Online SMB Retail x Creator Economy with Pete Davis

In conversation with Pete who is Founder and CEO of Ampjar, a karmic advertising community that helps small brands to acquire customers through a fast and simple exchange of shout outs. We discuss the evolution of marketing, the similarities of SMB Online Retail and the Creator Economy and what creators can do today to amplify their reach and genuinely reach out to their target audience in a way that reflects their personal brand.   Prior to running Ampjar, Pete ran a social and digital media agency which worked with household name brands in 6 countries. Pete sold the business to Private Equity in 2017.   Reach out to Peter - LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterjamesdavis/ AmpJar - ampjar.com/lets-grow e-mail - pete@ampjar.com Reach out to Naga –  Twitter - @n1n3stuff / @PassionPeop1 (https://twitter.com/ThePassionPeop1 ) Facebook - The Passion People Podcast email - naagasubramanya@gmail.com Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/thepassionpeoplepodcast/   More about EpLog Media - You can follow us and leave us feedback on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter @eplogmedia, For advertising/partnerships send you can send us an email at bonjour@eplog.media. If you like this show, please subscribe and leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts, so other people can find us. You can also find us on https://www.eplog.media/thepassionpeoplepodcast DISCLAIMER: The views expressed on all the shows produced and distributed by Ep.Log Media are personal to the host and the guest of the shows respectively and with no intention to harm the sentiments of any individual/organisation. The said content is not obscene or blasphemous or defamatory of any event and/or person deceased or alive or in contempt of court or breach of contract or breach of privilege, or in violation of any provisions of the statute, nor hurt the sentiments of any religious groups/ person/government/non-government authorities and/or breach or be against any declared public policy of any nation or state. Transcript [00:00:00] Pete: [00:00:00] these small businesses have all these platforms that they're meant to be using like Facebook advertising, like SEO, like Google advertising. [00:00:10] And they just don't have the bandwidth to learn how to, how to use it  because they just have so many other things that they're doing in their business. [00:00:17]But the way that we see it is that this is a movement in our minds towards giving the control back to the brands. So giving them more autonomy to control how they advertise, because essentially what we're trying to do is create a third model [00:00:33]. So I'm the founder and CEO of a company called amp jar. I'm actually based down in Melbourne Australia right now. So we're actually a us company, but I live down here. It's home. So it's a good place to kind of shelter while all this COVID things going on. And yeah, Ampjar is a community of brands that shout each other out through various channels to help each other grow. [00:00:56] So we have hundreds of brands all over the U S [00:01:00] Canada, Australia. New Zealand is our focus markets at the moment. Yeah, they shout each other out through social or emails or  post  checkout on their website. And the whole intent of it really is these small brands have incredible relationships with their customers relationships that are just stronger than I've ever seen anywhere before in marketing. [00:01:19] And what we're trying to do is help these brands. Team up work together so that customer acquisition is something that they can do together rather than having to go to platforms like Facebook or Google to get that amplification and to meet new customers. [00:01:32]Naga S: [00:01:32] And ideally what is the size of these businesses and what, what are they into. [00:01:36] Pete: [00:01:36] Yeah. So typically the main type of customer for us is a smaller business. So someone who maybe has. Four five, six employees is kind of core to us. And sometimes we have people who are just on their own. Sometimes we have people who have 20 employees, but maybe core is that small team with a handful of people. [00:01:55]And more often than not, they are what we call [00:02:00] independent retail. So someone who has a product. They're not dropshippers, you know, they, they have their own product. They have their own social channels. They sell a product through a website, like a Shopify style website they're really authentic businesses. [00:02:14] Naga S: [00:02:14] Got it. And what, what would drive the decision of these businesses to you know, choose to come to Ampjar as against traditional modes of marketing? [00:02:23] Pete: [00:02:23] Yeah, absolutely. So my background was, was marketing. So I, before doing this, I ran a marketing agency. So we run it down here in Melbourne. We built it to having 20 staff and we worked in six countries , we worked with some incredible brands  I would say that there was a time in there where I was the expert. [00:02:41] I was the go-to. If you wanted to know anything about Facebook ads or Google ads or how to use this channel or that channel, I was the go-to come to me and talk to me about it. And then as you know, when you build a business, you grow it over time and you get to a point where you do more of the management, less of the hands-on dirty work. [00:02:59] And [00:03:00] it quickly became a fact that I didn't. Have the expertise, I wasn't the go-to on these things. And so what we found was that I would then go back to check out how Facebook works. So like Facebook advertising and the whole thing completely changed. And so that's a really good example of how. These small businesses have all these platforms that they're meant to be using like Facebook advertising, like SEO, like Google advertising. [00:03:29] And they just don't have the bandwidth to learn how to, how to use it and to then stay abreast of it because they just have so many other things that they're doing in their business. So typically people have tried those platforms. Maybe they've tried working with influences and had a bit of hit or miss over there. [00:03:44] Maybe they've tried. Partnerships of some extent to some, some degree, but what Ampjar does is it provides a really simple way for them to leverage the audiences that they've built, but also the skills that they have as people and knowing what they're really good [00:04:00] at, which is having a really good, genuine conversation with their own customers. [00:04:03] So it feels like a really natural place for someone to go when they have maybe tried. All of the, all of the above obvious places to start. Now we present an opportunity which is perfect for them because it doesn't have a steep learning curve. It's really natural to the way that they are spending their time, running their business and communicating anyway. [00:04:22] Naga S: [00:04:22] I can relate to the fatigue factor that you are to where you know, as small businesses you're. Need to keep up with so many things that keep changing on a constant basis. Right. And especially like last platform that Google and Facebook, it's not really feasible for them to do that. [00:04:37]What's the duration of the learning curve for Amtrak and what's the difference in the customer acquisition costs that these businesses typically see on your platform? [00:04:45]Pete: [00:04:45] For us where you don't think we have much of a learning curve, so the way that we see it is essentially what we're saying to them is when you land in the platform, here's a bunch of other brands that you can shout out. So go and choose someone to  share through your [00:05:00] channels. [00:05:00] And then what they'll do is they'll just. Pick someone out that they'd like to look over and they'll say, wow, I'd never knew that this company existed in here or Hey, check out this brand founded by this brilliant person in Nebraska or wow. Check out this beautiful imagery over here. And so they'll do something like that. [00:05:16] Something that's really nice and natural. And so they're doing that anyways. So they're already used to doing that and having that as part of the process. And then the way that Ampjar works is that when you do that, when you shout someone else out, You earn what we call karma credits. So it's like our internal currency of Karma or Goodwill. [00:05:34] So I've shouted someone else out. I then earned credits for shouting them out. And then as soon as you've got credits, other people can start shouting you out. So you might find that it takes a couple of hours. You might, it might take a day, but someone else is there. And so you shout someone out and bang someone else shouts you own return. [00:05:51] You shout someone out. Someone else who helps you out in return? So it's not necessarily one-to-one is not a shout out brand. A brand day. Shouts. We back [00:06:00] in return is more like I shout out brand a and then brand J comes on and shouts me out. And then brand F shouts me out as well, because they were both a bit smaller. [00:06:08] So it's yeah, it's nice and flexible in that way. [00:06:12]Naga S: [00:06:12] So essentially, what, what your aha moment I guess, would be here is that a lot of content creators typically start off this way, right? They start off by being on shows are on you know, on the podcast. Folks who are similar to them, or even a little bit more popular than them. And they try to get a little bit of the other podcast or the other content creators audience back to that platform. [00:06:39] So is that what you're trying to get at with, with this. [00:06:42] Pete: [00:06:42] Yeah, I think that there's a, there's definitely like a, an element of that. So we've taken that that sort of model and applied it into consumer brands, applied it into saying. Like one brand can shout out another