03_Online - dub011 - Awin Podcast Mini-series Margate Day 1 - Chikay Lo - (16-9) - V3.2.txt
English (UK)

00:00:00.080 — 00:00:00.800 · Speaker 1
You are.

00:00:01.000 — 00:00:15.520 · Speaker 2
Very headstrong. Just carry on doing what you're doing. You will always find a way to make it work. Things are going to be hard. There's always going to be challenges. But keep your head up. Um. And just keep the tenacity.

00:00:29.960 — 00:01:20.850 · Speaker 2
So I am okay. I am the founder of Low Digital. We are a boutique affiliate agency where we specialise, working with luxury and premium brands. But our main point of difference, I'd say, is that we sit at the intersection of PR and performance marketing, and we flip. The traditional affiliate model is very reliant on lower funnel partners and we flip it on its head.

So all of our brands, we primarily work across all. We have a big, big focus on content and creators. Um, and, yeah, that's kind of my business. Uh, we've been going for three and a half years. But prior to that, never worked in an agency before in my life. So I decided to start my own. Um, I had been in-house for over a decade at Cult Beauty and also Net-A-Porter on their performance teams.

So very performance, um, heavy background.

00:01:20.890 — 00:01:24.730 · Speaker 3
And you said you hadn't worked the agency side, but what prompted you to actually set up an agency?

00:01:24.770 — 00:04:04.100 · Speaker 2
I love the affiliate, sort of. So I love the affiliate channel. Um, I yeah, absolute affiliate nerd. So I kind of took over Cult Beauty had this affiliate program when I joined them. This was in 2015, so 11 years ago. Um, and they just said like, look, can you take this over? I actually had no experience with affiliates prior to that.

When I was at Net-A-Porter, I was doing search, so I had a really good grasp of performance marketing and optimisation. So I utilised that to really build out that affiliate program for call. It was on the Rakuten network built it up to. It was one of the top. It became one of the top accounts for Rakuten, and I just found so much pleasure and enjoyment in the partnership.

Element of affiliates. Love. I love PPC, love, SEO, all of that. It's very analytical, which is how my brain works, and it lends itself really well to the data analysis side of things. So I really, really like that element of it. But why an agency specifically? So circling back to your actual question, um, is because I saw a really big gap in the market and coming from these luxury brands, a lot of the suggestions or the partner types that want to work with you are these low quality partners.

Um, so my biggest challenge when I first started out on my own, speaking to these luxury brands, they wouldn't almost entertain just speaking to me, saying, oh, affiliate cheesecake that's full of fraud, really low quality. It's all vouchers, partners. I had to fight, you know, to get even a chance to sit at the table to speak to them.

And we finally managed to do it. And then now brands are saying, oh, I recognise what you're doing. And yes, this is the type of affiliates I want to work with, and that's where true value is being added. And I find that really, really rewarding. And I'm really trying to completely change the channel and the industry.

And that is my end goal. That's what I want to do. I don't want it to be known as the channel that relies on last clicks and reported revenue. It's just been attributed from the last click, but nothing incremental is actually being driven and our clients are our stakeholders. We want to give you as much value as possible, and not just capture the demand that you've worked really hard and paid a lot of money to get, but we want to help you create more demand for your brand as well.

And that's where we add value. Yeah. But also it meant that it was really hard to get the foot in the door. For the first few years.

00:04:04.140 — 00:04:14.980 · Speaker 3
Yeah. Of course your role as a, as a founder was being a founder. Yes. Something that you always aspired to. Or is it something that just kind of organically emerged out of where you were in your career at that point?

00:04:15.060 — 00:05:41.590 · Speaker 2
Really interesting, because, um, I'll tell the story I was it's fine. I'll tell the story. So I got actually headhunted for one by one of our clients. Um, now, and when I was interviewed by they had someone was consulting for them and he asked me lots of these different questions. He'd seen my CV and he said, um, okay, GK ask these questions like, okay, tell me about your upbringing.

