#81 Liz Southey - The Salve Health Ltd

Hello, Kia ora shamai, and really particularly a shamai today. We'll be checking on our guest today to see if she remembers what that means. So, yeah. Welcome back to the latest episode of the Be Better podcast. Thank you, as always to our regular listeners. If you're a new listener, if you've tuned in specifically to listen to Liz today. Hello. Thank you for tuning in. Thank you, Liz, for telling people to come listen to our podcast. Who have I got with me today? I've got Liz Suddy. Liz, how's it going?

Good, thanks, Tim. Yeah, great. Great to see you. Great to catch up. Looking forward to the podcast.

It's. It's been a while, so do. So, for full transparency, Liz and I thought first met possibly sometime in around about 1996 in probably some dodgy student bar in Cardiff when we were at university together. So shamai is Welsh for hello. Do you even vaguely remember learning that at Cardiff over three years?

I. No, I. I remember a few words.

Yes. That's good enough. That's good enough. So, yeah, I've actually been sort of reconnecting to my Welsh roots courtesy of good old Duolingo. So I've been trying to learn some Welsh over. I've actually. I think I'm on 470 days streak, so I'm actually doing all right. But don't ask me to say too much in Welsh. I still rely on, like Sklodjohn Kloger Arafnauer, which means sausages, something. Slow down. Yeah, so you can just read. Read road signs and say you're. You're bilingual. So, yeah, listen, I've had a good 20 minutes of preamble chat before we start the podcast. And, yeah, most of those were stories about how awesome we were 1996 to 1999. And those stories will remain on the preamble to this podcast. If you want to get access to those, then you can pay extra to listen to those. But, yeah, it's been good, good to catch up. We caught up a few times this last year or so, so. But yeah, Liz, tell us a bit more about who you are and what you're up to these days.

Yeah, thanks, Tim. So, I'm Liz Southey, I'm co founder and director of scientific services at the South Health.

But as you say, my journey into what I'm doing now, which is medical communications, started back at Cardiff when I did pharmacology at university.

And I knew I loved science, but I didn't like doing it. I liked reading and writing about it. I went and did a master's in science communication. And I basically fell into the world of medical communications back in the very early 2000s. I didn't really know what it was when I got my first job as a trainee medical writer, but, but hey, you know, that's what university prepared you for.

Right.

And yeah, I, I started work at an agency based in just outside Oxford in the UK.

And quickly learned what it was and learned that I love it. And basically back then medical communications was sort of an outsourced function of pharmaceutical companies who wanted to disseminate data to doctors and other healthcare professionals in a non promotional way. So we largely worked on the, with medical affairs department. So that is not promotional, it's not commercial, it's not marketing. It's like the objective dissemination of, of data essentially called medical education. But it is provided by pharma companies to doctors. Yeah. And I stayed in working at the agency back then for a really long time, about 18 years. And yeah, in it grew, it changed, it became part of a larger group and you know, it was an amazing, amazing experience and I loved living in the, in the Oxfordshire area and traveling the world because it did afford a lot of travel opportunities, which was great.

Yeah. And then I moved to another agency and.

One of my colleagues who I met in the very first agency, she and I had always talked about setting up our own company and got to the point where we were both experienced enough to feel like we could do it, but also felt like if we don't do it now, we never will. We made that decision or we talked about making that decision.

Just before COVID hit. So decided not to do it at that point because, you know, a lot was happening in the world. But yeah. Then decided that, do you know what, there's never going to be a right time. And given the way the world of work changed during COVID it actually helped us tremendously because people were set up far more to work remotely and work from home. And that's what we wanted to do was have like a networked remote virtual agency model. So yeah, we took the leap and then officially set up the salve in April 2022. So I'm here talking about it.

Nice. So relatively new little entity. Yeah. I mean, when's a good time to start a business? Yeah, there's, there's never a good time. Although I would suggest delaying a COVID pandemic was smart. Yeah. When I started this business, my wife had just gone back to work. Well, she, she'd started a business with a business partner. They hadn't taken any money out of the business. We had like a two and a bit year old child. We just got a mortgage and then my dad got diagnosed with cancer in the UK and I'm living in New Zealand. So yeah, that was a pretty shit time to start a business, all things considered. But hey, we're here now eight years later, so we're doing it right. Yeah, I think anyone who's pondering the leap, I think because. Because you. So how old were your kids when you made the leap?

Yeah, so when I decided to leave my, my job at the agency, it was 2020 so Hannah would be six and Harry was three. So yeah, not also juggling that.

Yeah, but it, but also sort of, you know, they're just kind of, well, the younger ones sort of at the point where, you know, you're kind of self managing maybe enough that you don'. All the time.

And maybe working for myself, you know, I've definitely found, you know, the flexibility of working for myself, you know. Well, actually I can drop you at school and I can come to assembly and I can do that. Whereas when you work, particularly in, in the bigger machines, when you got to that sort of bigger company size, like. Yeah, Liz, actually this, this is the fifth day you've had off this month to go and see your kids. So yeah, it's. The self employment path is not an easy one, but there's plenty of upside.

Absolutely. And that was one of the drivers as well for our setting up our agency was that we wanted that flexibility for ourselves but to also offer that to anybody who wants to come and work with us because it is really hard and there are plenty of times when you do need to leave early or come in late or, you know, and we didn't want to be tied to an office based situation necessarily. So yeah, it's huge upsides from that perspective.

So the communication work that you do. So is it stuff that the public would see or is it still just stuff for the doctors?

So we do. There's definitely patient aspects and elements to it as well. So definitely.

Depending on the project, communicating to patients, you can't do that in a sort of a commercial capacity or marketing capacity in the uk. Although funny enough, New Zealand and the US are the two places in the world where you can advertise directly to patients. But what we do is advertising. So yeah, there is definitely patient communication aspects. When we're communicating to doctors it tends to be. Well, it can be through a variety of channels, so publications which are obviously publicly available. So anybody can read those at scientific congresses, medical congresses, they tend to be only attended by doctors. But obviously again, that's open to the general public as well. So.

It'S pretty transparent. I mean, there are times when it is going to be some of the internal things that we do are going to be in a closed environment. But, yeah, plenty that's open.

Nice. Yeah. New Zealand is a, a funny place for that. Yeah, it's like literally us in America. The. The only two places that you can and. Because I guess, you know, obviously I spent a good amount of years in the medical device industry and it is interesting. Yeah. Seeing the, yeah. You know, the influence. And my wife used to be a pharmaceutical rep, so, yeah, you know, she's been, you know, part of that.