brand. And the Goodwill that they have with their customers is [00:07:00] something that they can leverage to then reach more customers in another way. [00:07:04] So it's almost like saying that, you know, if we were, if we were doing this and I would say, Oh, well look, the passion people podcast represents a great opportunity for me to tell our story in front of some brilliant customers or potential customers all over the world. That's got value to me. And so it would then be that because you have given me some of this spotlight Karma credits would transfer from me to you. [00:07:27] And then in the future, you would have Karma credits and then someone else would have you on their podcast. Karma credits would transfer from you to that other person. So, yeah, we're not in that space yet. We're not doing podcasts. We're really focused down at the moment on these e-commerce businesses, independent retail who are working on those channels like Instagram and  through emails and those kinds of things that are really natural to what they're doing, but yeah, exactly. [00:07:50] That exactly the right model that you've just described. [00:07:54]Naga S: [00:07:54] Can you elaborate a little bit more in terms of the ROI that these individual brands get [00:08:00] by being on platforms such as yours? [00:08:02]Pete: [00:08:02] So what we focus on is views and clicks. And so the model that we have at the moment is because we're building what we believe is a very long-term business, rolling up all these brands, bringing them into this model of allowing them to leverage their social audiences, their databases, their traffic, we're focused right now on on activity rather than revenue. [00:08:26] So, what, what we're trying to do right now is, is say that for us, our pricing model, isn't about us getting paid as much as we can. It's about getting people to do as much as we can so that we're building a community that supports others. So our pricing it's $22 a month us, but if you do 12 shout outs in a month, it's free, we won't charge you. [00:08:47] So if you get to the end of that month and you've done 12 shout outs, we just skip your billing and we just don't charge you. So. By having it that way, often the investment in is zero from a dollar perspective. [00:09:00] Instead, what they're doing is they're sharing other brands in a positive way for them. [00:09:05]And then they're getting clicks and traffic off the back of it. So when they're sharing another brand, we always want that to be a wholly positive exercise for them. And not just a, Oh God, I have to share another brand. I don't want to do this. It's never like that. It's always a case of, Hey, today, I'm going to share some of my favorite female founded brands, check out these guys and these guys and these guys, and it's always really positive for them to do it. [00:09:27]So the investment ends pretty low and pretty low effort. And then the investment out or the, the output of that the result is. Is traffic and sales. So what we tend to find is that we, we net our average customer about $250 worth of additional sales a week of being a part of the platform. So if the traffic that we drive from are from all these different chat apps, so they'll get in return. [00:09:52] It definitely varies because essentially the Karma model means what you give is what you get in return. But on average, it's [00:10:00] about $250 worth of additional sales every single week based on the traffic that we drive to these members websites. [00:10:07] Naga S: [00:10:07] Wow. That's that's awesome. And I'm sure as you get more and more brands, that number is only going to keep going up. [00:10:13] Pete: [00:10:13] Yeah. It's, it's exciting to see. I would say it's, it's even turned a corner a lot through COVID. So for us originally right at the start. So back in March, we had a different pricing model and the pricing was like a set amount per month. And we actually just said, look, we don't know what's going to happen for the next few months for all of, for all of you, in fact, for us as well. [00:10:33] But what we're going to do is we're just going to drop our pricing to zero for a few months. So when she's not going to charge you for a few months, whatever you do Yeah. It was something that we knew that we could do from the perspective of, you know, we're venture backed. We raised some capital, we have some, money and, and it wouldn't be a killer to do that. [00:10:49]We knew that the important thing for us was these businesses had no idea what was happening. You know, retail drove down to zero. Kids were at home. [00:11:00] People were looking after kids while they were trying to run their businesses. There was just a lot happening. And so what we wanted to do as well, there was a really aggressive uncertainty. [00:11:07] And not that the world's in a brilliant place now, but while there was really aggressive uncertainty, we wanted to be able to turn around and