I was like, oh, okay. This is unusual. What are you passionate about? What drives you? What do you you know, what makes you excited? So I thought, okay, yeah, go along with it. As you can tell right now, like, there's no there's no problem with me just just just chatting. I had a lot to say. And then after that, he just says to me, um, and I've been in touch with him since.

Uh, by the way, he was a founder and exited of a really successful media agency, and he supports, um, founders looking for their senior leadership team to see if it's the right fit. So that's his role to support. He just goes immediately asking those questions. Okay. This role isn't right for you. That role at beauty isn't right for you.

You need to be doing your own thing. Oh, wow. That was in 2021, I believe. And it was at the end of 2022 that I started my own business. But that really stuck with me. And it's something a light bulb moment just just kind of switched in my head. I'd never had any ambitions ever.

00:05:41.790 — 00:05:41.990 · Speaker 3
To.

00:05:41.990 — 00:05:42.390 · Speaker 2
Start.

00:05:42.390 — 00:05:44.190 · Speaker 3
My own name that you might not have, actually.

00:05:44.230 — 00:06:34.430 · Speaker 2
Yeah. If he didn't, if he didn't say that, it made me just think he's like, Chico, you realise people buy into you. You're, you know, you're not you're not going to be happy doing something for someone else. What you should be doing is that you're very headstrong and you know what you want. I bet you, you know, argue all the time, but you have a lot of, like, back and forth.

Um, which is true. I'm not. I try not to be difficult, but I know what I believe in. I'll stand on ten toes, uh, arguing it, and then just really, um. Yeah, that really resonated with me, and it flipped my mindset. So hearing someone a really respected figure in the industry, you know, say that to you, you got to go.

You know what? Actually, some sometimes people know better than you. And actually I've not considered this, but that's when it started kind of going in my in my mind.

00:06:34.470 — 00:06:49.230 · Speaker 3
Was there ever a point as a as a founder, whether it's to do with this particular challenge around a hiring, um, or more generally speaking, where you genuinely thought like, you know, things might not work out with this business like I've had, like, you know, a few obstacles coming up here and I'm not sure if we're going to make it through.

00:06:49.310 — 00:10:58.860 · Speaker 2
As a business founder, I think everyone goes through this, so I know the exact moment where I was terrified. It was, um, just. And, uh, I think it was about two years ago, um, today. So when I first started low digital, we're going for what we've been going for just over three and a half years now. For the first year and a half, it was just me.

It was a consultancy module that I wanted to test as a bit of a proof of concept, to see if it would work. So this was back in end of 2022. Interest rates were a very different place, um, economically speaking. Um, we were in a much, much better place. People had so much budget, the clients had lots of budget.

I went live and I had like six brands, and then I had a huge brand for waitlist as well. So I do a lot of like conferences, talking panels because of my time at Cult Beauty. So quite a lot of people in the industry knew me, um, especially in the beauty world. And I actually got asked, um, I don't know how this came up to do a panel.

Um, by this PR Juliet. And it was with skim links were there. Conde Nast was there, and it was to a room full of peers. Um, and I think, uh, the teams, the skimming team and the Conde Nast team was a bit too technical, speaking to these peers. So I was the last one to speak, and I just saw this room of rabbits in headlights, and I was like, no, no, don't don't say that.

They don't know what CPA is. And, you know, you need to, um, kind of read, read that room and see what was going on. So I read the room and I just put everything into layman's terms off the back of that. So many brands, loads of PR, just reaching out, saying, I've got a brand. We need your help. We need your help.

I was like, this is amazing. It ended up, you know, a big brand wait list. And then I did that for a year and a half. Worked so hard, barely, like, barely took time off on weekends. It was one person managing six like full service accounts, which I'd never do that again. I was like, wow, that was knock some years off of my life.

So I thought, okay, now is the time to hire. Then I hired Sarah. So it would be she would have been with us two years in April. So she's two years kind of approaching two months now. And then that summer, around June time, we just lost clients back to back to back. Wasn't performance one of the clients? Their whole team got made redundant.