How did you find working in that industry? Have you been watching like the painkillers on Netflix and the. Because obviously, like, you know, the pharmaceutical world over the last couple of years, possibly not getting into the politics of lockdowns and Covid and there's clearly a whole lot of stuff that's being unbundled. But. Yeah. What's that been like for you? Because looking back on the medical device world, you know, there was clearly a bunch of stuff that was going on that you're kind of like, so cool and maybe, you know, the evidence that you were telling me about that product wasn't actually so true. So. Yeah. Have you come across any stuff like that as well?

Well, I mean, I, I would say that working on the medical affairs side, that's where it is very objective and it's hot. Especially in the uk, it's highly regulated. So. Interesting. You mentioned like the painkiller, the opioid epidemic and the Sackler. Yeah, yeah. Scandal is that when I watched that on TV and they were, you know, they were showing essentially bits of what, you know, I am involved with. I was like, oh my God, this would absolutely never happened now this, you know, like the way the data were presented, the, you know, the regulatory requirements around how data are talked about, it's just, it couldn't happen now. Not in my, not in my viewpoint and seeing what they were doing back back then and it isn't that long ago, but it was, you know, it was still a while ago. I, I remember saying to my husband is like, oh my God, this would never get through compliance, you know, so.

A lot of what I see is and do is highly regulated and especially in the uk, the ABPI really, you know, hot in terms of how data are presented and communicated. And yeah, in medical affairs, it's often around like disease awareness. It's not product specific, it's above brand. So I think probably on our side and what we do, it's. We're not privy to that. If that goes on, we're not privy to that.

Yeah. Which is. That's good to know.

Yeah. Otherwise and good for us. Yeah.

Yeah.

I had a question. I had a supplementary question there, but I have lost my train of thought on that one.

No, it's gone.

Oh, damn. I thought it was quite a good question too.

Well, I can, I can talk about. Because of course with B Corp, which we can talk about as well, but you know, we, we are considered working with a controversial industry.

Yeah.

So, you know, we have full disclosure on the B Corp website and with our sort of entry and everything. So, you know, and we feel comfortable that we don't feel like we're going against our B Corp values by working with a controversial industry. And it's, it's. There's many benefits to pharmaceutical companies as well.

There's. Yeah. So for people who maybe are new to be corpor, sort of just be curious. There's certain industries that cannot be a B Corp. Although I did hear. Is it. Sanofi has recently certified as a B.

Corp. And pz, I know for sure Kyoti is an Italian pharmaceutical company that is a certified B Corp. Because yeah, there was.

Let me quickly fact check that whilst we're on the. But yeah, there was, there was a pharmaceutical company. There's a couple of pharmaceutical companies that have become. Yes, Sanofi is, is now B Corp. And so, yeah, it's because theoretically B Lab, which is the organization that runs the certification framework, they have a list of industries that they kind of said, look, these industries are existentially risky enough. Or there's, there's been historical, I guess lack of transparency or lawsuits in this industry sector. That would mean that there's too much, too much risk in us certifying them because there's stuff that we don't know. And so extractive industries, casinos and pharmaceuticals have been on that list. But yes, Sanofi, as far as I'm aware of pharmaceuticals are still on that list. So I might have to go and do some research as to how they've done that. But yeah, if you are a B Corp or a company going through the B Corp journey, you have to flag if you have clients involved in those controversial industries. So it is, yeah, it's pretty rigorous in that, you know. Yeah, you can't, you can't go, well, you know, we're just working for the client, you know, it's. Yes, that's a process you have to go through.

Yeah. And what was that? What's the kid. Yes, back at the track a little bit. So, you know, the idea of sort of business as a force for good, you know, was that something that you were feeling in the big companies that you're working for or was it just kind of like, look, you know, I'm paid money, I do my job and you know, I enjoy my job, but maybe lacking purpose in this role. What was, what was that kind of journey like to sort of recognition of the idea of business as a force of good?

Yeah, I mean so at the start I was just happy to get a job, you know, clearly.

Yeah. You know, and they didn't see through your lack of knowledge.

Exactly. And I hope my, my original boss doesn't listen to this podcast. So, you know, and I just, yeah, I just, just loved it. And then I guess, you know, I would say Medcoms as an industry is actually is good from a sort of raising disease awareness.

Charitable activities and donations for sure. But I think where Elena and myself found, you know, like we wanted to add more was the fact that it's great doing a bake sale or it's great wearing a certain color on a certain day to raise awareness or whatever. But actually we've got a lot of experience doing what we do. We could actually put that to even better use by doing, you know, working in the not for profit sector as well as with our pharma clients and starting.

Thinking about setting up the salve. We wondered how we could work that in and make that part, you know, a real core part of what we do. And that sort of started the idea and led us to B Corp. And that's where when we saw, and we'd seen B Corp on Patagonia, Innocent smoothies, you know, Jamie Oliver, that kind of thing in the uk, so very much in the retail sort of space. And we were like, well surely we can do it for service provision industry as well. And looked into it and when we did and we saw this be impact assessment we were like this is an amazing framework with which to start a business. So we, I think we feel very lucky that we did it right at the start. So we haven't, we've. It was a lot of work but it was an amazing framework to set up a business that we knew would be rigorous but also have that business for good aspect running through out the whole business. Not just the thought about oh let's do some not for profit work, you know, so that just.

Really gave us that impetus at the start of our journey of setting up the business with that in mind and it was great.

Nice. Yeah. It's a fairly common question that we're posed by smaller startup companies. I know we're too, we're too early or you know, we haven't been trading long enough yet because, because you guys did, you, you did B court pending, didn't you?

We, yeah, we did. So we were able, because we had literally just set up, it meant that we were able to do, go through the B impact assessment and because I think it's within 12 months of like your incorporation or your first client or it means that you can state that you are B Corp pending. So that was great because it really kept us accountable. It, you know, we, you know, by putting that on our materials, that was our, you know, we felt like we was really setting our intention out right from the start. And so that meant that we, we did it from the start as well. Which I think was, yeah, super helpful.

Yeah, it's, someone did tell me once, but I haven't, I can't recall the full story because B Corp pending is not available in this region. So Australia, New Zealand. Okay, yeah, we can't have it. So. But in the US and UK and possibly the rest of Europe. Yeah. So to become a B corp you have to have been trading for at least 12 months. If you haven't been trading for 12 months in the US, UK and I think Europe, you can have this B Corp pending designation which basically says we've done the assessment. We're just waiting to reach our 12 month point. And I think that's really good to hear that it kind of looked like, well, we said we're going to do it now, so we kind of have to do it.

Yeah, exactly.

