists could be people with a network. Who know the INS and outs of those brands because they’re listening to the radio, to the television. They know what’s, you know, making their heart tick when something’s going on in the in the world of loyalty, that’s really hard to do when you’re in Belgium. And but building that network has been a solution, but also a challenge at the same time because you have to.
Simon
Maintain those partners engaged. You have to somehow try to get meetings at the end of the day to be able to present your. Solution and so, yeah, that’s the approach we’re currently doing is building that bottle network combined with going to local conferences. There’s a lot of conference and conferences going on in the loyalty space and I try to attend all of them and network as much as possible.
Susan
It’s an. It’s an interesting 1, isn’t it? The loyalty space myself. Personally, I I also cross into loyalty, but I have a background in product and marketing, hence my podcast. Everyone. Of course you guys know, but I see that there’s opportunities. For people like yourself to get in front of more of the CMO’s or the CEO’s and attending more of those type of conferences because. I find that you need to go where the decision makers are in a lot of cases and sometimes the the loyalty people within the team. Don’t have the purse strings so to to get in front of the right people is also a challenge as well in scaling up to be able to get in front of where you need to go to be able to have those conversations to get that new partner on board, or to get that new client on board or get into that new. Agent so, but by having that network that helps some people get over those challenges and that’s why, like you said, getting out there and talking more.
Simon
And. Get out the building. It’s the same greatest quote via a startup guru. I think Steve Blank is the guy. Who get out of the building? I. Love it but. Yeah.
Susan
How does scaling up impact things like customer acquisition retention just overall? Customer experience as well, because I’m assuming when you start doing the scaling up process, it can actually be a bit disruptive.
Simon
It definitely is. And just like your own retention has metrics have to be solid before you even consider scaling, I think and building that operational layer is also crucial. And in our case that’s integrating with local print buttons, but it’s also things like customer support having a right, the right tool, the right people and nowadays. That space is moving so fast with with AI and capabilities of translating, but still that’s really important that somebody in Spain is being helped in in their own native language. So you got to think of all those things and have it all right before you start. Acquiring customers.
Susan
And I I think with the retention piece as well, I’ve seen a lot of companies. During the scale up, they just forget their active base or the ones that were with them at the beginning, and it could be a reoccurring service or some kind of product that they come back to time and time. And again I think then another thing’s also really important when you’re scaling up is to ensure that. You acknowledge them, reward them if possible, along the way, which is part of where loyalty does come in and plays an important part. But that they’re not put at a disadvantage is is probably my my key point out of this because that can lead to the negative sentiment and you don’t want that if they’ve been having such a great time until you kicked it up a level.
Simon
Yeah.
Susan
I know that one one thing I see with some startups is the customer service falls apart. So before you could get through in one minute, now you’re waiting an hour. Those things that you can tinker with and hopefully. Fast identify to solve. I think. I think that’s something that a lot of scaling up needs to remember that there’s always going to be fine tuning. That happens no matter what it is. And sometimes you might scale up and have to pivot again because it’s not quite right. So being open to that too.
Simon
Yeah, and being open to revisit your technological stack is also quite important. And finding the right tool. It’s not so easy because there’s so many tools out there.
Susan
They like shiny little whistles, aren’t they?
Simon
Yes, exactly. The new new tool that seems a little bit better than the one you just picked. So yeah, every once in a while doing a thorough assessment and then we really did like with a matrix with pros and cons and pricing and testing and everything to get the right customer service service tool and yeah, we currently have help scout. Which turned out to be a really good choice.
Susan
That’s great. And again that that testing and not being afraid that it is wrong and pivoting when you need to or changing it out. It’s so important that businesses identify that and do make a change and not just stick with it, hoping it will change in six months time when they know in their gut it won’t. So talking more about technology. How? What is the? Role that technology plays in facilitating these scaling up processes.
Simon
Yeah, you got to think about things like loading on the browser these things depending on if you’re building a web application like we do a white label one. Of course it has to load fast and so depending on how your architecture is designed and that can already be a very.
Simon
Early challenge early on. So in our case we work with a WS. And so it’s relatively easy to configure it in such ways that data is stored locally and that we’ve got loading times that are acceptable in different markets. That’s a. That’s a very pragmatic or thing you we had to figure out early on. The second thing is with the print buttons and the and the postal services delivery times qualities, how do you maintain the quality that is advertised on your website website or that people are talking about and rating the same in the different market where there’s different paper? Different partners. So we have strict specifications on which paper to use, which machines, which finishing, and then there’s a Postal Service who has differences in delivery times and then how do you get all the data to give a proper track and trace to that local person. But because at the end of the day, if you’re an Australian, you print through our services, you don’t care. That it’s a Belgian company and that it’s AWS hosted and that you know we it’s it works with on HP as a print button. So you don’t know those things, you don’t care about them, what you care about is how long it takes and how apps to communication around that delivery is.