One huge budget cuts. Um, one of them, it just things that were completely out of our control. And at the time, I had to be, you know, I was the pilot of the, of the plane and act like, you know, going through turbulence, like just just going through a rough patch. But I've always been really transparent with my team.

And I told Sarah at the time, look, I worked really hard in my first year and a half to build a healthy nest egg. Should anything happen. Um, and even if we lose all of our clients now, I can still keep us going for a year. Obviously, I do not want that to happen. And then Sarah was really, really good about it. And she just started.

And all of these like, oh, I've left my, my, you know, really stable job and here. So I tried my best just to put on that brave face because as a founder sometimes you just have to do that. That's the best thing for your team. You don't want them to worry. But sleepless nights, waking up in the middle of the night, um, it and it wasn't just then and it wasn't.

That was the main, main point where I thought, what have I done? I had a really good stable job, career, you know, guaranteed income. And now I'm stressed all the time. I can't sleep, I got, like everything on my mind. It just, you know, every at least, every other minute. You're kind of worrying about that.

So the scariness of it was very, very real. And that was the main point where I thought, wow, okay, did I make you question everything you question yourself, decisions you make. Um, so that wasn't fun.

00:10:58.860 — 00:11:10.660 · Speaker 3
Yeah. And that's all kind of, um, part and parcel of stuff that's completely out of your control. Exactly, exactly. Redundancy being made, a brand site compliant or the macroeconomic kind of circumstances.

00:11:10.700 — 00:11:11.900 · Speaker 2
You can't plan for that.

00:11:11.940 — 00:11:15.540 · Speaker 3
And then you're suddenly having to kind of, like, take on the effects of that in terms of your responsibility.

00:11:15.540 — 00:15:15.290 · Speaker 2
Exactly. Which is scary. But what it did teach me, um, is, uh, resilience. There is no one like, there's no resilience like that of a founder who's kind of really got going through it and their business is about to collapse, I would say. But what it has taught me now is to appreciate, um, when you know that things are in such a good place, we now have the opposite issue.

And now we we can't take on brands because of the lack of resource, or were having to put brands on a waitlist and push them back further and further away. Yeah, which is completely opposite issue. But even with that, I will never be complacent because of what happened in the past. And it just made me a bit more conservative as well and really conservative about how I'm spending, where I'm investing money, my costs around everything.

Just really thinking about that because it's really unsexy side of of business, but it's really important as well. Unfortunately, the finance side of things, cash flow, all of this there is a and it's something that I hear in the space a lot as well. A lot of brands, like a lot of people aren't paying invoices on time.

And the more brands that we get, that means if some of these are paid late or we're speaking to a fractional FD to help sort this side of things, it's one of those I'm like, out of sight, out of mind. Yeah, I like affiliates and strategy. I was like, I don't want the boring things, but it's super important and I think that it can.

It can ruin a business. And having gone through that and experiencing it, it makes you it adds this level of cautiousness, which I think is really, really important in entrepreneurship. I've never really been reckless, but this just made me extra, extra cautious. Um, and just trying to really think long term and futureproof the business.

So it was horrible to go through. But I definitely see the light now because I think now even something bad happens. I was like, well, it was back then and it's not as worse as as that. You know, I had the prospects weren't looking good. We didn't have any prospects. We were losing clients. Things weren't looking good, but we managed to turn it around.

It was hard. We fought. And now we've come out of the other end. I'm sure that won't be the only thing that we come across. You know, as you grow problems, just. It's just different problems. Yeah, yeah, I'm certain that we'll be able to get there one day. But until then, I'm just taking that really, um, conservative approach.

Still, we are still small, but we're growing really quickly. But I also want to make sure that growth is sustainable and not just, you know, just one or done. I just really it's my name on on the brand. It's my baby. So I, I'm split. My mind is like split in so many different ways. But we are at least out of the scary part and we've been out of there before.

I don't think there was so much so warning signs because with the one one client it was slack. Can we jump on a call? Oh wow. And it was that that our whole team has been as well. So no no warnings there. It puts you also in a state of panic whereby you don't think so logically as well. Or you know, a cloud is all your other judgements because it's such a big thing that's weighing on your mind.

