What's in the gold case?

(upbeat music) - Hi, I'm Brittany Saunders and welcome to Big Business. The place where business is far from boring, and today I'm recording on a what-be-cool land. Now, I somehow managed to build an empire from the garage underneath my house, and I'm here to share it all with you. From the winds, the mistakes, the challenging times, and the funny moments in between. So whether you're in business already, perhaps you're not in the game at all. Maybe you're just looking for some info or you simply just wanna hear the tea. This is the podcast for you. Okay, before we start today's episode, apparently I have been told that I have to say that there are some sort of clues hidden throughout this episode, and all I could say is clues for what no one is answering me. So that's helpful. Apparently some are obvious, some aren't, and apparently I'm not allowed to ask any more questions or give you any more information. Anyway, do with that what you will. Welcome back to another episode of Big Business. I wasn't planning on doing this episode today, in particular, but there's something that I've been thinking about a lot lately, and weirdly, it's actually quite relevant to business in general. I wanna talk about doing the opposite in business, which when I think about it, I feel like I am known for that, always kinda going against the grain a little bit. I think there are so many things in business that we do purely because that's what you do, right? Everyone in your industry does it, you competitors do it, customers expect you to do it, you've done it every year, it works. So why would you stop if it isn't broke, don't fix it? And I actually think that's a really interesting question. Why would you stop doing something that ultimately works? Not just in business, but in life. I think businesses accidentally create traditions all the time, you do something once. Then you do it the next year, then the next year, and eventually customers start waiting for it, you know? They know that it's coming. We're all in this pattern and routine, and everyone is doing the same thing. And it's fascinating to me because sometimes the very thing that's really successful for your business in the short term can actually start to create a behavior that maybe you don't actually want long term. I don't think we think these things in business when we are creating these traditions. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is I think when everyone in an industry is doing the same thing, there are two ways that you can look at it, okay? You can say, well, everyone's doing it, so obviously we need to do it too, 'cause that's what we all do, right? Or you can ask what happens if you do the complete opposite. And sometimes I think that businesses can become so focused on what they can take off, and they forget about what they could give back. Anyway, that's probably a conversation for another day. Speaking of things that people do in business, I think there's another thing that people get wrong in business and it's luck. People love looking at successful businesses and saying that they got lucky. I've had so many people say that to me over the years that I got lucky or it was lucky that I built my audience online and then I was able to launch a successful business, which that again is a conversation for another day. And obviously luck does exist, right place, right time meeting the right person, having something unexpectedly go viral, but you can't build an entire business strategy around just feeling lucky. Like if it was that easy, like everyone would be doing it, right? I always say this about ideas, you don't need a hundred good ideas. Sometimes you literally just need one. One idea can quite literally change a business. One product can change a business, one decision can completely change the direction that you're heading in. Sometimes one customer can even change something. One person tells another person that person tells someone else and suddenly you have created momentum. I think there'd be a lot of business owners out there that could tell you that there was one thing that they did that absolutely changed their business, which is why I think businesses underestimate the power of doing one thing really bloody well. And the other side of that is trying to do 100 things at once, which I'm incredibly guilty of. I currently feel like I've got about 100,000 things happening at fate honestly, but I think I've just embraced the fact that that is my life. Go, go, go, 100,000 things happening all at once and that's just the way it is. There's a lot happening. I also think there's this obsession with finding the next big opportunity. Everyone wants to know, what's the next matter? What's the next TikTok? What's the next product category? What's the next thing everyone should be doing? But sometimes the golden opportunity is sitting inside something you're already doing and changing something people expect from you is scary because you immediately think, well, what if people hate it? What if people don't understand it? I have these thoughts all the time. What if what I'm doing is going to be something that people don't like? What if they don't get it? What if they're mad at me? What if they say no? I just want it to be the way that it used to be. But I think if you're going to take something away, whatever you replace it with has to be better. Not necessarily something bigger and not necessarily cheaper. Just exciting enough that people go, okay, I get it. Of course, there will always be people that won't like what you're doing, no matter what you do. But for me, that's what it's all about. It's about just saying goodbye to the old and welcoming in something new, even if some people don't understand what you're doing. But ideally, they prefer the new thing, you know, but we can't decide what consumers and customers feel at the end of the day. And this is where I think brand of performance sometimes fight with each other. Performance marketing says what's the offer? How much money off? What's going to convert today? Brand asks what do we want people to think about us in three years and neither is wrong. You literally need both. But sometimes the easiest way to train someone to buy something today isn't necessarily the thing you want to train them to expect from you forever. You know what I mean? And that's something I've been thinking about a lot lately. I also don't know why, but I've had the number 27 stuck in my head lately, which is weird because I've never had an opinion on the number 27 in my life other than it being my birthday, which I don't feel like is overly that important. Actually, you want to know what? I spoke about this on my other podcast and I saw a video from David the medium and he was saying that he, I think, heard someone else say, "If you don't celebrate your birthday "and make a big deal out of it, "then you're not going to age as quicker." (laughs) And I can't get it. But also that could just be a complete conspiracy. Anyway, I don't know what the number 27 has to do with anything, but it's just something