#75 Making big money from salon waste with Paul Frasca of Sustainable Salons

Hey, Kyoto Sh. Welcome back to the latest episode of the Be Better podcast. Thank you to all our regular listeners, whoever you may be. Tell a friend it'd be really cool if we can have a few more listeners because I think this is important stuff that we're talking about. So with me today, I have got Paul Frasco. And I have a bit of a confession to make, because as you might have noticed more recently on the podcast, we have been delving into exclusively talking to B Corpse. And I thought that because what Paul is doing, he's doing so much good work, I was like, paul's a B corp. He's obviously a B corp. Turns out he isn't. But don't tell anyone. It'll just be our secret, all right? But Paul is such a legend and he's such a cool dude. I wanted him on the podcast anyway. And it's my podcast, so I could do what I want. So, Paul, how's it going?

Thanks, Tim. Hey, that's. That's an intro. Love it. No, I'm good, mate. I'm good. Thanks for having me.

We won't hold the fact that you're not a B corp against you, because you are. You are doing a bunch of cool stuff. Yeah. So for people who don't know you, who are you? What do you do?

Yeah. So Paul Frasca. Yeah. I'm a founder of Sustainable Salons. And we are a unique sustainability. You could call it a sustainability plugin to the feel good industries. So we focus on five key industries. That's hairdressing, barber, beauty, dermal clinic, and dog groomers. So they're our five key industries that we tackle and basically sell on sign up to us, like a membership. We then plug in. We take care of a whole range of things that basically take you. So let's paint a picture. So you could. You're a seller, owner, you love doing your work, which is pretty much coloring and cutting hair. But sustainability is a part of your core values. And you're always thinking, like, how do I implement all this? It's too hard, you know, like, what do you mean? I gotta drive my foil off to get recycled at the metal guy? Or I've gotta try to figure out how to be. Get my team a part of the local community. And there's all these added things that it's. It's adding onto the load of what your business is, which is really making people realize, I don't know if I can do all this. Like, so usually what most people do is they pick one or two Things and, and, and they probably struggle to keep that on a routine. They, you know, for, for staff where they're like, okay, let's do a volunteer day. But then it dies off and then they, there's no routine put into it. Where it, to us we see this as really, it should just be business as usual. You know, sustainability should just be plugged into your business and organizations like us in the future will just take over. So we let you do what you're good at, which is do hair. Let us take care of your value set which is basically people, planet and profit. So what does that actually mean in a salon? And I won't go through maybe all of it because it's quite a bit. But like the high level part is, you know, we're a very unique, comprehensive recycling service. We offer two very unique programs. So a door to door pickup service, the big bigger salons. And then we have an on demand service which is for the small, smaller because there's lots of businesses now that are just individuals so they don't need the total collection service door to door, where we've got this on demand service. So what's unique about this is we're recycling very complex material lines that can't go through a regular recycling service. Such things as aluminium foil. It's because it's contaminated. When it comes out of the salon, the recyclers don't touch it. Think of every type of plastic, shampoo bottles, peroxide bottles, you name it. Your local recycling pretty much can't touch any of it because it's all declared contaminated. But we can because we know what to do with that material lines. Human hair, we recycle it. Prior to us, nobody touched human hair or dog fur. And now we're generating product lines out of these materials and the list just goes on chemical waste, paper and so on and so on. So recycling is really at the core of kind of like that first step in. That's the first thing we're going to be showing your team. We're going to set it all up and before you know it, salons will set us so easy because we create all the separations with inside the salon. So you're putting the metals here, the paper there, the hair there and it becomes kind of a fun thing now inside the salon. So what do we also do with the materials is we also don't just recycle it, we closely manufacture these product lines too. So we now produce about 12 different product lines mainly throughout our plastics and hair. So starting with plastics, we make Everything from glasses, we make coasters, combs, dog leashes, a whole range of product lines from the plastic and then they're resold back within the businesses.

For example, our sunglasses range, we're now at 60,000 pairs of sunglasses produced from the shampoo bottles. And that's called the shoe collection. Very popular sunglasses. And then when it comes to other popular products like our combs, yeah, they're just going off the shelf now because what we're selling now on values, we're not really selling your product, we're selling you the why behind the product. And really the comb is the default product. So that's really cool for a selling because it's entering them in the circular economy by default. So they haven't had to do anything except sign up to us. We take your shampoo bottles, we produce a product, we get it back to you and then you can resell it back within the business and, and generate profits from that, which is really cool. So, so closed loop manufacturing is really close to our heart. So let me move maybe a little bit out of the planet for a second here and I'll move a little bit into now the people part. So the people part of what we do is we're connecting you to local communities and charitable services. So what does that mean? We actually provide a whole range of services like haircuts for the homeless, or it could be internal events, education, what's happening inside the salon. To really start connecting you to the community and making sure that you're adding value back into your local community. Because sustainability represents a key word which is called localism, you know, not globalism. It doesn't mean you can't be a global company, it's just how do you bring it to a local level? And that's what we're doing. So if you're in Christchurch, we're going to bring it to Christchurch. If you're in Wellington, we're going to bring it to Wellington. You know, everything doesn't just end up in Auckland, right? And that's not. It's like the same problem in Australia. Everything shouldn't end up in Sydney. So how do we keep it in Perth? How do we keep it in Brisbane? So we're really. We just had a big event last week. We had, I think we provided over 500 haircuts, 600 donation packs of food, 700 clothing packages and about 1000 participants came to our event. And again, really exciting for our members to come and be part of. So that's really key. The other part, to the people is who we employ. 50% of our staff have a disability. So 47 of our staff will have a disability and we employ them right through our network. Whether you're part of our Drive Team Depot team, so they're sorting your shampoo bottle, there may be in the vehicle driving. So in, for example, in Christchurch, our driver there is a level 4 disability supported employee, so he can actually drive. And he put his hand up to say to us, I want to drive for you guys. So we let him on a journey. And just like everyone's journey in a normal company, how do we get you to where you want to go? You know, it's really important to us. So we've got a lot of our supported employees that are actually on a journey to go to the next stage, whether it's drive a forklift or I want to be independent. For example, we had someone who wanted to leave, leave home away from his parents, move in with his friends, but be fully independent. So what he needed was a wage, just a simple wage. He couldn't get that under the disability, what we call the ndis in Australia. So that was a real shame. So we can work with that individual to get them on their right journey. And for our salons, again, that's why you sign up to us, because they want to know that they're. They're a part of that solution, you know, and that's really cool. Now, the last one, which I'll touch on is profitability, which is kind of the scary one, right? Everyone's like, oh, don't talk about profit when you talk about the planet. Don't talk about, you know, making money. I'm like, that's exactly what you should be talking about. You should be trying to be Tesla, like the, the pinnacle of the greatest, you know, company in the world today that's saving the planet, bringing jobs back to the community and generating profits and wiping out. What we call, you know, the legacy world is Tesla, right? They don't have to be a charity, you don't have to be an ngo. You just got to build a better product. And that's what we say. We build an awesome product that's driving consumer behavior. And by default, it's made us now the number one directory service in the hair and beauty industry across Australia and New Zealand. So we drive more consumers inside salons than now the biggest brands. And we spend nothing on marketing to achieve that. All we do is deliver good. And when you do good, people want to support good. And that's where people want to vote with their dollar within the community. So we're really proud about our directory now. We just went through a rebrand and the minute you touch our website now, bang. We're trying to drive you to the, to your local sustainable salon, whether it's a dog groomer, hair service, beauty service. And today we're estimating in 2022 we derived about $9 million of new business to sustainable salons. And this year we're looking at near 15 million. So it's, you can see just how much people are wanting to spend now in, in good. In their community.