And I do my best work when my, when I can just focus on on the task and I go into hyper focus. If I'm looking at, you know, some a client strategy or deep analysis, I go into this hyper focus mode. But when the stress is is there and present, I just can't do that. So it has also the negative impact on the quality of work of what I'm actually really, really good at.

So there's so many negative things, you know, mental health wise. Yeah. Um, just sleeplessness, the worry constantly. Everything just on your mind. I'm not selling your.

00:15:15.290 — 00:15:15.730 · Speaker 3
Business.

00:15:16.090 — 00:16:19.490 · Speaker 2
Very well, but there are brighter days ahead, and now I. I absolutely adore it. Don't get me wrong. Swings and roundabouts always. Um, but now we are. It's just mainly good days. Um, you're still going to have some bad days. I mean, that's life, right? Nothing's ever just going to be on, on one, one level.

And it's really cliche that you need the clothes to enjoy the highs, you know. So whenever we get and luckily we don't get them to too much. But sometimes we get them. Um, is when you get a slap message. So some of our clients, we have them on slack and they would say, oh, hi, chic, do you have some time to hop on a call today?

Day on day or. Yeah. Can we have a quick. Can we have a chat? Yeah. Most of the times I'd say about 80, 90% of those times that's about handling the notice. Um, and that was, you know, from the trauma that I was talking about, but this actually happened to a client twice in a row on a Friday, but it was two different team members who were both leaving.

So I thought, oh, okay, I need to have a chat. I was like.

00:16:19.490 — 00:16:20.170 · Speaker 3
Oh yeah.

00:16:20.170 — 00:17:55.500 · Speaker 2
Okay. And then there's nothing. The thing is, I haven't actually found a solution of what to do when you have that, and I think I'm always going to get it. You know, I'm so involved with the business, I'm so invested in it, um, that ultimately it's kind of gonna gonna happen. Like. But all I've tried to do now is, look, no matter how you feel, it's not going to change the outcome of this conversation.

So just go ahead to the conversation. Assume that maybe it is that just for your own good, because then anything else is. If it's something else, that's a huge bonus. And then when they do say it, it never makes it that much easier though. But you try to align your expectations, but luckily it's not happened that that much I would say.

But with my team, um, and this is something I say all the time there. So it's like affiliates version of mentality. But I say to my team, transparency, transparency, transparency, I will always tell the account manager or whoever's leading that immediately and we'll have that conversation there. I really believe that having open and transparent conversations is how you build trust and credibility, and I have that trust with my team.

Most of my team are remote, so trust is a huge, huge thing and I trust my team implicitly. It can work anywhere in the world they want. For however long and as long as the time zones are matching our clients and us, the work always gets done. I never have to watch anyone. I never have to be like, what are you doing?

Or, you know, tracking anyone and being transparent is a big, big part of that.

00:17:56.020 — 00:18:01.980 · Speaker 3
There are coping mechanisms that you developed through those experiences that you kind of come to kind of lean on a little bit.

00:18:01.980 — 00:18:03.700 · Speaker 2
Now, spin classes.

00:18:03.860 — 00:18:04.340 · Speaker 3
Spin.

00:18:04.340 — 00:19:27.070 · Speaker 2
Classes that you might honestly, my team will laugh at this because I will work, work, work every hour up until I sleep. But don't get between me and a spin class. Also, I actually trained to become that. Or I auditioned to become a spin instructor at cycle, which is a big boutique. Um, one in uh, in Oxford Circus, which is where I usually go.

Luckily I got through to like the parts apart from to the main academy I didn't get through. Luckily for my team though, because I had to train. It was, um, Monday. It was like Monday. Tuesday. Two full days a week. And then I just thought I was like, if I get through my team, I'll find a way to make it work. And I'm so glad I couldn't because my team would have.

Just like the workload was ridiculous and we'd just onboarded two new, two new clients then as well to really pick ones. Absolutely couldn't have done that. That was one of the things I think, like, yeah, I can do it. But spin classes to me. Um, I yeah, I'm a regular there and it's like therapy for me. I don't do it in place of therapy if therapy is also very important.