that I've been thinking of lately. So make of that what you will. (upbeat music) When it comes to business, I actually think there's something really powerful about being first, not necessarily like first in the world 'cause that's almost impossible. Like, you can't ever be the first person to do something. You know, nothing is an original idea these days. Everything's already been done once and at this point we're just kind of doing variations of what other people have done. But being the first brand in your customers' mind to do something a certain way, that's what I'm talking about. Because if you can create something that becomes associated with you, that is incredibly valuable. Especially if you can make it happen again and again and again until eventually people know it's coming. And there are plenty of things that I guess we've done over the years with fate, we've done our customer brand trips, which we didn't do this year. Like we didn't do like a customer getaway trip 'cause we've been planning a couple of other things. Fate estate as well. We started this year and again, back to what I was saying at the beginning, that's like a tradition. And we're not the first brand 'cause it's impossible. You know, we're not the first to have done it, but people will think of us when maybe they're thinking of events or when they think of fate, they will think of fate estate. And that's what I'm really passionate about. Although me saying this kind of contradicts what I said at the beginning about traditions. Maybe the point isn't that traditions are bad in business. Maybe the point is to choose the tradition that you actually want to create. And maybe that's ultimately what I'm getting at in this episode. Sometimes I think as business owners, instead of asking, how do we make people spend? Which is ultimately like what we want at the end of the day when we're a business, we want people to spend money with us so that we can continue our business. But I think a more interesting question is, how do we make people feel like they're part of something incredible? Because I think there's a difference between someone buying something because something is cheaper and someone buying because they genuinely want to be part of what you're doing. There's something about anticipation. People either love it or hate it, like not being in the know. I think I love being on the other side, you know what I mean? I love when people know that something is coming, but they don't quite know what it is. I love watching people guess. But also I am someone that loves guessing as well. Like when something's happening online, I do like guessing what's going on. And most people guess like incorrectly usually. Or actually almost always incorrectly. I love when someone notices one tiny thing and then suddenly everyone's talking about it. It's one of my favorite parts of business and marketing in particular. And I-- think honestly that brands underestimate just how much people enjoy being part of something. Not just being sold something actually being involved. We all hate being sold too. So how can we get creative with it? Watching something unfold, finding things, noticing things, sending something to their friend and going, "Wait, did you see this?" That's the kind of marketing that I love because people aren't just consuming it, they're participating in it and I want to do more of that. Anyway, I'm very aware that this has become a slightly philosophical, big business episode. But I think my point is at the end of the day, there is a difference between making a decision because everyone else is making it, right? And making a decision because it's actually right for the brand that you're trying to build. Sometimes those are the same decision, sometimes they are completely different. The difficult bit is having the confidence to know which one you're looking at because there will always be a safe option. There's always a bloody safe option. There will always be a version where you can pretty accurately predict what happens next in business because it's, again, the thing that you've done again and again and then occasionally, there's another option where you go, "This could either be fucking brilliant or an absolutely terrible idea." And if I'm honest, I think that's where I sit in business. I'm always like towing with, is that the right word? Towing with that idea of, "This could be the best thing we've ever done," or "It could be shit." And even if it is shit, I am the kind of person where I'm like, "Oh, well, lesson learned, and we'll never do it again." I don't like to see anything as a failure. Even if it's me trying something absolutely crazy that I've never done before. Even if it doesn't work out, even if it's not received well, if people say, "This is freaking terrible." I don't see that as a failure. I just see it as a learning opportunity. And I think that's one of the best skills that you can have. If you're going to take any risk, though, there should be a reason for it. Doing something different just for the sake of saying that you're doing it is absolutely pointless. There needs to be a point to what you're doing. It needs to create something, a better experience, a stronger brand, more excitement, maybe more loyalty, more conversation, just something. Otherwise, you're just making your life harder for no reason. Trust me, I already do another of that. So maybe that's the thought that I'm going to leave you with today. If everyone in your industry, this is my business owner's out there, if everyone in your industry does something the same way, ask yourself whether it's because that's genuinely the best way to do it, or whether everybody is just copying the person next to them, which when I take a step back and step outside of this whole crazy e-com fashion online business world that I'm in, that's what it feels like to me. I feel like we're all just doing the same sort of things because that's what you do and that's what people expect. But I could then go into that in life as well. We all just do the same thing day in day out for our whole lives. At the end of the day, maybe there is an opportunity sitting in doing the complete opposite. It might work, it might not. But sometimes you literally just have to be willing to find out. Anyway, I'm going to leave you with one final question in this episode. Just a random scenario. If you right now, wherever you are, or let's say not home, but just say you're at home and you went to your front door right now, and I was randomly there, and I could bring anything with me, like to give to you what would you hope that I had brought to you? And it can be anything, but actually don't answer that. Anyway, apparently there were clues in this episode. I still don't know what they're clues for, and apparently I'm not allowed to ask anyone, so I'm sure all of you will be completely normal about that. And if you figure out what is actually going on, actually, no, don't tell me. How about Kelly Channa? Okay, that's all for today's big business episode. And remember to chase after your dreams as if they owe you money.