Susan
Exactly managing those expectations and delivering to it.
Simon
Yeah. Yeah, exactly so.
Susan
All about that brand promise.
Simon
Exactly. Exactly. So that getting that right is is essential and is very much driven by your choices in technology.
Susan
100% there I’ve seen this found time and time again. I still remember in the Australian market when click frenzy first came. And they underestimated the volume that would go to their website. So it crashed and it crashed and burned. And it took a while for them to recover that reputation. I still remember at the time because I was involved in it as a actual company at the time. I wanted to pay the money to be part of click frenzy because I thought it was an awesome opportunity. But. That definitely was something that they underestimated the appeal, and I see that time and time and again with a lot of digital online sales. For retailers, I don’t quite understand how much they’re going to get, and I think COVID demonstrated a lot of that as well.
Simon
Yeah, that that definitely relates to our situation as well. We work with a number of big companies, huge databases. And so when they decide to do a big push like a surprise, well then we can have spikes of, you know, 100,000 people within just a few hours that are visiting our website and uploading heavy files photos. Sometimes 1015 at a time. So you can imagine that those are huge peaks, but that’s why it’s good to have a. Work with with company like AWS and having it with elastics capabilities so you can scale up and scale down and it’s completely serverless and so you can sort of match the demand from the from the custom side.
Susan
Yeah. No, it’s it’s definitely something key for anyone in the digital space that there can be services out there that can be flexible. So they don’t have to lock in to larger volumes. They can have it smaller and then work with them when they’ve got the need and they know the needs coming. Now I know you love scaling up businesses, but what excites you most when you’re doing it?
Simon
I guess it’s the idea that I you have to know this is a personal one. I love travelling so different cultures. I’ve been to Australia, to New Zealand and beautiful countries and. So this way I’m sort of getting back into those countries that I once visited, even if it would be South America countries. I mean it’s just always brings great memories back. And so doing business there always excites me in Spain for a year. So you know it’s obviously a market that. I would just for personal reasons, love to break into.
Susan
I love it. You’ve you’ve found a job that helps you with your travel to be able to enjoy the places you like. I love it. So like now I know the pattern for all the regions. You. Go to as well.
Simon
There’s there’s probably a link there. As well, yeah, but. But it is true the the Lotus space is is very active in in beautiful countries like Brazil. So amazing country, huge loyalty.
Simon
Market and and last year there was the loyalty and awards conference in Rio de Janeiro and so I took a plane there and did.
Susan
Patsy, didn’t you?
Simon
A. Bit a little sponsorship and I got on stage and it resulted in the in the collaboration here in Australia where we’re here for you. So yeah, that’s how it goes and it sort of proves that it’s also the way to go. As a business leader to really get out of your comfort zone and go into those markets, speak to people.
Susan
I love it. Now I have a question. I ask everyone and the question is what brand any brand in the world this represents you and why?
Simon
Yeah, it’s a great question again. And there’s so many brands that I’m loyal to in behaviour or loyal to an attitude, but not necessarily spend so much. And but I think. And and what I’ve always been very passionate about is since the kid is is basketball.
Simon
So the NBA, of course, is like the. The biggest dream of every young player and so I think it’s a brand on itself, they UM, they host all these different teams, they’re very vocal and you know, topics that are in society, they they work a lot with the black communities in the US, they’ve got a lot of European players. That are now rising stars in in the NBA. OK. So it’s still it’s still something space watch closely and that gives me a very warm feeling. And then yeah, that’s why I chose that one as a.
Susan
Brand. I love it and I love that it’s not just a team, it’s the overall overall group of all teams together which. Embodies what you feel I love. I actually really love that cause, like it’s easy to go. Ohh Chicago Bulls or something like that. And I love that you’ve thought about what it stands for too. So thank you so much for sharing.
Simon
You’re welcome.