Man.

Yeah, you are just smashing, like, so much impact on so many different levels.

It's good. There's a lot to unpack there. And the dog grooming as well. Didn't know that you got into the dog ring.

Man. So, I mean, where did it all start, though? Because obviously you didn't. This wasn't day one. You weren't doing all of this. Like, so, so what was the initial product? Well, before we get into that, I think, yeah, just to totally, totally reiterate what you said, I, I. When I first got into this world of trying to do good and realizing that there's a whole way that the legacy businesses have been operating that typically can lead to some externalities and some bad outcomes for people on planet, initially I was like, really angry with that and angry with the world. And I used to call myself a professional agitator. You need to get in there and like, come on, people. Like, can't you see what's going on?

Wake up, wake up.

Yeah, wake up. Shake people. But oddly enough, people don't respond to that. They, they actually get turned off by that. And I just love what you were saying there. You know, you just, you've created this thing that people want to be a part of. And I think for anyone who's listening in, who's like, how do I get people to want to support the thing that I'm trying to do or the change I'm trying to make? I always say that you have to be having the best party on the street. And it clearly sounds like you are having some kind of ultra rave with all sorts of LEDs and laser shows and the best DJs, because clearly people are just like, that just looks cool. I want to be a part of it. And I think that is the key. Like you say, like, make it as, as cool as a Tesla. Like, I just kind of want one. They just look good. They look. And they're a ton of fun to drive and, you know I think yeah.

He just build a better product and, and the consumer will decide in the end, like in the beginning you'll get your look. If you're, I always say to someone, if you're going for purely on values you got, there's going to be the low hanging fruit which are the people that care like you. But the minute you want to scale, you're going to start dealing with business owners and people that are very not with your views. They're going to be liberal or they're going to be labor and they're not green people, whatever. And, and all of a sudden, especially when you wanted to go B2B, most people that own small businesses or even medium sized businesses, they're very liberal minded. You know by, and this happens just organically because once you start owning a business, you deal with lots of stuff. You deal with so much dirt, you eventually become this bitter liberal person because it's, life's just, it's bloody hard running a company. You know, I've got over 100 staff, I know it, it's really hard. And, and, and you start thinking a different way. But saying that, I always said, well how do I convince that person? And I always used to put that back to my grandfather. My grandfather grew up, he, we grew up on a farm, like a rose farm. And, and my grandfather was pretty much the greenest person you ever met. Like everything we ate off the farm, everything came off the farm. But yet he was super liberal.

The greens. And this is how he talks Italian. I don't trust any of these crazy green people. And I'm like, you are the greenest person I know.

Yeah.

Like, how could you, like you don't get any greener. How could you not? Because you're like, I am making money. And you're like, I get it. For you, money is everything. You just know how to run a super efficient organic green farm. But that's that, that's your passion. But your primary goal is to make money. So most people who run businesses, and I'll give you this analogy now, is when I go visit a salon and you go talk to them and they're super liberal. Well, I don't start with the green angle. I just say, well, how can we make you a ton of money after that? They're like paint me green, I'll be as green as you want. They're not anti greens, anti not making money. So show them a business argument. And that's what Tesla did. Like it showed a business argument to say you're about to spend $60,000 on a car. Well, this car is going to outperform that car by 3x. You know, it's lifetime, it's software, blah blah, blah, blah. And, and then you're like well of course I'm going to buy this. It's heaps better product.

Yeah, totally agree, totally agree. And we're the same, you know, when we're, we sort of two groups of people we might often be talking to. One would be a potential actual business owner who has had some kind of pressure. Either there's some maybe supply chain pressure or increasingly we're seeing banks putting pressure on businesses to say hey, we need to know what you're doing around social and environmental stuff or yeah, there might be employee pressure or yeah, something along those lines. Or we get what I call like the concerned citizen. So typically it's a mid level employee or a low level employee at a company who loves what B Corp's all about. And they're like hey, how do I sell this to my boss? How do I get the conversation? And for me it's the inner sales guy me, I always bring it back to what are the top three things keeping your business owner or, or board awake at night? And it's typically going to be talent, retention and attraction. It's going to be customer attraction and retention, increased profitability, increased revenue. We've got some supply chain pressures, we've got increased competition. All of those things can be solved through this lens of doing good. Doing good as in people plan it and 100 that's, that's where we align it with every, almost every sales conversation we. I don't even feel like it's a sales conversation. We're having conversations with interested people who want to know a little bit more about B Corp. And it's like actually if you nail the doing good piece, there is so much data and evidence that you will have a more profitable and a, and a higher revenue business and you get to do good. It's not. Whereas I think, yeah, I think historically it's kind of been sold as you need to stop doing everything that you're doing and how you're doing it and you need to put a sackcloth on. And once you've stopped self flagellating yourself for 10 years for being evil, then you can give away all your money and then you'll be a good business. And yeah, that's not true.

And again that's what I call a 90s business model mindset. So when you're dealing with someone who was probably having Their prime in the 90s, they think that way. And I get it. It's like, that's back then, that's how you operate. It's how you rolled. You know, there was different equality back then. There was different problems to solve. So today it's radically changed. And like you said, data has now delivered us a whole different prism to look through. And everyone is now like, actually, if you look at the data correctly here. And I gave recently some advice to a general manager of a big multinational and said, well, because we make products now from recycled material. But I said, what's funny though is that when you make a shampoo bottle, for example, your bottle, how much does it cost? And he's like, oh, it's about, you know, after we go through all the production, it's about 8 cents a bottle, something like that. And I said, I said, it's funny because I sell that same bottle in a pair of sunglasses for $89.

Yeah.

The margins that I can pull out of your waste now is epic. And you actually don't realize just how valuable your own waste is now. Can I give you another example? I know a guy that collected over 20 tons of, of Great Ocean. So the Great Barrier Reef, he collected 20 tons of plastic as a volunteer with people over five years. They, they, they just stored it all up. How much do you think per kilo that is worth today?

Well, no idea, you know.

Yeah, so he can, he can, he can generate up to around 10 to 15 per kilo now because that's how much companies are willing to pay for just getting that plastic to make their products now because it's got the story there. It's like, that's the, that's from the, the Great Barrier Reef. Like, and it has the, it has the story. That's the, the supply chain that you need as a, as a multinational to be like, I can trust that that plastic came from there because you're going to need that trust. And then on top of that, the customer, when they buy a pair of glasses and it's made by the Great Ocean, you know, Great Barrier Reef Ocean plastic. Wow. Like, the margin difference is nearly 30%. Just under 30% you can add to a product. So most companies run off a margin of around about 10% profit. You know, if they're really good, usually even lower down to about 6%. But imagine you could add 30% to that. So that's, that's adding a 300 markup on your product. That's what I tell people. That's how big this game is and trying to find profits. Well that you've actually, you just don't realize the value of what you're sending out. You know, because you're sending out a brand but you don't realize at the other end people want to know that it's been taken care of and they'll buy it back. So there's, there's soon going to be circular business models within multinationals. Like I feel that they're going to eventually catch on to realizing, you know out if we want to hold a customer to our brand today, well, we're going to have to not only nail the circular economy, we're going to have to actually be part of it within our own business model.

New times are coming.