Um outside um, of, of that. But in that room, that's when I forget everything. You know, it's one of those, like, in the club. Yeah. Um. My ex-boyfriend, just call it dancing on a bike is like. That's that's not spinning.

00:19:27.070 — 00:19:28.550 · Speaker 3
You're just understanding. Yeah.

00:19:28.670 — 00:19:57.630 · Speaker 2
So you don't understand. Um, but that's where I've really found, um, that I can. That's the place where I just switch off and I focus on pushing myself and my body to physically, you know, that war, just really pushing it. And that's what I think I enjoy as a founder as well, doing the best I absolutely can and just pushing, pushing, pushing.

Um, and always, just always competing with yourself. Yeah, it's a bit it's probably not. It's probably a bit toxic.

00:19:57.630 — 00:19:59.710 · Speaker 3
But you're doing the therapy as well.

00:19:59.910 — 00:20:03.870 · Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. We got therapy for that balance. Everything in balance. Right.

00:20:04.390 — 00:20:08.350 · Speaker 3
One of the things I wanted to ask you about was around other business ideas that you've had.

00:20:08.430 — 00:20:09.150 · Speaker 2
Yes.

00:20:09.190 — 00:20:15.030 · Speaker 3
Um, whether that's to do with the agency, whether that's pre-dates that. Okay. If you ever. You might be one of those people that's always got something.

00:20:15.070 — 00:20:15.710 · Speaker 2
Yeah.

00:20:15.830 — 00:20:20.830 · Speaker 3
Go ahead. Like is there are there other like, other ideas that you've had. Highly speculative but.

00:20:20.870 — 00:20:52.560 · Speaker 2
Yeah well I have I do have I'm not one of those people. I've got businesses, I've got this. Although me and my girl mates love to do that after a few wines. So it's just so we got there. They've actually got some brilliant ones I can't think of on top of my head, but one I did think about doing. Potentially. I'm not going to.

It's just way too, too much work. And I've spoken to, um, Andy Cooney about who is the founder co-founder of Ma code. We were going to try and start our own network that allowed no fraudulent partners.

00:20:52.720 — 00:20:53.000 · Speaker 3
Okay.

00:20:53.360 — 00:21:20.280 · Speaker 2
And then we thought about matching back all the publishers, all the bidders that we had that for about five minutes. No no no no no no no. That's too much work. I had to raise so many funds. CBA already quite busy. You don't have time for that. But that was something and it's very much aligned with what I do, what he does.

Um, but yeah, we're both already got our own businesses, which are keeping us very busy, so we don't need a another.

00:21:20.280 — 00:21:38.920 · Speaker 3
I think it's interesting to kind of speak to founders, I think, who are obviously in the weeds with their own businesses a lot of the time, and that occupies, you know, a lot of their lives just to think about, like, do they look at around other businesses or they take inspiration from outside or they see things, you know, they were kind of committed at the moment.

Yeah.

00:21:39.440 — 00:21:40.000 · Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah.

00:21:40.080 — 00:21:42.800 · Speaker 3
You still must have, like, a hunger to explore those other avenues.

00:21:42.880 — 00:23:40.780 · Speaker 2
Yeah. Well, I've got a really clear, um, path of what I want our agency to be, and it's kind of going beyond just the agency. I want it to be industry wide. I am in a really lucky position that I'm on a lot of advisory boards where we are, you know, talking about the issues that are going on in the industry. And I have an amazing platform, and I'm so grateful to all of our partners who take, you know, who invite me to these spaces and also listen to what I have to say.

Um, but I do also think they listen because they know I've got a point is that if they weren't, I don't think I was like, oh, or maybe they're just bullshitting me. Uh, I was like, yeah. Um, but I do think I do add, um, a alternative point of view as well, because I come from a pure performance marketing background, so I'm not just affiliates, and I bring the performance marketing director mindset to this channel, which I think whereas a lot of people just think pure affiliates.