But yeah, a lot of startups, exactly. As you've articulated, it's a really useful tool to kind of go, well, okay, we don't have any employees yet, but we might have in say 18 months time. So how would we treat our employees if we had any? Well, let's just, let's map that out now so that we're not scrabbling when we do have that and just building some policies and procedures from the ground up. Because this, you know, probably the majority of companies that we help with their B corp are legacy established companies who suddenly have to go, right, we have to retro engineer a whole bunch of policies and processes and now we have to implicate Wider teams. And, and that's good, you know, because transformation and changes, you know, it's all part of the journey of becoming a purpose driven business. But it's a hell of a lot easier to bake it in from day one.

Yeah, absolutely. And, and, and it made us think about stuff we'd never, we'd never would have considered, you know, different, like you say, like different policies and actually making that into something concrete. It was like, well that's great. We've thought about it now of course, you know, it will need to adapt and change as we grow and evolve, but we wouldn't have thought about it even at that point.

And.

Yeah, I had some, I also had something else to say and I can't remember. Oh, I was going to say the fact is that, that it was, you know, myself and Elena. It also meant that it took us, you know, you know, half an hour to make a decision or whatever it might be because we didn't have to ratify it with.

Other senior management or with the teams or whatever we said, right, this is what we want to do. That looks good, we'll write a policy, job done. So.

It was a lot of time to do all of that, but at the same time it made it a lot easier because there was only two of us making the decision.

Yeah, totally. And it makes job for me so much easier when there's just one or two people in a room. You go, right, do you want to do that? And they can just go, yeah, as opposed to okay, right, yeah, we need to take the leadership team and then we have to get board approval and then we need to do four drafts of this policy. Yeah, it's tough when you're in that environment. Yeah. So don't go you.

And so, yeah, any, any. Was there anything particular in B Corp that you were kind of like, you sort of mentioned? There's a few things like. Oh, I didn't, you know, didn't know that was a thing. Was that, was there anything in particular that, that you, you really felt all to like actually we should definitely do that or. Yeah, anything. Any other sort of shocks or surprises?

Yeah. So because we operate as a remote agency, you know, we felt, well, you know, our carbon footprint is not going to be a lot. We don't have overheads, we don't have an office. We're not thinking about people commuting, that kind of thing. But actually you still, there's still a lot you have to consider. And we hadn't necessarily considered like the impacts of our supply chain From a carbon perspective. And that's a. I can talk about that. You know, we're not there yet. That's one of our improvement things. But it actually brings me on to another thing that we hadn't necessarily considered was our supply chain. So we have lots of suppliers providing different.

Services and the fact, you know, myself and Elena, we're co owners of the business, we're a women owned enterprise. So again we wanted to make sure that our supply chain was also diverse, had plenty of women owned businesses, that kind of thing. And it was only until, you know, B Corp prompt the assessment prompted us to think about our supply chain. It's like, oh yeah, so we need to think about who we are getting to do the work for us and what impact they have. And you know, so that, that was definitely one, that was a light bulb moment for us in terms of like thinking about who we work with to help us do our work.

And yeah, and then also thinking about actually those people also have, you know, a footprint as well. So sort of folding that in. And that's. Yeah, that's definitely one journey that we're still going on. And I think that's the thing with B Corp, isn't it? You don't. Just because you do the assessment or get certified, it doesn't stop. It's like continual thinking about right. What's the next step to get better and better really.

Which is, which is why we call our program to help people. Do people be better. It's like use B Corp to be a better business but recognize that, you know, you possibly will never get perfection because it's a moving. Yeah, it's a moving feast of well, what's material to you today? What's changing? What's being solved? What actually. Oh, hang on, there's new research actually that's not as big as issue as we thought it was. So don't stress so much about, you know, trying to, trying to take on that.

Yeah, the, the supply chain one that, that is every, every company that we've helped with B, that is the one area and even the product based companies. So we, we typically find for service based companies it's tough because you know, you've got probably a bunch of software subscriptions with big multinational companies that sure, you can possibly send a survey, you know, supply chain survey and supplier. So code of agreement, code of conduct to their info@facebook.com sure, good luck. But I mean having said that, you know, I do keep saying to people, if every B Corp in the world sent Google a supply Chain code of conduct and a survey to say, hey, can you confirm that you meet, you know, you meet these certain criteria, eventually there's going to be someone in the company goes, hey, could we just create a one pager that we can send back to these people? Because it's really annoying the out of me.

So it's a great idea.

That's my theory, you know.

You know, we're almost at 8,000 B Corps. If all 8,000 sent an email to the same email address at Google on the same day to say, I'd like to know what your policies and procedures are around, you know, social environment.

You know, it wouldn't take them that long, I would imagine. You know, they're Google, they could just Google it surely.

Yeah, the supply chain, it's the conundrum for everyone.

Yeah.

And I think that's going to be interesting to see how people solve that. And, and sometimes there's no good choices, you know, there's limited pool of supply chain. And, and so, yeah, it's about that journey. Have those conversations, let people know, hey, look, this, this stuff is important to us now, so we'd like it to be important to you too. So can we have a conversation around that? And I think in general, most people are, are happy to, to have that conversation and, and keep those relationships. And I think also for me it's, it's part of the power of B Corp is being able to have those conversations with suppliers which creates better supply chain relationships because they, they, they see the value that you're putting on them and wanting to work with them to be a better organization.

So yeah, yeah, and actually that's true. We've seen it with, with some of our suppliers that by having that conversation it's made them realize, and they've asked what B Corp is because we're saying this is part of our B Corp, you know, requirement. And they're like, oh, what's B Corp? Oh, okay. And I know one of our suppliers, I'm not putting it purely down to us, but has said actually we're, we're now going to go along the B Corp route. And we're like, great. You know, so I've had conversations with them about B Corp. Nothing to do with the supply, you know, delivery that they give to us. So it's, I think it goes like you say, it goes beyond, it actually spreads that awareness as well when you start asking questions of your suppliers.

Yeah, it's like the tail wagging the dog, you know, if you're the company in the Middle. You've got all these relationships. Um, yeah, that. That you've got with companies that you can exert that influence. And I was talking. I've done quite a few podcasts this week, so I'm like, I'm confusing and conflating who I've said what to. But, yeah, that, you know, the ripple of. Of impact that you can have. You know, there's a. There's a conversation that you can have, and three years later, that conversation will lead to a change, and you'll just never know that you might have been that last piece of the puzzle that led that person over that three years to actually commit to doing it. And so, yeah, just. Just having more of those conversations and just, you know, there's so much overwhelming proof that B Corp helps businesses perform better across all the metrics that, you know, the example I always use is, you know, we're all trying to have the best party on the street, although I think we had some pretty good parties in Cardiff. So, you know, we're having the best party on the street that other businesses look at and go, okay, look, what, what, listen, Elaine is doing. That's pretty cool. How can we be more like them? Oh, they're a B corp. Okay, maybe we should look at it. So, yeah, there's. There's so much of that ripple effect that. That goes on.