Yeah, man. No, I totally agree. And you definitely, I think you're definitely seeing evidence of, yeah at least heightened awareness of how we manufacture our products and part, you know, even components of it and yeah, and 100% that whole brand story, that's, you know. Yeah, that's, and I think that's partly what we're seeing driving that supply chain pressure where the brand that is being sold through the retailer, the sort of, the battleground is shifting from what can that brand tell us a good story about how they make their products and how do they treat their staff in particularly in health, health and beauty food and beverage. That that battle is kind of now being sort of normalized that okay, well if you're not doing something good for people in planet in that sector, okay, well that's a bit shifty possibly and we're not so sure. So now the battleground is moving to not only do we make the product in an ethical way and we're doing our community work and what have you. Did you know that we get all our raw materials from this amazing. You know, and so yeah, that, that provenance of supply chain. Um, yeah, increasingly like you say that hey, where does this go when I'm done with it? That's, that's now on you, not, not on me as the consumer. So yeah man, no, you, you, there's.

A whole, there's a whole new customer base now for brands to go get. Because if you can demonstrate that someone who never bought your brand before is all of a sudden attracted to you because you actually give a right and then you're like I, I, I care about. And that could be the nastiest brands we know today. Right. You know, the brands that, you know, I won't mention it, but you know what I mean? Like those brands that you know they do. They've never done good. They've always sold this big story of whatever, but in the end they're just developing cheap and nasty. You see all their stuff on parks and litters and this and that. But in the end I'm like, guys, you don't realize that you actually, you, first of all, you already got these locations everywhere, so you've got drop off zones everywhere. The materials are being actually collected inside your stores half the time so you can actually get the material back. And the word I like to use here is above ground mining. It helps resonate with liberal people because when I'm in government, they don't get, they think you're the, like, you know, Scott Morrison once said to me, he's like, oh, you're, you're that green guy. And I said, do you call the miners greenies? And then of course everyone laughed and I said, well, I'm just an above ground miner. Like, you know, you know, crucify me. I'm like, it's materials that were actually all above ground that are actually then helping to stimulate manufacturing locally back in Australia. Do you want me to stop jobs too? Like if we're going to talk politics right now, like, what are you actually, if anything, you're actually promoting more stuff from abroad to come into our country because you're not stimulating the local economy. And it shuts them up real fast. And they get it. They're like, no, actually now you're talking my language. Because I don't, like I always say to someone, especially in the green space, you don't have to, you don't have to go preach the planet anymore, you know, trust me, everyone gets it. Whether you're liberal labor or greens, where everyone knows what's going on. It's just what I need to now know is how do I turn this into a model that works so I can keep my like back to that profit, keep my profits moving in an upwards direction. And that's all you got to focus on because every company is looking for their angle now. It's just how can you deliver to me? Because the why has been pretty much covered. And, and even for those people that say, look, I still don't believe in climate change and all this, that they will believe in profit.

So just give them the profit angle because it's already there. Like you said, the data's there, their competitors are probably doing it to them already. They're like, damn it. And they want to challenge every, everything that they're saying. And is it true? Is it Certified. Is it that? Is it that? And I was like, good. Should challenge it. It's all challengeable because once you get it right, look how quickly you generate a new profit stream that comes through your business and, and attracting the conscious consumer today is so powerful because if you get this part right, well, the, the next big brands will be green brands. They already are. And you can see it right across the board now from just about any, Anything you look at, it's anything that's actually already got an angle to come into this space, whether it's a, the, the Frank Green coffee cup to, to looking at Tom shoes and things like this. It's like it's not the shoe you were buying, it was the purpose. It's not, it's not the, it's not the coffee cup, it's the why that. It works for me, it works with my lifestyle, it's fashionable, it works within my world, it's business as usual again. It's just making it feel like. Yep, I get it.

Yeah, man. No, totally agree. And.

Yeah, it's the.

I, I kind of, I don't care if people get into it to make more money because once they get into when, you know, doing good is contagious.

I do. I, I actually say to people, if you're not in this to actually make money, then probably get out now. Because I say you making money is going to make what you're doing.

10 times bigger. Because the only thing that stops you in the first five years is probably because you didn't generate enough money and you burnt out because you couldn't get the talent and hold the talent internally. Because people love to come and be a volunteer, but they tend to not do it for too long and they tend to be like a contractor, they pick their own hours. How do they want to work? It doesn't work. What you need is an infrastructure. Like the greatest thing about a business is it's an infrastructure and you know, staff turn up at 9 o', clock, you work till 5 and if you said to your staff you're going to earn $100,000 a year, well, they stick around a lot longer. If they paid 150, they're going to stick around even a lot longer. I'm so proud today I can pay my staff equally to working for a multinational. You know, the question now is, is just, is just that we have constantly, is when are you going to employ me?

Nice.

We have that many CVs that come through because people like I need to work for that. So sorry to stop you there. But I truly believe that when I talk to a charity or ngo, anybody is, you're doing God's work. You don't realize how valuable you are. You're so valuable to the local community, to sustainability.

And I have a prediction about this in the Future, because when AI's in and we're going to start to see automation take off, well, the next currency is going to be social currency. It's, what do you do for your community is going to be highly valuable. Do I. Do I take care of kids in that community? Do I walk dogs in the community? Do I? There's, there's, there's some amazing papers written on this, which is all a part of the. I don't know if you've read much into this, but it's the minimum wage for all. It's a, it's a paper written that. They're actually testing it out as we speak, where they're giving individuals kind of like covert. I actually think this is a perfect example of it. They gave you the $4,000 a month or three, depending which country you're in, and you just have to live off it. But we all got equal. And then it didn't stop you from going to make more money, go off and make hundreds of thousands of dollars. But if you said to yourself, actually, that's enough for me, I actually just want to be of added value to my local community garden. Well, no one's here to argue that. And you know what? You can use that money to take your kids to a better school because now you've got choices, you've got money, you can move, you can, you can operate differently. And it's a very fascinating new world that could come out of that. And I actually think people and purpose is going to be driven because what we found through Covid is, damn, dude. Everyone want to add value into the community. I still, I don't know about you, Tim. I meet people that are like, they say, oh, I've met so many locals, you know, I just liked it. I love walking every day and feeling, feeling alive, you know, I didn't feel like, you know, just felt good. And you're like, yeah, wow. Like, for people like me, I didn't get that break. I had to work hard through Covid, but it was nice to see everyone else just using that time wisely and recharging.

Yeah. My experience was probably a bit mixed, trying to keep the business going when pretty much coaching and training just was like, yeah, look, yeah, maybe give us a call in November if We're still here. Sure. We'll kind of look at it. And then being thrust into the world of being a primary school teacher and primary caregiver for a. I don't know what she would have been maybe 8 year old daughter at the time. Yeah.

Yeah.

Interesting times. But I know you're an owner, you.

Have a different perspective when you're see. But if you're just a worker and the company said there's your way.

Totally.

You're like life's good. They, they were cruising for all of us owners. We're still crying.

Yeah. Literally on the inside. Yeah. But I know what you mean. Yeah. And it is that for me is at the heart of almost all of the social and environmental change that needs to happen. It's kind of like you follow the money and where does it end up ends up in the financial system. Do you know Tim o'? Brien?

That's ring a bell, that name.

He does similar stuff to me based in.

Okay.

I've just, I've been noticing he's done a couple of posts recently on socials about he's really getting into the financial system. And for me that, that's always been the heart of it is, you know, the reason why we all have to go to work and do what we need to do is because we all need to earn money to pay off the debt that we have that's typically attached to the building that we call our home. And so if, if you. I'm almost like instead of working out, how do we give people free money that pays the mortgage? How do we reset the world so that maybe you don't need a mortgage or you, if you do need a mortgage, it's like half a percent or 1% so that actually, I mean the bank's still earning money but you're not crucifying yourself to try and pay this massive amount of money back over your lifetime. Which is. Yeah, I almost think there's a. We're going to get into, we're going.