I'm thinking about the whole ecosystem of marketing. No. Ever. Like when you come across a brand, no conversion happens. Or very rarely just through one single channel. There's so much influence across all of these, so you have to look at it as a holistic piece and just optimising on just one, looking at purely affiliates.

And we know how it's interconnected, interconnected with search. If you're working with like CSS partners, you know, some of the times a lot of people are brand bidding. There's a lot of other elements. If there's CRM as part of that user journey, how does that play into it? Are they doing retargeting strategies through paid social?

Tell me what you're doing and let us help your your business grow overall for other channels. And not just this one. Yeah. So I think that's. Yeah. Where, where we kind of add some sort of, um, value that's maybe slightly different to another agency.

00:23:40.820 — 00:23:48.500 · Speaker 3
Yeah. What do you know now, do you think as a, as a leader and a founder that you really wish that you'd understood earlier in your career?

00:23:49.180 — 00:25:59.390 · Speaker 2
I know now something that I this year particularly, which has really helped me, is understanding your strengths and knowing that you don't know everything and being very, very, um, kind of candid about that. I don't I where my strengths are. It's strategy negotiation, strategy analysis and optimisation.

Like affiliates I'm not good at admin ops. Like the like really detailed things. Um, and the business side of things. So I actually I've got a mentor. Um, she's called Sage Beswick. Very, um, she's very well known person she owned. Um, she exited from scene X, an influencer agency, did incredibly well, and now she mentors different agency owners.

So she has ten mentees and I'm one of them. And I think she's genuinely changed my business. She comes from that like, you know, outside approach, looking in and telling me things that where I just where my blind spots are, I'm not even thinking about simple things like, okay, show me your decks. They're so ugly.

How are you charging people these prices? Looks like a font factory explosion. I was like you said, you're right. You're right. Yeah, yeah, no, I did, I did I was like, I was like, it's amazing you're selling with this. You must have a really good product. No, she's. I absolutely love her. She's, um. Honest.

So honest. But everything she said is so valid as well. She has really changed my business. And I think when you accept that and you, you know, have to put some of that ego, um, aside, like, I'm not I don't know anything about any of these elements. I just, um, so. Yeah. So learn from someone who does and absorb it all in always learning everything is an opportunity to to learn.

And that's why also when I fail, I say, or if I make mistakes, it's not really a mistake because it's an opportunity for you to get better. Just take the learnings. As long as there's something you can take from it. It's not really a mistake in my eyes. Yeah, and something we say or I try to encourage the girls to do in my team, fail fast.

Yeah. The best way to do it fail fast.

00:25:59.430 — 00:26:09.630 · Speaker 3
Now, if you were to go back and kind of spend some time with your younger self. Yes, you can choose how much younger. Okay. But what would your advice be? Do you think.

00:26:10.030 — 00:26:14.710 · Speaker 2
Things are gonna be fine? Things are gonna work out. I say, um.

00:26:14.990 — 00:26:18.150 · Speaker 1
I you are very headstrong.

00:26:18.190 — 00:27:30.920 · Speaker 2
Just carry on doing what you're doing. You will always find a way to make it work. Things are going to be hard. There's always going to be challenges. But keep your head up. and just keep the tenacity. I think that is. And things will be okay. I think I could tend to think when I was younger I was worrying a lot like, oh, what will my future be?

X, y, Z, all of this. But I mean, I'm spicy. There's no there's no denying it. I will, you know, call out if I don't agree with something or if I think someone's acted inappropriately, I'll point it out. I'll go toe to toe with someone. I've got the conviction and the information to back it up. So I don't mind, like debating or having those conversations with someone.

And I actually think that's what makes someone a good leader. Um, um, and that's what I have found. And when confidence makes such a difference, um, right. Especially if you're having these conversations, I have these all the time where a lot of the really old school affiliate industry people try to argue with what I'm saying.

I welcome it, I'm like, come at me. I said, I've got data and information to back this up with. That's fine. Let's go, let's go.