Absolutely. And it's not like we want to have the best party. We want to have the party that everybody joins and.

Exactly.

And has their own parties. Right. So it's not. It's not like a competition thing.

It's like an exclusive party that people can come to us, like. Yeah, totally. Like, we're having a pretty good party, but yeah, if you want to have a better one, let us know. We'll. We'll come to one.

We'll come to yours. Exactly. Yeah, exactly.

So, yeah, so. So sort of the arc of purpose and impact, you know, has young Liz growing up? Were you, you know, donating to charity? Were you out picking up litter on the streets? You know, we. Have you always been interested in kind of doing good? Um, or has. Has that kind of increased over time? Like. Like, for me, you know, I was in the. In the Cubs or whatever, and, you know, I did some volunteering for my Duke of Edinburgh's award, but, you know, I did it begrudgingly to get the badge. It's only really post, you know, the earthquakes here and then birth of child is like, okay. Actually, there's more to life than just trying to make as much money as Possible. So yes. What was the sort of arc of that for you.

Led to be called?

But ultimately that probably similar to you, Tim, actually is that I dabbled in it and did bits and bobs that felt great and, but nothing, you know, consistent. And then I guess it's that, that I'll be honest. Having your own business, there's an element of power which is, which is good. But then actually it's like actually this is something that could be, you know, this power you can wield responsibly. Right. And also for. For a better society. And I'm not saying that by being, you know, a B caught, we're going to change the world, but it's our own. It's. It's having that control over what you do that you know, you can do hopefully do good with it. And also I think you mentioned about.

Different measures of success and I think it's so true that.

You know, I would say the industry that I've been in a lot of the time, it's financial measures of success and that's what you're held to. But it's like, well, what about all the other measures of success that are just as equally as important? And I think that's also really important for us is to make sure that that is baked into the way that we work. So it's not. It's about your personal satisfaction, it's about the impact that you can have. It's about making sure that yeah, what, what you are doing isn't going to be hopefully detrimental to, to you know, society. So it's. Yeah, just thinking about business and success in business in a different way.

Yeah.

Yeah. So I would say, yeah, I would say that I. It's only at this point now with young children in the situation that we're in, you think, well, this is. There's a lot you can't control. Right. In terms of trying to help, but this is the way that you can.

Yep, I am. I did a sort recorded. So this is what we're 10, 10 to 10 in the evening, New Zealand time. I recorded another podcast this morning with J. Cohen Gilbert who was the co founder of the B Corp movement. I still can't actually believe that I managed to get him on the podcast and he had a really good turn of phrase which I'm now gonna not steal. I'm going to use and reference him because I'm referencing him, but he talks about how it's kind of like a. As he would say with his New York accent, the baton or the baton or the baton.

Is kind of like handed down. And he said, you know, for people like us, and we were sort of talking about this before we came on. You know, we, we are like the sandwich generation where we've got parents that we're kind of increasingly responsible for as they age, but we've also got kids. And he sort of said that, you know, whilst you're holding the baton, you know, you only hold it briefly and then you will pass it to your kids. And it's like, well, yeah, in the, in the relay race, that is long term human existence. You know, are you running your bit of the race with integrity, with respect for the game? You know, are you looking after the baton so that when you hand it down to your kids, it's, you know, they're well placed to go and take on the rest of their part of the leg of the race? I just thought that was, that just kind of really hit home the idea that, you know, you're part of the legacy of the race that's just, that's maybe just ending, but you're in the middle of your race and you've got one eye on. Am I going to hand over this, this baton in a, you know, for an easy race for my kids?

Yeah, that's. I love that. That just made me feel, yeah, that.

That's all yours. We can take it from New York to New Zealand to new.

Thank you.

Something new Cheltenham. There we go. New Cheltenham.

Yeah, yeah, Cheltenham.

I've been to Cheltenham. And this is success thing that there's a. He's a relatively famous guy over here called Nathan Wallace and he is a, like a neuroscience educator and he does these talks on, mainly aimed on sort of childhood development periods. And I think he has like 0 to 3 and then 3 to 7, then 7 to 14, then sort of teenagers. And he does all the research on how to, how to basically be a less parent because let's face it, none of us know what we're doing. It's just about being less than we could have been. And in one of his talks, you know, he kept referring to, you know, if you do this then, you know, by the age of 18 to 21, your child is more likely to be more successful. And he kept talking about successful and at the halftime break he said, he said, if anyone's got any questions, I'm just, I'm just going to be mooching on the stage while, you know, you will have like an intermission. And I sort of put my hand up and said, well, yeah, you keep Talking about success, but what's your definition of success? And he said, well, the only metrics that we can track from a scientific perspective in this field are level of education and level of income. And I said, well, not being rude, but I have worked for some very highly qualified, highly paid sociopaths in my life who would be what you would have just described as very successful, but I would not want my child to turn out like that. Yeah, what about purpose, meaning contribution, contentment? And he's like, well, we can't measure that.

Yeah, it's like, well, that's the key.

Isn't this the problem? You know, but just because we can measure, someone's got a PhD and they're earning half, half a million dollars a year or perfume quit a year, but they're a complete, you know, so what, you know. Yeah, so it's really interesting and I think that's partly, you know, broadly what this whole B Corp movement is about. You know, let's take, take our eyes off the, this, the easy measure of success in, in business and life. How many dollars I've got in the bank account to. Let's try and help you measure some other, other bits and bobs.

So, yeah, I totally get that. Yeah. Yeah. I also did, just sort of thinking back to the baton and the race and everything, I did a sustainability workshop with the University of Bath, not that sort of earlier this year. And it also made me think that you, you are doing your bit of the race at this time and that's what you're doing with your business. But there is the legacy effect of your business as well. So also thinking about, you know, beyond your own retirement, about the effect that your business can have and continue to have even when you're not part of it, and that I hadn't really appreciated that, you know, you've got the baton running your business at this point, but actually you hope that even when you step back or retire or whatever it might be, your business continues. And that's also a legacy effect of you as well. Right. So that's actually a really nice, if not sobering thought, you know.

Totally and well. And even, you know, even if no one takes over your business, if you, you know, I guess for us both, as perhaps your business might have got more salable value perhaps than a, a random B Corp consultancy, but even if you didn't, neither of us sold our businesses to someone else. You still had legacy because you, you would have worked for all these, there's, there's all these little, I don't Know like breadcrumbs of, of stuff in, in the ether world of impact. Yeah. That have been left out there. And that really is, that's the, the sort of the two cornerstones of purpose. What one is, you know, contribution. So that idea of planting trees you're not going to see grow, I think I'm going to par it really badly. There's an American philosopher, sort of 1900s ish, William James, he said, you know, the best use of life is to use it, is to use it for something that outlasts it. It's like sums it up really neatly. But don't be focused on what you're going to get out of it. You know, what, what are other people getting together get out of it possibly for, you know, I can't say the word forever instead of that other word in perpetuity. There we go. I'll give it a go.