To get into the conversation of capitalism and is it good still? And, and it's a very. This is what a lot of people don't say because has. And I mean this in, in very broad terms, has democracy died and capitalism and need to rethink itself because it is coming to a point now where we don't know what truth is anymore. Totally get it. Yeah. It's. It's what I call information overload. So you've got so much information coming from everywhere. It's. It's not that you Believe you just don't care because now my attention's on something else and everything's in 15 second cycles. And you're just like, oh, for God's sake. It's like emails. Like, I don't know, if someone sends you a big long email, you're just like.

It'S like, that's.

It'S just like, talk to me in, in like one line and, and that's it. And the reality is, is times have changed and when it comes to, you know, look at the economy, like growth, well, what are we just going to have to live in an endless growth cycle? Like, does growth really pursue happiness? And, and you see now countries actually got ministers of happiness now. And so what does that mean? I think the meaning of that is, is going to be very true. I heard a great podcast. I was watching an interview last night and it's a guy who interviews successful tech entrepreneurs. And it was very fascinating how the tech entrepreneur said, well, the reality is, is, well, if you actually, because he wrote a paper about what is happiness, people think if I make money, I'm happy and all this, but it's actually the journey that made you fulfill the purpose. So usually it's your life of a journey of like this, you calling me, us having a chat, doing all this. Because if someone paid you out tomorrow and said, Here's $5 million and you're like, that's it done. Get a camper van and drive around. Most of the people they interviewed that, that got bought out of a company or did something like that, they actually had no purpose anymore. They became lost souls. Because you're like, well, I've got no one to impress anymore. All I got to do when I turn up to something is say I made lots of money. People look at me differently. And then all of a sudden I get it. I don't have any real interaction anymore because people just want to talk about my money and it's just like, or how much they earn or how successful I am. It's like, I just want to have a normal, like you can't get a normal conversation. And you're not getting those phone calls anymore about, you know, hey, can we chat? I need to bounce ideas off you. You don't get that anymore. And, and purpose is everything but that, that go. That, that does bring me back to like this, this paper. And it's fascinating to read about, about minimum wage for all, because what it's talking about is if, if we, if AI does come in as we see fit. So in 30 years there is a very strong argument that things will nearly cost nothing. So things, items that we take today through autonomy through 3D printing and what's going to come through is that goods will just nearly be cents on the dollar. So jobs are going to be nearly wiped out just in about 40% of field. So what is everyone going to do? Even if you've got some money and that conversation of purpose is going to be everything. Like, what is your day look like? It's going to be very different. And I actually said everyone, if you're a worker and you're in Covid, well, that's pretty much it. You're going to wake up, you can play games if that's what sparks you joy, you can walk dogs, you can catch up with your mates for fishing. All these things, they're going to be really possible. And it sounds weird today, but Covid showed it. It just got to be able to pay it out. Someone then said to me, but where does all that money come from? And I said, well, if you actually calculate all the lost money and what governments pay out, the governments pay all this money for your health care, schooling, all of that money. Well, they don't pay that anymore. All that money is what pays for your minimum wage.

Yep.

So you don't get a, a government Medicare system anymore. There's no, there's no medical system. It's just you've got money now, so you pay for your private system that runs through again. I won't go too deep, but it's very fascinating and you should see, they're already about, I think a year and a half in, where there's 3,000 people in the world that are actually on this at the moment from all different countries and watching how they're acting. And there's even videos and documentaries on. Yeah. What does six months look like? Well, you don't.

Yeah, I mean, I mean, yeah, I think it's really interesting. I just don't understand economics. Although sometimes I wonder if the economists actually understand economics either. That's a better, you know, that's a.

Better way of putting it. They don't.

Trust me.

Yeah, they don't. When you talk to them like it's, it's, it's magic dust.

Yeah.

All the time. So you, you go turn up to big meetings with big numbers rolling around and it's like you've got usually one report for the shareholders and one for this and one for the company because. And I'm like, well, what's truth? It's just, look, look at the banking system, look, let's not go too deep here. But they just make up that where's cash gone? That's wiped out now. It's just. And then they add digits on top of digits and even banks are like, whoa, how deep down this rabbit hole do we go?

Well, that's why for me, I think it does come down to the banking system because I remember when we got the mortgage on this house that I'm sitting in and the lady from the bank said, okay, well how much do you need to borrow? And we said X amount. And she goes, great, how long do you want to pay it off? What period you want to pay it off over? Longest we can get. And then she plugged in some numbers and this is all just on an iPad. And then she goes, okay, well, based on the current interest rate, which is, you know, arbitrarily made by some blokes in Wellington, you know, I was this amount of money and I remember sitting there just thinking, none of that money is real. Like you have made this money has just been made up on this screen. So you could halve that number and give us a 1% interest rate and the world would still keep spinning on.

Its axis and they'll still be making.

Decent profits and you're still making money. And that for me does come to the heart of it. It's this modern sort of fractional reserve banking system where, yeah, the banks just print money out of thin air, but.

They'Re not exploiting you for every last cent that you have. Yeah, that's capitalism is how much money can I take from you that drives you to the point of not wanting to purchase my product.

Yeah, but I think, I think the origins of capitalism I'm doing, I've done a little bit of research on this, needs a little bit more. Although I mentioned this on a recent episode.

Just blame the Greeks.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It all comes down to the Greeks, what the Greeks ever done for us. Yeah, the, you know, so the origins of business and commerce was, you know, I have something that you need. We agree on a quality and on a price. And you're probably going to be, well, either in a local community where I'm going to see you in the next few days. So if it's really shit quality and I feel like you've shafted me, we're going to have a conversation about it or we're trading over long distances and I'm going to build up a long term relationship with you and I'm going to come and bring my wool and in exchange I want some spices, but I'm going to come back every year. And so there has to be that trust in that relationship. And where I think the modern world and I. And although as my mate said. Yeah, but what about like the, the East India Company, which was like a mercenary private army. Yeah, yeah, but again, that's, I think that's at the extreme end of it, done badly. But I think where the modern world has gone, I, I don't think. Well, my current thinking is I don't believe it's necessarily capitalism because I think the idea of mutual exchange for shared benefit, where you both agree that that's a good exchange, that's cool. But when it's been so almost like leveraged and taken, like I say, the whole mortgage world, you know, you're now looking down the barrel of some, some families having intergenerational mortgages like they already do in some places in Europe.

Yeah, Japan. Yeah, yeah.

And so, but that. Because that's just now so normalized for them. They don't. No one sort of, you know, we've.

Run out of front, we've run out of Runway.

Yeah.

And so he's built another one. So it's the next generation.

You're like, yeah, so we just keep extending it. So for me, it's not necessarily capitalism and profit. It's. It's profiteering. It's like, you know, you'd think someone in, someone with some sense of humanity would look at that in the bank and go, this is ridiculous. Like, how can we, how does this happen? I mean, I suppose the counter argument that would be say, well, you're probably creating really strong communities because no one can fucking leave the house because they're stuck there for three generations. So I mean, that's a small marginal gain, unintended consequence. But yeah, for me, it just comes back to. And some of these bigger companies, you know, like the company we're talking about with the shampoo product, you sort of go, well, okay, if you can make the shampoo bottle for that price, the ingredients aren't going to be that much more. So why are you selling it for? You know, so, yeah, $30. Make money, but don't take the piss out of it. I think is, is kind of.