Susan
Now I’m just going to do a quick recap. So for me scaling up is something that’s a real interest, which is why I love talking about entrepreneurial topics and in this particular example, we got to hear about today. Originally it started off being A2 sided market model, but. Knowing that they needed to grow, how could they grow where they get their money source from? They identified that it would be more from business than from consumers, so pivoting and being open to that pivot. And identifying areas to actually go and scale. And that’s where loyalty really came in to help out. And then going down the lines of the white labelling because that meant that they could open up to any business and really have a B2B model there. Looking and working with partners as part of the scaling up, so identifying that apps aren’t necessarily the way to go, and being open to doing the web version so that it can be linked through to whatever application is being used by the partner. It means that it really is an integrated version on their side. Might not have the same brand appeal in this example for the owner of the brand Stamp X, but it still gives them the volume that they’re wanting and the connections that they’re wanting to build out and the sales that they need to keep going. And then they’ve got another logo to add to their deck to then sell on into other regions, but most importantly. Scaling up. Don’t be afraid to seek partners. Partners can be the strength behind you if you get the right quality and you test and make sure that they’re going to be able to do the brand fulfilment promise that you’re wanting to achieve. So look for different ways that you can do printing in the local regions or shipping that test it. Make sure about this. Don’t commit to it without doing some true tests and learns with physical packages if it’s going to be that or whatever it looks like for your particular business, because you need to be able to ensure that you can deliver. What you say you’re going to? Do. Case studies are magical. As you’re building and scaling along the way, make sure you take the time to document case studies because they’ll help you demonstrate when you go to new regions. What you do and how you’ve done it and the success and they take time to write and build up, so do take that little bit of time to do it as you’re growing, then you can pick and choose the case studies that best suit what you’re trying to do. Networking is huge. Networking can help you get many places, so take the opportunity to talk to others even in your same sphere, because people do generally want to help people. So take the time to make those connections follow up on those connections, and even if you can get out and see them get out of the building. Go say hi. Knock on those doors. Have those coffees or gelatos, whatever it is. Now when you do start looking at scaling, make sure you’re looking at things like the opportunity, the risk, the resources, and make your own matrix on those and see where it fits in and makes sense. So you’re making smart business decisions because all resources, whether money, humans, time are limited, so ensure. That you really. Do think about it and put the right due diligence in. Some key factors that you could consider is the downstream impact. Postage. Do you have a reoccurring revenue that if things didn’t go well you can pivot backwards as well. So make sure you really take heed of those things because you want to have a healthy business before you do your scale up or else you’re just going to be making potentially more poor business decisions. You’ll be very lucky if you do succeed, though. If you’ve got poor money and you’re still going for it. But hey, your business up to you. A key area that may be worth looking at when you’re going down the partner area and a challenge for many businesses currently is. Many new markets want you to have a local person, so that’s where partnerships agencies like may come in. So don’t be afraid to look at those because they may work out to be that extra sweet sauce that you need to be able to make your business successful there. Check your assets, particularly when it comes. To your tech. Stack tech stacks are super important if you’re building your own, make sure it’s secure. If you’re working with others, do those testings. Make sure that you’ve got a quality tech stack that can be robust, but also work with your partners and isn’t too much of A limitation because everyone has to do a bit of work. And integrate, but you don’t want. To be overworked. Things to consider though, when you are scaling up and you’re very excited, one of the most basic ones I see fail that you can get ahead of it if you write this down now. Website loading ensure that you’re working with a website partner that can go up and down for your needs so that you don’t when you’re doing your scaling. It doesn’t impact the quality of what you’re creating for your customers or end users because that’s the last thing you want people to experience is a site that’s just shut down and they can’t get to forever and they don’t. Know and don’t bother going back. You could have potentially lost them forever. And quality my last one, my last point, I promise everyone quality do tests. Check. Make sure you’ve got your specs, because in the end of the day, when you’re scaling up, you want to keep that brand promise. You want to be able to ensure you’re going to deliver what you say you’re going to deliver and how. Even if you’ve got. All these new partners involved. So test it, stress it and also do it in real life as well, just to be sure. Have I missed anything, Simon?
Simon
Thanks so much, Susan. That’s a a brilliant overview, maybe a final thought is that I think the entrepreneur journey is more predictable than most people think. And then there’s a brilliant article that I sometimes I think yearly I look back into it describing 9 different stages and maybe it’s something that I can share with you and you can post in the notes or something.
Susan
That would be fantastic.
Simon
It’s called. Your journey is more predictable than you think. It’s by Daniel Presley, and I think it’s a great read for any entrepreneur who’s like. Going through those different stages early on to eventually building an empire.
Susan
Like you are, I love. It we’ll add that to the show notes for everyone to catch up on. Also, I’ll Add all Simon’s details there to as well as stampex for anyone there that’s going to have a fantastic solution where you can bring fond memories with your branding on the back. Definitely reach out. Because they are gorgeous. Thank you again so much, Simon, I really appreciate you being here today.
Simon
To kiss you.
Susan
And everyone else, don’t forget to add more to marketing to your playlist so you don’t miss out any episodes with fabulous guests. More to marketing.