In perpetuity.

There we go. That's the one.

I'm in communication. I got the noble words. Yeah.

Don't get your merge waddled like I did.

Yeah. So, yeah, and I think, I think, yes, as, as we, as we do get a bit older, we get kids, you start thinking about all this stuff. So yeah, it's, there's certainly a large number of our client base who are our age group with young kids who suddenly go, maybe there's a bit more to, to life than just chasing the, the buckaroos.

Cool. So. Yeah, so you certified. Not that long ago, really, in the scheme of things. Yeah. When. When did you get.

End of August.

End of August. Oh, wow. So it's like. Yeah, you're pretty fresh off the boat of the B Corp. Yeah, the B Corp world. So what's, yeah, what's, what's been the reaction to the announcements and. Yeah, any, any immediate results that have come from being B Corp certified yet?

Well, we, we had always talked about B Corp and because we could say we would be corp pending as well, it was, I think it was not necessarily, not necessarily a surprise to people that we got it and we obviously got a great reaction to, to it, but it was just, it's just kind of part of the journey. So, you know, I think one of the other things that we've found is that we've met a lot of people through doing B Corp and having been B Corp certified and actually that community is fantastic as well because you feel like when you meet up with similar people like that, you feel like there's a collective of everybody doing the right thing. So I was at the Good Agencies summit last week and that's, you know, a lot of agencies there are B Corp certified and you suddenly feel like you're part of this community and it's, it's, it's wonderful to be part of. And.

We.

Yeah, but it, it kind of felt like it was. We were hoping we were going to get the certification obviously, but it just felt like it was the next natural step in the, in the journey given that we'd been, we'd started the assessment it. Or started getting questions back from our assessment like in January this year. So it took. It taken a long time. So whilst it was a relief when we got the certification, it wasn't a surprise, if that makes sense.

Nice. You've done your homework well.

Yeah, I guess. Yeah. The B Corp pending probably possibly does help because like you say you've got that. Yeah, you've got that time to actually, you've got a year to get your ducks in a row. Whereas, yeah, if you, if you're. Yeah, typically we find other companies that we work with, it's like, okay, yeah, we've, we've hit submit. We've maybe got two months now to do the homework. So possibly a bit more pressure and a bit more of a relief when they. Oh my God, yes, we did it. Yeah, that's great, Great to hear that community. Because obviously, you know, we're more connected to the community over here in New Zealand. Yes, it's great. And I think it's, it's typically, it does seem to be easy to kind of do business with a B corpse because you've, you know, you've got that shared identity or shared sense of, okay, you've been through something tough that we've been through. Okay, yeah, we kind of know, we know what your vibe is, so you should be fitting into some parameters that we can understand as to how you see life and business as opposed to, yeah, you're just another random company that we've never met before.

Exactly, exactly. Shared values. And I mean, I have to say, having gone on the journey myself, is that now I do if I can, I preferentially buy, you know, my own consumer choices. I look out for B Corp and I buy things from B Corp companies now. You know, because I know then that that's kind of the shared value between what I have and what they have. So. And it's similar in doing business. Business obviously as well. So, you know, when you're, you're, you know, you think, oh, I, I need potentially a particular service. Oh, let's have A look to see who's B Corp certified.

Yeah, no, totally. Yeah, I've been. Yeah. It was possibly about a year or so ago, I sort of had this moment of realization. It's like, man, this is so cool. I've just been to the supermarket and my bank is a B Corp. So I've used my B Corp bank credit card to buy some yogurt, some tea, some shampoo, and like, there was like two other things. And it's like, man, this is so cool because two years ago I wouldn't have used this credit card and I wouldn't have bought two thirds of these products that are a B Corp. So that's just cool. Yeah, and it's. It's interesting every time I give a talk or I'm doing any kind of event, you know, I sort of said a bit, right, who's heard of B Corp? Three years ago, there'd be maybe 2% of hands in the room going up. Now it's maybe 60 to 70% of hands going up. And I go, okay, right, so can anyone name a B Corp? Is there a B Corp product that you use? And people go, yeah, I use, you know, this peanut butter or. Yeah, I bank with these people. I wear these clothes. It's like, cool. Like this thing is. I mean, the UK is smashing it. You know what the number of UK B Corps is off the top of your head? It's like well over a thousand.

I was going to say I thought it was 1500, but it might have. That might be the pending. I don't know. But there's definitely. It's definitely over a thousand. They hit a milestone recently. It might have been a thousand.

I think it was a thousand. They had a massive. I think I'm right in saying that every B Corp, all 1000B Corps went to the party, I believe that is.

I. I want to say it was at the Natural History.

Yes, something like that.

Yes, something like that. Yeah.

London is the B Corp capital of the world in terms of like, per capita. Well, that's what I've heard recently. So, yeah, there's definitely something in the water in. In Blighty.

Yeah.

Yeah. Go go uk.

I've just remembered the question I had from earlier on. So back to medical writing. AI. Medical writing, dissemination of information. Yeah, discussed that.

Discuss. Oh, my God.

Podcast. Because, I mean, it's interesting, you know, because the whole, you know, the whole ethos behind B Corp is a. A badge of trust and accountability. It's like this company has done stuff and it's been proved and we can, you know, the, the veracity of those claims are tick.

When the whole. I got introduced to chat GT Chat, gtp, GPT, the thingy, the AI bot, late last year, I saw something on it, maybe like October, November, I was kind of like, okay, yeah, sure, maybe Flash in the pan. And then in the new year, it's just like everything is AI this, AI that. And, and for me, the, the, the word that sprung to my mind for 2023 was trust. Like, how do you know that the thing that you're reading is not written by a robot and it's just complete, completely made up? So, yeah, yeah. How's that hit your industry? And how does that maybe link to B Corp and trust?

Yeah, that's a really good question. I'm glad I remembered it now. Yeah. As you can imagine, there's a lot of talk about AI in med writing. It's, I mean, where do I start? At the moment, the tools are such that.

A lot of what ChatGPT throws up is inaccurate, is unverifiable, makes up references or sources. So I think there are elements that at the moment you can use to help you in your job, but there's absolutely no way of trusting it. And there still has to be the human quality control, of course, with the development and the speed of development of these things, who's to know in the future? The other thing as well is that everything that you put into ChatGPT and everything it spits out is in the public domain. So you couldn't put in confidential pharma data, for example. So then that throws up, you know, there's, so there's that. And then there's also the aspects of having closed systems as well, which may.