Look, I totally hear you, but I. The kind of like the way I've saw this over time. Well, I always like to see how, how would you respond when you're in that same position. So, for example, like, someone's willing to pay you nearly 10 times more than what you're currently charging for your service, would you take it or would you say, no, no, no, no, I still want to give it to you. This, this price. Then all of a sudden you start feeling cheap and you're like, wait a second, because why does someone want to spend more time? Because they're valuing your brand, they're valuing your service. And, and there is a lot of good in that. And could I also like to put to the fact that capitalism was also as much as everyone's like, yeah, it's bad. I'm like, but we're living better than ever. All the stats show we're living longer than ever. Better than ever. Like, you know, it's, there's no, there's no argument I can see yet that we're living worse off. Planet is getting a bit worse for wear along this journey. But again, it's going to stimulate a whole new way of thinking and products and services future that need to be invented and created. Will we solve that in time before, you know, doom. Hope, hopefully. I hope that humanity can solve it quick enough. But the reality is we are. The evidence still shows that with all this investment in innovation and investment. Because someone said to me during COVID oh, look at these, these pharmaceuticals, the billions and billions of dollars they get, get sent to, to do what they do. I'm like, yeah, but they're making us live longer. We're living longer still. Like, I know some of them are pretty bad. Go watch that Netflix thing. What's it called? Painkiller. Oh my God. Yeah. Okay, that, that's not the company I'm talking about. We're not talking opioids here. We're talking like, yeah, drugs that are really trying to solve problems. And, and we're living so, so it sucks. But, and it's like the shampoos or whatever products you're buying on shelves that they are still delivering better results than they were 50 years ago. And, and 100 years ago. And people say, oh, but in the bush, they did it like this. But yeah, but they had lifespans to 40. Yeah. And now we've got lifespans. Like I read the other day, if you're in your 50s today, your expected life expectancy for a guy is going to be 88 years old. Like, you're going to jump by nearly seven years on your parents. And, and with technologies that are coming with quantum computing because they're not countering in quantum. And, and what's happening in AI.

You could even see that number even having another 10 years put on it too, because they can really start to slow down the aging process soon. So. So if you want to live longer. But yeah, the evidence is still there and the data's got to show it. But I think the biggest confronting thing that we've got to face as a, as a, as a population coming forward, the one thing we do, capitalism actually is, could be a complete negative, is the planet. The planet is starving. And when I say that it's burning, it's starving, it's mismanaged, it's, it's actually, it's ridiculous. Like if you're a smart, intelligent alien creature looking down on us, we saw these dumb ants that are just so dumb that we run into each other time. Ants are actually quite smart. I shouldn't be saying that it's disrespecting the end.

Actually trying to think what animal here? But we're really quite silly, you know, because again, why wouldn't we, if we're going to farm land, wouldn't we want to protect that land for it to have, you know, a thousand yields off that one land? Why would we want to contaminate the crap out of it, Chemical the crap out of it, sink it into our water table, drink that water, like, like we're just slowing down everything. And if we do that to a degree, Well, I said to some the other day, if you don't believe in climate change, well, look at it this way, just go sit in your car, you know, get the exhaust, put a pipe into your car, close the windows, and then you can start to feel how, how it affects you. First it's going to be like, everything's fine. That's where we're at today. But give it a couple more minutes in about three to five minutes where you're going to starve for oxygen. And that's what's happening to the planet. We're just starving at a box and you breathe oxygen. So that's a really dumb experiment, easy one to fix, and actually it's quite inspirational to fix. Like, I don't know about you, I was about to swear it's like mental when you see awesome sustainability in action. Products that are just like, you're like, what, you can do what, you know, like what we do with hair recycling. I think it's blowing people's minds. You know, they're like, hair. And I'm like, yeah, well, it's an organic product, sits on your head. It's all organic material, has a purpose on this planet. You just got to figure out where it's going to be best place. And when we. Because we. We've invested over six years of R and D research into human hair, we've actually now found out all. So now we know exactly the composition of hair. Now we can actually target it to specific things we want to solve. So yes, we know we can clean up oil spills with hair without doing too much processing. But one of our next products that we're launching is called Hair. No shit. Which is a fertilizer. When I say fertilizer, an organic fertilizer, which is probably not the right way to say it because fertilizer actually means chemicals. So you could say an organic supercharged soil for your plants. And basically we found a way to pulverize the hair, extract the nutrients. So we're releasing calcium, nitrogen, it's 50% carbon. And we're going to produce this awesome product that we now sell that product to gardeners and different people that want to now use that. But what that's going to solve in the long term is mainly carbon. The carbon problem of getting carbon back into the soil because that's. Farmers need carbon in the soil and hair is 50% carbon. So it's like it's. The answer's on top of your head farmer. And all we're going to do is get that in the soil fast. And one of the coolest products we've got coming out with hair is we've got hair going into technology because you hear about rare earth metals. Well, human hair. We've got three papers published on this now is air can actually replace a part of the conductor system for your OLED displays. Solar panels, batteries of the future. So when we. So you'll see next year we're going to. We've actually got a little documentary that's out on SBS at the moment. So if you type in the feed SPF and human hair, you'll see a documentary appear on Google and basically, yeah, you can start seeing this little world we're in at the moment and our investment. But who knows, maybe your next Samsung or even iPhone could actually have parts of your human hair inside there that's powering your machine. And again, is it really that weird? It is. If you looked in the 90s and we were watching Beyond 2000, sorry, you know, back to the future, putting waste in there to power the car. But this is now becoming a reality and it's just science that's getting us there. So for all those anti science people, I'm like science is brilliant because it's so subjective and it constantly Evolves, you know, so waste is just going to be this resource and we're going to above ground mine it and we're going to feed it into our future products.

Love that. Above ground mining. And I write that down.

There's, there's a, there's a. In the uk, in the north of England, particularly Yorkshire, there's a famous saying, where there's muck, there's brass. So you know where the waste is, that's where the money is.

That's it.

It's maybe. Yeah, we haven't been Christian. Been thinking about that. So how. So I guess you've got about eight minutes left. Is that right before you need to.

Oh, I actually, I just checked. So no, I've still got 20 minutes.

Sweet. Because I think the two, two big questions I've got is, so how did you start all this? Like what, what was, what was the process behind launching this? And then how do you go about processing? Because you've, I think you and I are quite similar, although I think you'll come up with way more ideas per second than I am. So how did you, how did you get this thing off the ground to start with? And then how do you ideate and process or get all these ideas out and actually execute on them?

Pure grunt force. If anyone thinks this is easy, it's not and there's no such thing. And I think I've been very lucky. I was brought up on a farm. I was brought up to work from a very young age. So work became normalized to me very early. So to me when people ask me, how do you do all this? I'm like, do what? This is just, this is just my life. So I wake up, you know, I don't, I don't wake up and try to think about cruising. I'm like, who am I calling? So that's, that's number one. So to get, go back a bit here is people always think that I was very green guy and all this. I actually, I was more like my grandfather. Very, I was a liberal green, you know, cared about the planet but I also cared about how to make money. So I actually started my first Tesla when I was like 19. You know, I was very fascinated by business models and how to charge for services and how to make money. So fast track a little bit. I ended up in the Netherlands by default. So I went for two weeks and stayed eight years. The Amsterdam will do that to anyone. And, and, and then basically I met my partner Evelina and she was studying fashion sustainability and I still Remember the first night we met? Old school wasn't Tinder. We met like at an old school party in the kitchen. And I' you and who are you? And she. And then she's like, well, I do. I was like, what's fashion sustainability speak to me. She's like, oh, I study the supply chain. Kind of like what we know is blockchain today. She goes, well, we could trace your top all the way back to where the water came from, where the cotton came from, where I was like, stop it. How. How do you know that? And where. She's like, it's easy. You just got to go back through. Follow the money. Follow the money, basically. And when you follow that. And I was like, that is so fascinating. So I remember going back to the hair salon. So this is 2005. And I'm staring at the floor going, where does the hair go? Where does the metal go? Where does the plastic go? And where does all this end up? And then I did a bit of my own research and back then I'm like, geez, we just dump everything. And I was very lucky at that time. There was a famous person who wrote a book called Cradle to Cradle. I don't know if you've heard about that. It's a really brilliant book and I encourage anyone to read it by Michael Boogart and the other chat now, but. And he was giving a talk in the Netherlands. I was lucky enough to see it, got inspired and then I said to my partner, well, let's get you out of fashion industry and let's go to an industry I know really well. And basically let's focus on the hairdressing industry first. And that's how we kind of got into this. So we, we pretty much just wrote a fantasy business plan. I didn't, I said to my partner, don't worry about the money. Money's easy. What's hard is building something that people actually want. Like that is hard, you know, and if you could build something that people actually want, well, now you can start to build the, the margin and the profit based on that. And that's what we did. So we focused on this, this beautiful idea of recycling and collecting it and making things and doing all this. And then we figured out, okay, how much do we have to charge for that? Build it up into a modern day model, which is like a membership program. And. And then that was it. So we started that back in 2010. It took us, it took us nearly five years to build up enough revenue.