00:27:33.240 — 00:27:37.120 · Speaker 3
What advice would you give to somebody thinking about starting a business today?

00:27:37.160 — 00:27:37.960 · Speaker 4
Think about it.

00:27:38.160 — 00:30:14.010 · Speaker 2
Think. Think about it. It's amazing. It it is amazing. But it takes a certain person. So if be willing to be all consuming, it's. Or every founder I speak to is like this as well. There is no I have never come across a founder who's just been really easy like doing so well. Oh my God, there's always so many issues.

If it's not hiring, it's cash flow or it's HR into team politics, anything like that. Client issues, all of this. If you do run your own thing. I think one of the the biggest, biggest things that I would say is, um, saying no to the wrong client is the best thing that you can do, you know, in your gut if it's not going to be right.

I've had those before, but because, you know, we were small, we just needed it, right? Right now, though, we actually say no to more brands than who approach us than we say yes to. We don't do any outbound. Everything comes inbound to us, or we get there referred from agencies or the brands we work with. So we're obviously an incredibly privileged place now.

But it wasn't like that when, you know, when I was losing, like, hi everyone. I was like, hey, anyone, just go on the streets and you'll need a full program building to sell Oxford Circus. But the sandwich board also that close. But then you don't have a choice. But once you have established yourself and you have that luxury, say no to the brands that aren't right because they will drain you, your mental capacity, your resource, and it's just not worth it.

And and just think really, really think about it. Unfortunately, in our economy and our government right now, it almost feels like small businesses are being penalised. Our costs are Increasing. If you're looking to do it like a mo, I like it. I don't. Don't do it for that reason. Um, it's. Yeah, it's. But it's also beautiful.

I am so proud of what I've created the team, the culture. And it brings me so much joy that I don't mind that it's on my mind all the time. I still have those times. I wake up in the middle of the night or having a dull moment in the shower. It's like, let's do this, um, do that. And that's what I love, and that's how I'm passionate about it.

It makes me happy. So and that's why I love it. So just know your your threshold though, and you need so much energy. Yes. Um, an abundance of energy if you have those things, the passion, the energy and the drive for it. Um, absolutely. Go for it and throw the kitchen sink at it.

00:30:14.050 — 00:30:23.610 · Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah, yeah. What role do you think um, luck plays in a lot of the and I mean this in both like yeah good. Good luck obviously but also bad luck.

00:30:23.620 — 00:30:24.300 · Speaker 2
Yeah.

00:30:24.460 — 00:30:26.580 · Speaker 3
Be a real kind of variable that you can't control.

00:30:26.620 — 00:31:51.460 · Speaker 2
When I started my own business. Actually, something that I had a lot of was imposter syndrome. I know everyone talks about it, but I had come from this huge brand called beauty. Everyone knew, everyone respected. And I became synonymous with that brand. So to come out of it and do my own thing, literally starting from scratch, the people who were begging at your door, the publishers, the networks, they're like, no, no, no, that's not that's not true.

Rakuten were incredibly supportive of me after I started my own thing, and I owe a lot to them as well. But a lot of the other, you know, people were really close with or you thought you were closer. No, you don't call anymore. No time of day for you that started that was starting from scratch. Um, there was no luck there.

Importantly, there was no luck. That was pure graft. Um, there are obviously things that maybe it was lucky that I got asked to do the, you know, PR, um, thing. Maybe it's. But how do I know that's the mark or. Yeah, where does luck start and opportunity and. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly, exactly. Um, so.

But I know there are things that will no outside impact, but it affects everyone. I would say economic impact. So I don't think that was the whole world being unlucky. That was just. Yeah. Um, unfortunately the times that we are currently living in.

00:31:51.500 — 00:32:06.380 · Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah, we've talked a lot about like, um, challenges and, you know, circumstances where you felt like maybe you were losing, but yeah. To finish on a more positive note, um, what do you think? Like winning actually means? Do you like success? What does that actually mean to you now?