Affect our industry, I. E. They are not, you know, they're not, you're not going to be.

Disseminating any confidential data.

And yeah, I, I mean, we're obviously also seeing a lot around AI in medicine itself and a lot of what. And the way it's being positioned is that it's always going to aid diagnosis or aid patient management. It's always going to help the doctor, but ultimately the doctor is always going to have the final, you know, the, the whatever. And so I'd like to think that that's the case in medical writing is that, sure, there's.

We'Re not going to lose our jobs to AI, but we could lose our job to somebody who knows how to use AI better than you. So I think it's about keeping on top of the, the.

Research and the industry. And actually that is something that we are looking into in the salve. We've got a little working group going on because there's lots of AI tools that help with literature, searching.

Using it for scientific purposes, medical purposes. So we're actually. We've got a little sort of working group going on about looking into that, looking into how good these tools are. And yeah, watch this space on that front from us. But I think you just have to be on top of it in order to not get left behind. So, yeah, it's a. I have seen some research recently where.

Has been tested in medical writing and it's good, but it's not good enough, basically. But of course, at the moment there's also headlines around AI can, you know, ace the Harvard Medical School exam entrance exam, and AI is better at empathy than doctors. And that's. Those are contra. You know, those are controversial headlines. You have to look behind the research a little bit. Yeah, those are sort of more sort of clickbait headlines if you go, yeah.

Having spent 10 years working with orthopedic and neurosurgeons, I wouldn't be that shocked if AI was more empathetic than some surgeons. But hey, although it's. It's gonna. It will bring. Because, you know, there was the classic joke, you know, what's the difference between God and an orthopedic surgeon? God doesn't think he's an orthopedic surgeon, you know, but now you put AI at the top of that, who will become all seeing, omnipotent, omnipresent. So it'll now be, what's the difference between AI and an orthopedic surgeon? Orthopedic surgeon doesn't think it's an orthopedic surgeon.

I think it's an orthopedic surgery. Yeah, true, true. I like that. Yeah.

You kind of almost wonder, you know, is there going to be a place where actually your. Your role and a human's role becomes more valuable? Because it's like, sure, you can get this done with chat GPT or AI, and it's cheap because it's really quick. But actually, if you want the handcrafted, handwritten, you know, you might even get back to writing like a fountain pen on vellum or something with a quill. It's like, you know, this is actually someone's true thoughts. You know, their knowledge has been. I don't know, it's going to be really interesting. We've sort of toyed with a bit of chatgpt where we We've. We'll write. For social media, we'll write a post and then we'll say, right, give us five. Five different versions of this. But. But we've. Yeah, but the original. The original content is human, you know, designed. Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. There's a part of me that it's like, Yeah, I think it's. It's clearly a useful tool that can save a bunch of time, but it's. It's like, you know, it's you. It's your content. And I think, particularly in the businesses that we're running, where it's the small businesses, where it's the human that they're connecting with, it's like, well, you don't want to diminish that human, that human part of it. But, yeah, yeah, it's interesting.

Yeah, it is. And I think you can. I think you can spot it at the moment. You can. Anyway, I mean, we get. We often get a lot of speculative inquiries around jobs or whatever it might be. And I had one recently, the COVID letter, it was tailored to us, which was great, but I. I thought, I smell Chachi PT here. It was. Honestly, you could just tell. Yeah, I don't know that. And I think that's. That's the human element, isn't it? There's something that you're. From a brain perspective that is. Is. That's the level above AI, isn't it? It's like, actually you can tell that that was written by you almost.

You almost feel like you need. You need to put spelling mistakes in. In stuff that you write. Exactly. To sort of prove that it was human.

Yeah. That's crazy, isn't it?

Yeah, it's a crazy world. Yeah, it's. I mean, but, you know, I look back and I remember in. It would have been about 1998, when someone. When we were at Cardiff, I remember once, for some reason, being in the humanities library and someone had said, there's this thing called email on the Internet. Go to Hotmail. It's like, it's this thing. And I'm like, I don't. I don't really understand. I mean, at the end of my first year, the head of history called me into the office and said, Mr. Jones, you have to stop handwriting your essays. You have to use a computer. I was like, no, that's part of my geniuses, because you can't quite read my handwriting. Therefore, you will have to subjectively give me slightly better marks because I might be right, and you just can't understand my writing. So it's interesting that, you know, we're going through this and I remember when Daisy, my daughter was, I don't know, probably two, and she was sort of standing up in front of the TV screen and she was trying to swipe the TV screen.

Yeah, Been using the, I had that.

You just kind of go, okay, this is, we're not in Kansas now.

Oh no. Oh my gosh. Yeah, I remember like talking to my kids and, and saying, you know, back in the day you couldn't.

Yeah, you couldn't choose to watch what you wanted when you wanted it. You had to wait for it to come on. You had four channels if you're lucky, you know, and you have to get.

Off your ass and walk across the room and press the button and you.

Know, you could record one program and, and, and watch it later, but that was it, you know, and they're like, but I want to watch this now. And it's like, yeah, yeah, I, I.

I was the remote. You know, my dad would say, go and change the channel to channel three. His dad.

Maybe you had a stick if you were lucky. I remember at university we had a stick to change the channel because we were that lazy. It's, it's best we don't go too far into university. It could be career limiting for, for both of us. But yeah, it's just, it's insane how much the world has changed and just, yeah, that, that rate of change. But yeah, yeah. Anyway.

So, yeah, back, back to the B Corp track. So what, what does being a B Corp mean to you and, and the team and the business in general?

Ah, means it means so much because I feel like it, it's a real.

Simple way of expressing our values and purpose as a company. So if you know what B Corp is, then you have an idea. So even without knowing what we do or what our vision and mission is, having that B Corp certification to me just very simply states are.

Or sets out our stall in terms of, you know, purpose as a company.

And then it's, it's really good for us from like a operational point of view because it's given us that framework, as I said, but it gives us that framework going forwards as well. So we've got the different pillars that we have to think about, especially as, you know, we are in a period of growth and scaling and it's an opportunity to, just to build on that and use that knowing that it's going to.

Help us when, as we grow and scale grow in the right direction. And somebody said to us recently it's like grow better before you grow fast or something like that. And, and that, that to us also really encapsulate, encapsulates how we want to do business. So it's about, yeah, growing, but like grow good. Grow good before you grow fast. And that's the best way in order to do it sustainably. And sustainably, meaning a lot of, you know, in all sense of the word, sustainably, environment, all senses environmentally and operationally and you know, from a staff perspective as well. So. Yeah, and, and as I mentioned before, I feel like it's brought us into this community where I feel it's such, it's a lovely, positive, supportive community as well. It doesn't mean, say you can't obviously have that outside of B Corp, of course you can. But it's, it's, it's just that sort of stepping off the point into, as we said for all those other discussions and, and I'll be totally honest with you as well, you know, we are a supplier to our clients and they are increasingly asking for.