Enough money, I should say, to start sustainable Salons. And we. So for the first five years, how we did that was we actually started another company called Refoil, which is the first ever foil made from recycled aluminium. Because Sustainable Salons was too expensive. We just, like, we didn't have a million bucks. We don't want to go to the bank. I'm Italian, I don't get loans, you know. You know, we are the bank, you know, we don't do loans. Like, I spend what I've got and I usually save half of that. So with. What do they call that? Tight ass. That's us, right? And. And basically, so we start. I remember thinking, well, if we started a simple product, try to build that first, something very simple that we can afford, build up enough revenue, then we'll do it. And that's what happened. So Refoil got us to, for the first five years, to enough capital, and then we launched Sustainable Salons. And then we've had huge success with Sustainable Salons for the last nearly 10 years. So, yeah, it's been that journey. So I tell anyone, it's not like we just. It's, you know, it's been. It's been a long journey. And if I go back to 2010, I still remember talking to people, I'm like, hey, sustainability. They're like, what? Yeah, because the words then were natural, organic, you know, and people were just going gaga for the word organic. And I was like, oh, that's a dangerous word. And then natural, I'm like, is that even a word? And then the word clean, and I'm like, what does clean mean? Like, these are dangerous words because they actually have no meaning. So hence the reason why we chose the word sustainable salons as our brand. Because we're like, it means something. It's got to have the depth of actually a purpose. And I always said to everyone, you're not going to hear this word disappear. Like, it's going to keep growing because it actually has pillars and that's why governments and everyone's latched to that. So, yeah, that's a bit of the story.

Nice. That's. Yeah. Smart man. Yeah. Build. Build your revenue. Don't. Yeah, don't over capitalize or. Or go get too much money from. From investors. You've never looked at doing, like, crowdfunding or anything like that at any point.

You just bootstrap the whole way. Well, I always said everyone, and in the whole investment space and all that, that's. That's a dangerous space a lot these days. It was good a few years ago today, if you're going to VCs and try and raise money and go down that path early, you're giving. It's. I don't know if you watch Shark Tank or one of those Dragons Dance or something. I'm like, you know, these are also suicide partnerships for a lot of people because you're giving up 30%. Like, like you're probably going to be lucky enough to hold on to 10 to 15% along this journey over the next five years because you're just gonna realize that you don't run or own this company. You're just the hardest worker for this company.

Yeah, yeah.

They actually own it. And when people give up such big portions, you, when you see their term sheets, oh, people are like, you are basically about to be whipped for the next five years. And, and, and you think you, you just hold this title of founder. I say to someone, there's nothing wrong with investment, but I would say get a proof of concept off the ground first. Verify it. So make a shampoo. Verify it. Let's call it a sustainable shampoo. Verify it. Sell it into about 100 clients first. Now go for money.

Yep.

Don't sell them a dream and say, I think I can make, I can make this. Well, they're going to demand too much and you're going to have to give up all that because you're, you just don't have that confidence. And I, the best advice was always given to me by someone early on was, if you're going to start something, don't try to sell 10 things, just try to sell one thing. So what's. If you're going to build a range that's called a food range of banana products, we'll just focus on one banana product first, whatever that is. And that is gonna, and you're gonna verify lots of things. Biggest one is what does a customer even say to you when you give it to them? What's the customer journey look like? Because you're gonna. If you create 10 things, well, maybe all of them are crap. And you just, you just went bankrupt on day one.

Yeah.

At least you can chip away at it with 1, 2, 3. And always start in just one area. So if you're in New Zealand, like you're doing this out of Wellington, just focus on Wellington. Don't try to go knock out Auckland and all this, because if you can't get Wellington right, well, Auckland's going to destroy you.

Yeah. 100%. Yeah. That was something I suffered on or suffered from for quite a few years. Starting this Business was, you know, I started out doing the sales training because that's what I came from. I was really passionate about helping people, you know, understand what B Corp was. So I was like, hey, we can kind of do sales and B Corp. It's like, well those are two quite different customer, you know, segments. And obviously we, we've prioritized well, we've done sales training for Purpose Driven, B Corp, what have you. So there's a bit of an overlap but it's still kind of like if you're in the mood for sales training, you're possibly not in the mood for B Corp. And then I kind of really like doing the purpose training and doing a little bit of work with teams to get teams kind of connected around purpose and being better as teams. And it's like, okay, that's a third different segment. And so yeah, for quite a few years suffered from that lack of clarity around, you know, one, one product, one offer, one market. Yeah. With, with one set of results that you can just build on a build on, build on and then you can plug in the next thing. So that would definitely be, I concur advice. For anyone who's like thinking about quitting the day job to go and start a new impact driven startup or something, it's like, yeah, just have one product and try and nail it.

Can I tell you that, can I tell you that the, the, the, the funniest one I always hear is people say I'm going to still have my full time job but I'm going to put this hack on the side and once that generates enough money then I'll leave my job. I'm like, stop, stop now. If you don't, you've got to dive in and starve so you know actually what to react to. Otherwise that thing is just going to keep turning over for the next five years and you're never going to build that up to a business because. Well, I shouldn't say never, but most people I've never seen being able to make that shift because I said everyone, the first two to three years is going to be hell. Yep. People are going to not like your product. Face it, not everyone loves you. I said everyone, it's okay, deal with it. And actually, you know, the best advice I was given is I always say to someone, especially when someone doesn't like your product, to say, I'd love to know why. Yeah, like what, what, what could I do better to impress you? And we even go as far now as even paying people.

Like if a client comes off our program or something. I actually really need to know why. What did we do wrong and how could we improve that so the next person doesn't have that same experience? And if you're going to pay that, like, it's, it's far cheaper to pay $50 to get that information than to be all around the board table and, okay, let's figure out this person. And we always like to say that person's a psycho. That person's. Or that I'm like, do we really know? Like, we're just, we're just trying to fill up our egos. What we just need to ask them is the why. Yeah, like, and. And it's hard to hear, I'll be honest. It's like.

Yeah, no, totally. Yeah. No, it's. I remember when I think. When I read one of Richard Branson's books, I think about me losing. Losing his virginity or losing my virginity, where he talks about before, when he was building Virgin Airlines. He flew on. See, he really wanted to take down British Airways. Sounds like his, his number one guy was like, we're gonna beat British Airways. And yes, he flew on as many different types of flights, so, you know, different, you know, to different destinations at different levels, so economy, business, what have you, premium. And he just got talking to people next to him on all the flights and said he'd say, hi, hey, Paul, can you just tell me what are the five things you really love about this trip or this experience? And what are five things you really dislike about it? And he collated this list of just like hundreds of things that people didn't like about British Airways and what they would like to have on the plane. And he basically took that back to the team at Virgin and said, this is how we build the business. We don't do this, and we do this and we will nail it. And you kind of go, that's it.