00:32:06.380 — 00:33:50.510 · Speaker 2
So success to me now is if I can change the industry and change how the industry is viewed. So we need to firstly start in inward and then what looks, you know, outwardly facing that is what good looks like. So we're kind of trying to start there first. But the day that marketing directors CMOs start recognising the affiliate channel as a value driving one and not, you know, you know, just afterthought or like affiliates, we don't it's always with the channel to get left behind.

Whereas actually we are the channel that you only pay on net sales, PPC, that doesn't happen. So if someone returns something we're not paying for for that, and there's a lot of value in that and what it can do. So if I manage to change the entire industry, I'd be like, I'd call that winning. But then also a more realistic, um, I mean, I think it's realistic, the industry changing one winning for me is having a happy, talented team who are passionate about what they do.

And right now that is what I have. They are, you know, I they're so engrossed in their work. They'll work. They always work late. And I have to ask them to log off. I say, please, can we log off girls please, please, like we're telling them. And I don't want them to get into that, um, a pattern to do that. But as a leader and a founder, how amazing is it that you have a team who are so passionate about what they do that they don't even see?

They're not like counting the clock. They're doing the opposite and staying on, or they're saying, no, no, this is my little project. I just want to work on this. I'm like, don't you dare. Um, so to me, that is winning. And seeing them succeed is winning to me.

00:33:50.510 — 00:33:58.710 · Speaker 3
And do you think that your definition of success has kind of evolved over time as your career career has developed and have your kind of success metrics become bigger, do you think?

00:33:58.910 — 00:34:01.270 · Speaker 2
Yeah. Oh, yeah. I didn't I didn't set out to change the industry.

00:34:01.270 — 00:34:01.550 · Speaker 3
When I.

00:34:01.550 — 00:34:03.590 · Speaker 2
Started, when I first started.

00:34:03.590 — 00:34:04.750 · Speaker 3
A ten year old. Okay. Yeah.

00:34:05.510 — 00:34:29.800 · Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That's how I'm going to change this. I didn't know I wanted to create something different, but now and then, seeing the appetite for what we are doing is so doable. It is. Well, it's not just too doable. There is an appetite for it. Um, and I would love to get there, but absolutely.

This is not the challenge that I had set myself on. I just had to do my own thing. So it's definitely changed with with time.

00:34:29.840 — 00:34:38.200 · Speaker 3
And would you say that, um, say in kind of three years time, what would what would that success or state of winning look like? Is it about the industry or is it about.

00:34:38.240 — 00:34:38.600 · Speaker 2
I.

00:34:38.600 — 00:34:39.960 · Speaker 3
Think, you and your team?

00:34:40.000 — 00:35:33.520 · Speaker 2
I think then it'll be a bit more. I'd like to focus on the company first growing us there. We're still doing all of these things, you know, in the industry part of all of the different boards, the agency, um, boards as well. So I think the thing is, I don't think I can predict that right, right now, but I would say it's still a big, big focus.

But also my team as well is my number one. We want to grow in a healthy and considered way, but with incredible talent. And that's why hiring is more of a challenge. I want to ensure that standard um is incredibly high. Um, and I know when we get told all the time any team member joins to take your service level is like nothing we have ever experienced before.

I was like, good, that is it. And that is that high standard. I don't want that to drop ever. And I know that happens when you expand too quickly or grow and have too much team like too big a team.

00:35:33.800 — 00:35:33.960 · Speaker 3
As.

00:35:33.960 — 00:35:35.520 · Speaker 2
Well. So lots of balance.

00:35:35.560 — 00:35:36.560 · Speaker 4
It is. It is.

00:35:36.600 — 00:35:38.000 · Speaker 2
But it's exciting.

00:35:38.960 — 00:36:09.160 · Speaker 3
That's all for this episode of Lessons from losing. Next time I'll be joined by Hannah Warrior, co-founder of a Philly Fest, to uncover the setbacks, challenges and lessons behind building one of the affiliate industry's fastest growing events. If you've enjoyed listening, make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss the rest of the series.

And if you'd like to watch the full video interviews, head over to A Win's YouTube channel. Until next time, thanks for listening and join me again for another lesson from losing.