Environmental, societal considerations when we're, you know, applying to or replying to RFPs or MSAs or whatever. And having B Corp means that, sure, it's not everybody's cup of tea and there's other, you know, aspects that, other sort of certifications that ticks those boxes as well. It's not a tick boxing, tick box exercise, but it's, you know, you know, that you can say, look, this helps you understand us as a business and it's, it means it does save time for us in that business sense as well, that we can say, well, this is what we already have in place, you know, nice.

Yeah, we definitely are saying that, you know, the number of companies that we've had inquire and say, yeah, look, you know, we're getting supply. We, the company yesterday conversation with them, he's like, look, we're already kind of running to Be Corp principles, but we need to put the ring on the finger. We, we're getting increasing pressure. They export from New Zealand into the UK and Europe. And they said, look, all the distributors that we're talking to, they want to know what our, what our environmental creds are. And then we're like, we just, we, you know, so it's like literally this is mission critical that we get B Corp certified to the table stakes to, to keep the business that we've already got, let, let alone scale and get any more. So yeah, yeah, it's a common refrain that we, that we hear. And yeah, I Think most of the companies that are doing it aren't doing it for the tick box. It's like, okay, look, we, we've kind of already aligned to wanting to do good. This just gives us the framework and it's going to cement these relationships. So.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.

I was going to ask as well. So with the. Have you noticed an increase in people reaching out for possible jobs since you've been B Corp certified? Or is it, again, maybe a bit murky because you had the B Corp pending? Because typically that's, that's a common thing that we see is people are going down, you know, the B Corp directory and, and kind of going, okay, I, I want to work for a B Corp. So it's a clearly identified group of organizations I can reach out to.

Yeah, I, I would, I wouldn't say there's been an increase. I'd say we get regular enquiries.

And I do feel that the purpose is coming through in, you know, we do talk about it a lot on LinkedIn and, you know, on articles on our website and that kind of thing. So I do feel we are communicating our purpose because we also know that that's what people do want, that they want to have purpose in their jobs and their careers. So I don't think having had the B Corp certification, while it's great, it hasn't necessarily.

Led to an increase, but that's because I think we'd already been talking about it a lot.

Yeah.

And we had the B Corp pending as well, so.

Yep. Yeah, I think, like I said, I think you're, you're a special case in that regard because, yeah, there's not that many that we've, we've helped or been engaged with in any way who've had that pending before. So. Yeah, but I think that that's maybe just proof that, you know, you had, you were baking in this good stuff from day one. So go you.

Yeah. So tension typically in, like, particularly with startup businesses, you know, it's bootstrapping. You know, we've, we've got to take work. How have you been? And again, you've been doing this from like day one. So the B Corps, not really been like a, a Rubicon moment of before and after. But how have you balanced purpose and profit? And have you had any tough conversations where it's like, we kind of need the money to pay the mortgages next month, but we really don't want to work with this company? Like, if we had. I mean, I've had plenty of those moments there's, there's companies, you know, back in the day, I've, I've taken the money from that. I preferred not to, but if I hadn't taken the money, I wouldn't be here today. And it's like I can rationalize that and I'm, I'm cool with that.

Yeah, it's, of course it's hard and there's, there's been one client that we've turned down because it wasn't in pharma, but it was in a sort of a scientific arena, it was.

In tobacco. And we were like, that just can't happen. Even if you're trying to justify it as change from within and etc. Because that just wasn't going to align with our values. And then generally the way we see it is that in order to do the, for example, the pro bono, the esg, the not for profit stuff, we do have to have paying clients in order to do that. So it's, you need to have a profitable business first in order to do that. So I mean, I think we've been very lucky in that since the start we have been in a position where we have been able to say yes to pro bono and ESG work. And also we, the model that we work on is quite flexible. So I do, we haven't had to have a tricky conversation yet, but I do foresee that we will because as we are taking on permanent staff, which we, we have done and we are doing, then that's, you know, a little bit more of that flexibility around.

Around, around resource and then also committing to a percentage of pro bono and ESG work. That's. Yeah, we're going to have to work that one out. And we haven't quite got the answer to that yet, but that's part of the journey. So yeah, I foresee potential challenges in that area. But we do know that we have to take on our clients in order to provide that additional, you know, benefit that we want to provide.

Yeah, it's, yeah, there's no solution. There's no great solution, which is why I like asking that question just. So, yeah, try and, you know, see what the common patterns are. But again, and, and you know, apart from like obvious ones like tobacco, there are great cases for that change from within. You know, are they, will we, will we be an, an overwhelming force for positivity and good by exposing them to B Corp and how we operate and letting people have a little, you know, insight into how, how that works versus if they just go off, you know, in Their little bubble of not doing good and they don't get that exposure without. And I think it's. It would be impossible to, to even collect the data around that because it's.

So.

Yeah, it'd be so hard. But for me, I always, just as we were sort of saying earlier on, you know, you can't underestimate the impact that you might have of that one conversation that could lead to something. And so, yeah, I, I always err on. It's probably better to, to expose people to, to the, this concept of people in the business for good because it is typically quite infectious. And once people see it, hey, this party is actually really good. The music's pretty cool, the beer's tasting pretty nice. Yeah. Actually, how do we start this party? Can we have the, we have the drinks list and the, the party guide and the party hats, please, for the next one. So. Yeah.

So what's the, what's the sort of the future? So you touched on supply chain being one area that you're kind of looking at any other areas that you're going to be looking at for your recertification because obviously you got three years but the clock is ticking. What. Yeah. What does that look like? What's the. The next big piece?

So of course we're also waiting to see what the changes are for the.

There is that we'll.

So while we can, you know, we'll be just about to publish our second impact report and have our sort of improvement goals in there. We are very conscious of the fact that very soon.

The certification is going to change. Right. So I think we've got one eye on that also. Like you say, given that, you know, when we submitted we didn't get assessed on employees, but now we, we will next time. So that's a big piece of work for us. Like you say, I think we're well set up for it. But that's a whole other aspect that, that we need to go into and start doing now. Basically, you know, we've got all the processes in place for the other areas that we were assessed on and that monitoring of that and recording and tracking. That's great. But I think for us the focus will be on the employee section.