Honestly, I couldn't say it any better. You nailed it right there because all you did is a perfect customer journey. What let's. The greatest art in life is, is not learning from great people, is actually learning from idiots. Because then you're just like, how do I not be? You say, and how to not be them. That's why you visualize. And I used to get that from a. From a mentor in the hair salon because he's like. Because I kept watching him and I'm like, trying to learn from him. He's like, you're not going to learn much from me, but have a look at that guy. And I'm like, that guy's like the loser in the salon. And he's like, yeah, just study how not to be him. And I, I, I just still remember that moment going, yeah, he doesn't hold two hands on a broom, he doesn't engage the client, he doesn't say nice things. And I'm like, oh, that's what I've got to do. It's far quicker and easier to learn off that. And you're just like. Because then you're going to develop into your own person after that. Don't try to. Because people are like, how do I mimic someone else? And I'm like, they're on their journey and, and you might learn or two. But, yeah, so true. Ah, Richard Branson. What a legend. He was such a great story. And, and, and still today, still sells a great brand.

Yeah, he does. All right, so, yeah, last, possibly last question then. So you've clearly got ton of ideas and new product development that's coming through. So is that mainly driven by you or is that the team? And yeah, how do you prioritize and work out which of these things to launch so that you build on the success of the previous ones?

It's a really good question. So we're at that stage now where we have an opportunity to scale.

And we've grown quite a lot across Australia, New Zealand, and we still want to focus heavily on Australia and New Zealand and make sure that we really demonstrate our philosophy and model within these countries. But it's growing to now a different level. So it's, and it's not all me, it's my partner as well. Evelina, she stays behind the scenes. She's, she's not like a motormouth like me, she just likes to do a job well. That's what gives her peace and what she loves the most. So Evelina is actually becoming our CEO in the company as well. I'm actually going to take a side step where I just stay as founder. I'm the visionary the ideas and work a lot with the team on generating a lot of that customer journey and so forth. But, but to say how we've created our org chart is definitely a lot to how we want to scale and grow. So, so we have a, we have a customer success team, a sales team and a marketing team. But what people don't know is we also invest heavily in an innovations team. So we have a team internally that's made up of very smart individuals that really are allowed to fail. So they demonstrate a lot. They, they, they basically create ideas but they don't bring them into the company until we've kind of tested them out, trialed them out. And that's where we've created a lot of that innovation. Because you can't in a traditional company. I say to most companies when they ask me, how do you guys keep pushing out more great stuff? And I say it's because we don't disrupt the bau. So if you're a business as usual team sales, marketing, customer success and that, that's. You can't I say this to someone, don't ask your marketing team to make your website. It's like they're so busy like to make a website. It's a lot of work. And if you said that, well, what, how are they going to keep up with their day job? Like their day is trying to bring in leads or content and, and, and EDMs and all the usual things like that should be outsourced. So normally smart companies will go pick a team outside to build it. They're not going to make the internal team build it. So what I said is, well, why don't you build a team that just does that internally? Because so instead of outsourcing everything, we have a team that does and they do all these different things so they don't do one thing. They'll be. For the moment we're doing, we're studying our customer journey again and we've got new products being made, we're designing new products, we've got university engagements and what happens with our university students, sponsorships and, and so forth. Like these are all weird things that happen outside of the bau. So separating it is key if you want to find that angle for, to grow, especially once you get to about our size, about 100 staff. You've got to, you've got to not keep putting more stuff on people's plate. That's what I'm trying to say. Because that's the bad thing companies do. They just keep loading up each individual. Like, I just don't know what to do anymore. Like, I thought my job was this. I love those words. Like my job title said this. And I don't think I've ever done that. It's like, I get it because you've just been swamped and people like, okay, she left, so we'll just give you all her work.

Like, okay, yeah, and, and half the pay.

Yeah, yeah, pretty much. And it's like, and it's not even management, so it's like they're not thinking about you or you pay. It's like everyone just gets overloaded and you watch really. So I don't know if you've ever read like Apple do. You know in Apple with their hundred thousand plus employees there's no team bigger than four.

So you one manager will not manage no more than four people because once you go outside of that it's, you're not giving, you're not giving your team the respect they deserve and managers are like just overwhelmed with hr. So it's really along that journey and I, one of the great things I've learned as well is if you're going to be a manager, what does that mean? Because first of all in modern day company today no one's a boss. Stop trying to be bosses. If you're a boss, you're probably already failing. What you should always remind your lead team is your coaches of a team. Think about like a soccer team and your job is to win. So they're nice people but they've got to be tough. And if you're, if I'm going to put you in at the front, you've got to score goals. You don't, well it's pretty obvious you don't get that position and, and back you've got to stop the goals. Goalie, that's your job too like that. It's all very clear what you got to do and it's their job to put you in the right positions and that's what a team lead should do. It's like how do I position you all? And you've all got to trust me as the coach that I'm doing the right thing and if we don't win games, it's on me too. So I always say it should be very clear. But that coach is not the owner of the club. He's not making those big decisions at the top there because what their job is just to coach you. So I think bosses are dead. So if you're trying to be a boss, if anyone's an eye in a modern day team, you're probably not working very well because everyone hates to be with the next generation. Doesn't want to be told what to do. They know their value, they know what they're good for and even know that they can do it in four days, not five. You know, they're taught different. So I actually say you just need to nurture it and, and build it into your team. Does it work for my team? Because the only thing that should matter for you as a coach is winning.

Yeah, exactly.

That's it.

Are we getting the results. Yeah.

All right. I don't know if you're watching Netflix at the moment with Beckham. Go.

Yeah, I'm not. I wasn't historically a big soccer fan. I grew up, you know, playing rugby. And so I had. I had very little appreciation for actually how good a soccer player he. He is. Or was. Yeah, it was actually. It was very interesting. Yeah. Watching it.

Can I give you one eye? Because as a hairdresser, you get to meet everyone. And I still remember one day when this. And I wasn't a rugby person and these. These giant guys came in. I said, oh, where are you guys? What's your story? You all look like a team of some sort. And they're like, yeah, but we're from the Springboks. And I'm like, oh, the spring box? What is that a kids group? You jump out of boxes and.

Nah, brother. With a South African rugby team. And I'm like, oh. I'm like, cool, you need a haircut.

I still remember that. It was so weird. I'm like, yeah, these guys were huge.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

I have to say, I've got a good mate of mine, Dave McMillan. Hey, Dave. I don't think he's a listener, but I'll send him this episode and I will use that joke on him. Springboks kids entertainers bring out of boxes.

Springboks call a team. What does that even. I don't get it.

It makes no sense.

I still don't get it. I think it's got something to do with an animal.

So it's like a. Yeah, a gazelle type.

Fast moving, antelopy type thing. The springbok. Yeah.

Ah, springbok, not spring box.

Yeah, well, spring box as in plural, but yeah, it's the. The animal is a springbok. So they are the. So there you go.

See? Thank you. That was.

Here we go. We're all about illuminating people on this podcast. Yeah, I love that idea. There's that kind of like that skunk works just having, keep, keep, keep those people who. Because. Because typically the people who are really good at ideation are not great at business as usual. And people who are good at business as usual aren't, like you say, they don't want the pressure of, I need 10 ideas. So, yeah, I think that's super smart. Super smart.

That's it. And be okay to fail. I said, enough. Because if you're going to run that team or if you're the CEO, that's got to like you're reporting to that CEO. I said, to that CEO is this team has got to be okay to fail. I know that's not the words they normally hear, but they've got a pool of money. Skunk Works, a perfect example. If you study Skunk Works and there's many others out there from Google and Apple and all that, that they have these teams. That's why they produce great innovative products year on year. Because they're actually got them already three to five years in advance, you know, because these teams are already thinking that far ahead. No BAU team can think like that. You know, sales teams are thinking about getting the sale today and what's their commission at the end of the month? That's it.