There's also a piece of work around impact and measuring impact with what we do. And it's kind of tricky because ultimately it's the, you know, we're hoping that the work we do leads to better patient management, better quality of life for patients, but it's. We're sort of two steps removed from that. So measuring impact, that's another challenge for us and one that we need to sort of look into how we do that in a, in a systematic way. Yeah, and supply chain and.

Like the, the, that we attended a women's enterprise meeting, we connect back in July and that was about, you know, connecting big companies like huge multinationals with the smaller women owned businesses. And we learned a lot from that in terms of onboarding suppliers, like what they do and we can take that and use that. And that came up in our B impact assessment actually. It's like what do we do to help suppliers of minority owned businesses to onboard with us or to have an equal, you know, seat at the table. And that was something we hadn't considered. So that's again something else that we can look into in terms of ensuring our supply chain is, you know, continues to be diversified as well, is like helping suppliers come on board with us. So yeah, there's. Oh, I mean there's plenty to get.

Yeah, it's interesting. Yeah. You mentioned like the outcome stuff. So that's, that's an area that, yeah, I've not been strong on in the business.

But I'll. When the time's right, I'll connect you. So I've just been working. He's a mate of mine, but he's asked me not to publicize who he is and what he's doing yet because he's just getting his ducks in a row to sort of launch his business. But literally I've spent, other than doing the podcast this morning, I've spent an entire day today workshopping on confirming our theory of change and the outcome measurement and all that stuff. So if you want, I'll make a, I'll make a quiet intro for you because that's, that's his jam and he, he's been doing it for a couple of years now for other people, but he's going out on his own and it's really interesting. I was just saying to him today, the vast majority of companies that we have in our ecosystem on B Corp, it's, it's kind of like, let's just get you in, let's, let's just get B Corp. And most, most of them maybe don't have an impact. Well, if they have an impact business model, it's kind of like they've tripped over it rather than actually the business was set up to make this impact. It's like, okay, well you are doing something above and beyond. But it's, it's almost unintentional to a degree. Or it's not the core focus of the business. And I think there's a lot of companies that, that are wanting to start thinking about that and go, well actually, you know, we are a business that's doing good in how, in terms of how we operate and how we treat our staff and the rest of it. But is the work that we're doing actually making making waves? And so yes, it has been a really cool experience to go through that today. And yeah, pretty much the work we have been doing seems to be on track with, with, with outcomes that we think we're getting. So the next thing we're going to be doing is, is some stakeholder engagement and actually going out to our previous clients and other people to sort of say, and this is going to be the fun thing because this podcast is part of our, is now part of our theory of change. And so we're going to do. Spoiler alert. Although the post will probably come out before this episode is we're actually going to do like a LinkedIn post to say, did you know we're possibly the only podcast in the world that has a theory of change?

That's awesome. Love it.

Because the theory behind it is, you know, we, we are educating and inspiring people to look, to look at B Corp. And so we're going to run, the idea is we're going to run a LinkedIn poll to say, have you listened, if you've listened to our podcast, has it inspired you to think about B Corp or you know, start thinking about business for good in any way shape or form and if we can collect that data then we can say outcome measurement is our podcast has influenced people to think about more, you know, sustainability or impact in their day to day business. So watch this space. We hope to be the world's. I don't know unless someone else has got one, let me know. But I think I feel pretty positive. Will be the world's first podcast with the theory of Change.

That's. Oh, that's awesome. Love it, love it. Yeah, I mean we, we as an, you know, as a business we've got, we understand, you know, like evidence behind behavior change and different models that we can use. But it's just that, you know, that time and implementation to apply it and. Yeah, but it would be great if you could connect me because I'd love to talk to your friends. Yeah, do that.

He's like I say he's got some clients in the UK he's working with. So I will make a note of that because yeah, he he's got a really simple process that makes it, you know, demystifies what is quiet when you look at it, you kind of go, I don't really know where to start. But yeah, no, so he was very good. Awesome. So, yeah, what else is on the cards? What's, what's. You going to be an even better B corp in a few years, but, yeah, and you've got, you can have a bunch of employees. It just sounds like you're smashing it. Obviously.

As you were known in uni, Liz, the business, doing the business.

Yeah. Oh, my God, I haven't heard that for years. Yeah, it's come from. Well, yeah, well, you know, hopefully, hopefully next year I might get to see you at that reunion, that Cardiff University reunion. Yeah. And I can sort of update you on everything then. But, yeah, just doing what we do. Doing what we do well and bringing everybody along with us on the, on the ride and, and, you know, wanting to, yeah. Have some purpose with what they do. So nothing, you know, that, that we have got some research things.

That we're doing and hoping will be accepted and we'll be able to present them sort of upcoming sort of industry meetings and things. So I, I, it's not that, you know, precious, but I guess technically the data are embargoed, so I can't talk to you about it. Oh, well, it's just. Oh, it's just the way the industry works, you know, and. Yeah, so, you know, just that, you know, I was, I was on a panel discussion last week, as I said, at the Good Agency Summit, so just doing those kinds of things and talking about it, like, talking about purpose in that respect in relation to our businesses. Yeah, we shall continue doing that. It's great.

Banging that drum. That's what it needs. Awesome. Well, it has been great. We were just saying before we started, the last time we saw each other in person was what, like 18 years ago when. 18, 19 years ago you came out to New Zealand. I was living in Auckland and we went out to Orangutoto island and we walked up a volcano. So, yes, hopefully we won't leave it another 18 years. That Cardiff reunion sounds quite dangerous, but I am quite intrigued to see if I can make that happen. I think that could be. Yeah, I think we could, we could pull together quite an interesting group of humans to, to come back to that. I don't think Cardiff would be ready for.

Just don't, just don't wear blue shirt and chinos. Right.

Blue section chinos. Yeah.

But it's been really Good to reconnect sort of through the speaker journey. And yeah, love what you're doing. Like, like everyone else that we're hanging out with you just cool people doing cool stuff in a really cool way and you're do doing good business and you're going to do even more good business. So go you.

Thanks, Tim. It's been great. Love chatting to you this morning. And like you say, it's been so nice, you know, use not using this as an excuse to get together again, but it's just like, ah, it's really cool to be in touch and catching up on the old days.

Yeah. But I don't think the 1996-1999 Tim and Liz would ever have imagined we'd be on a podcast about business for good. And it's quite frightening.

It is. Just think in another 25 years when we're gone.

In our rest homes in Mars. That's my theory. Yeah. When Elon's cracked it and we're all living on some other planet, who knows, why not? We won't. We won't leave it that long, that's for sure.

No, definitely not. No.

Cool. All right, well, thanks, mate, we'll catch you soon.

Thanks very much. Bye.

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 other videos. They're probably floating around here somewhere. You know how it works. Thank you so much. See you next time.