Anyway, I could talk forever salespeople.

So yeah, just to finish up. So what does the future look like? You're smashing it in Aussie, in New Zealand. Is sustainable salons going global? Yeah. Or what's the you got? Or is there the next product you can tell us about? What's. Yeah, what's the future look like?

I think for a lot of us in our space it's, we're moving a lot into technology space now. So we're slowly becoming, you could say a tech enhanced tech company. Meaning that we're really leveraging our tech platform because if we truly want to create amazing data and be able to be extremely nimble moving forward, we need to be basically a tech company. So for about three years now we've been investing heavily in that space. What does that mean? It means our members now, they've got, they've got apps they can log in, they can start seeing like they'll be able to get live data on their materials and the benefits to the community going live. So that's going to be something that no one's ever seen before for our space especially because in recycling people can give you per kilo or tonnage, very lazy data. Where we are thinking of ourselves kind of like an Apple, like an ecosystem where Apple wants to control everything in that ecosystem because then they can deliver you the perfect Apple experience and what you want to get out of that product too, which is you wanting your headphones to turn on when your computer turns on. You want that seamless integration. So we see ourselves building an ecosystem. So there's going to be a lot where a salon signs up. You're actually in the future salon will be like, oh, you're generating 20% of my profit. Great. Just like a product company would. So if you're, you know, l' Oreal or some of that, you're Like, I get it because I, I got a brand and people come to buy that brand. That's why I have you as a brand. And, and we are becoming that brand with, inside their network and that's key. And yeah, making it all connect. So I won't lie, it's a really tricky space, but we are seeing a very bright future. There's definitely got some options for international growth, but there's a lot to do here. Like I said, everyone, there is so much to do in our own backyard. You don't need to go anywhere. And I just want to keep focusing on the Christchurches, the Wellingtons, the Aucklands, the Hamiltons. These are areas that matter for New Zealand. That matters, need to have the right infrastructure so they can actually start saying, yeah, we make things here. Because if I go talk to someone in Christchurch, you know, they all say to me, it's just bring jobs back here now. Great. Why, why can't we get more people, young people wanting to stay here? How do we create that innovation circle again? Well, we're a company that can deliver on all these things. So we, we're saying to people, actually we're trying to say to people, the more you invest in us, the more we're investing in you. So because we're built that way, we're not just saying we sell something over here and that's a marketing deploy over there. No, this is into our infrastructure and, and we're really proud to have that infrastructure in Christchurch, in Wellington, in Auckland. So people can actually feel it, not just see it as a marketing deploy. Because that's the problem that everyone's doing global companies. It's, it's always been this big marketing story that we're saving Uganda. And I'm like, yeah, but people in Christophs don't care about Uganda anymore. Like some of them don't care. They care about the people. But it's like we're starving, we want action. Look at Britain right now, classic example Brexit. What a disaster of a country now where it's like all this innovation, all this knowledge now won't be able to be exported correctly, won't be able to open up those markets. And people are now, it's so funny, you see what's happening in Brexit. Once you, you do this the wrong way. Well, you're actually just going to starve the country of growth because it can't find now the markets it needs. And, and it will change. It will come through backlash from the people, of course, and people who voted against it now they're all like, what have I done? Like that was a dumb decision. And, and, and I get it. So it's, it's, you can't go too far. I would say don't go too local. You open up and keep a global market moving. But you, you've got to figure out how do I bring it to a local level? So it's very possible. Great brands today are bringing their messages on local levels and when they acquire brands, they're not acquiring them to destroy them, they're acquiring them to grow them. Because the best example I give of this today is look at the liquor industry and whiskeys and gins. There's breweries popping up everywhere and they're bringing local communities back in. It's like the old pub of Britain again. It's like everyone wants to hang at the local brewery and, and drink local beers and get it, get it, get a delicious, you know, meat, 20 hour cooked sausage. I don't know, you know, there's a brisket happening and, but it brings the community together. And the big accolade companies are not now just like in the old time, they'll just destroy them to keep their traditional brand alive. Now they're like, actually that's what people want. We're actually now the 90s business model. And you can now, every time you go into a pub now, how many, how many times you look around like what beer do I get? I don't even know any of these brands.

Yeah.

Because then they're all local brands out and I'm like, that's the perfect example of sustainability.

Yeah, I love it. And I think, yeah, no, I agree that localization.

Yeah is, is the, is the future. And we're definitely seeing that with some even B corps that are scaling globally where instead of shipping the product from a centralized manufacturing, it's almost like the old again, almost like the liquor industry where you know, here's the recipe to make the product but you can make it out of local ingredients. So it has that local connection but you've got that connection to the global brand of. Yeah, you're buying, you're buying into this story. So yeah, that's super cool.

Yeah. Sorry Fosters.

Most people in Australia now would be like.

Yeah. I remember when I first moved to Australia, I lived in Brisbane for a year and I met a group of guys. I was working with one of them and I was like, hey, you know, I've got no mates here. You know, if you got any mates, like I'll shout a few beers It'd be good to sort of meet some people. And he wrangled a bunch of his mates together for a night out. And I said, I'll go get the first round in. And I went to the bar. I think it was in the regatta in Brisbane. And I went to the bar, and I was like, oh, what do Aussies drink? And having watched Home and Away and Neighbors for quite a few years at school, I was like, well, they all drink vb So I was like, cool. Can I get. Can I get a round of vbs, please? And Barbara's like, sure. Anyway, I took them back, and the guys all look at them and just go, what the hell's this? Okay, that's round of beers. They go. And my mate Tyson goes, right, come with me. He goes to the bar and he goes, right, first of all, this is Queensland. We drink Forex, not vb.

Oh, yeah, okay.

And he goes, all right. And you. And with every round from now on, you will also get a Bundy and Coke. And I'm like, what? He goes, I'll order, you pay. And so he got the round of Forexes and then some Bundaberg rum and Cokes. He goes, that's now your round. Oh, okay. Yeah.

I love it. It's so funny. There's like, hey, that's localism for you.

That's 100 localism. Yeah. Note to any. Any young, naive British people traveling to Australia, they don't drink. Fosters.

They wouldn't even know what it is anymore. The generation are like, what you got? I think Britain would know that brand better than we would.

100%. Like, it is sold in the UK. Like you can get used to be. Yeah, it was like one of the lugs. Yeah. So, yeah, so there we go. So, yeah, don't ask Fosters. And obviously, just to put it back on, the Queenslanders, why. Why is. Why is why is their favorite beer called Fordex Forex? It's because they can't spell beer. So there we go. Back to you, Queenslanders.

There we go.

And on that note, we should probably wrap up before the complaints start pouring in. But no, it's been really good to get hold of you. I still think you should be a B corp, because everything you're doing is 100% like a B corp. But regardless of that. Yeah, just I almost feel like we need to get you back on for a second episode to, like, really explore more detail as to how you do what you do and, like, the minutiae of how you're doing it, because I think there'll be a ton of people that want to know more about that, so maybe we should. We should look into that. But, yeah, love your energy, love your vibe. Love what you're doing. Yeah, thanks. Thanks for coming.

Thanks, Tim.

Hey, it's Tim here, that B Corp bloke from Grow Good. If you want more content on purpose, B Corp. How to do more good in the world as an individual or a business, then you know the drill. Hit the like and subscribe. Check out some of our other videos. They're probably floating around here somewhere. You know how it works. Thank you so much. See you next time.