say, look, let's look after you now and we'll work it out in the future. So I'd say that we got a lot of loyalty off the back of that. A lot of people said, well, that was a brilliant thing to do, and we should be proud. [00:11:23] I think we are And that was the catalyst for us to say, Oh, well now we've said to these people, we're not going to charge them because we don't know what's happening. We got a lot of growth off the back of that is I guess, Hey, drop your pricing to zero. And lots of people start using your product. That's the secret. [00:11:38] Everyone should take away from this episode. But actually for us, the big driver was we need to drive activity. So to get all these brands Helping each other out doing it more and more and more was even more relevant and pertinent at that time. So it all kind of collided in the right way for us, but , we had to give up a lot to make it happen. [00:11:57]Naga S: [00:11:57] So essentially you folks moved to [00:12:00] a freemium model of sorts, but with no shift to paid yet, but they've dropped to a freemium model, but in the future you would do a transition to a paid model. Again. [00:12:09] Pete: [00:12:09] Yeah, we were like a monthly fee model and then we moved to not even Freemium. It was just free. So we went from monthly to free. And then now we're at I guess we call it like teared based on activity, but it's kind of negative activity. So the more you do, the less you get charged, so you either get charged $22 a month or you don't. [00:12:30]And then after that, like once we've, once we feel like we've got. Such sufficient scale and we're pretty close, but once we've got  such sufficient scale, we'll then turn around and say, well, now it's just $22 a month because we know that everyone's getting value out of it anyway. And we don't really have to incentivize activity because activity is important, but for everyone new who's joining. [00:12:53] Be active because we can show you why you should be active, but also you're still going to get charged. So there's kind of a longer term [00:13:00] play to get there. And again, because we took  that venture capital at what we believed was the right time and with the right kind of partners, it meant that it allowed us to be flexible. [00:13:09]Naga S: [00:13:09] I'm sure this is a concern that you would have heard from some of the brands that are coming on. How does this work in case both a brand and its competitor are both part of Ampjar. So how does that work? [00:13:19]Pete: [00:13:19] We have it. We definitely have it. We focus on, like I said, the core customer base for us is independent retail and there's only so many categories. So if you're a jewelry company or a fashion brand, there's nuance between what counts as competitive for you. But we have a lot of brands that are in similar markets that crossover and. [00:13:38] Yeah, the, brand just has ultimate control. So when you join, you answer a bunch of profiling questions and you tell us, these are who my customers are. These are the kinds of customers that they want to meet and give us a bunch of other things. And then we'll match you up with a lot of other brands, but never anyone who's competitive to you. [00:13:54] And also if there is someone that you think has an element of. Competition. You just don't shout them out. you're [00:14:00] totally in control over what you do. You don't have to share them. They don't have to share you. You can completely remove them as a match and you have ultimate control. So we know that giving our members that ultimate control is critical. [00:14:12] So we've always had that really core so that the competitive thing is just never an issue. [00:14:17]Naga S: [00:14:17] For these retail brands that,  are typically run by solopreneurs.  What are some of the others like broad level trends that you notice now that you have such proximity to such a niche segment of the market? [00:14:27] Pete: [00:14:27] Yeah, great question. I mean, I think what we're seeing more than anything is all these businesses. A lot of them used to be spending time at events and trade fairs and those kinds of things. And that's obviously completely changed, like nothing in-person is happening. So we've seen the growth of the platform. [00:14:44] Not sure if you guys have heard it as a platform called fair, which is a wholesale marketplace for these independent retail style brands. And so. All those brands have gone from this model of, I need to go to these trade markets to find the [00:15:00] next brands to stock at my store. And now that's all been totally digitized. [00:15:05]We're seeing a lot of local brands having to jump online that used to rely on traffic from, , people who are walking up and down the street, but now that's less relevant. So lots and lots of brands are finding new ways to go online. And then even as like a more smaller trend. We're seeing more of a navigation towards the leaders in the marketplace. [00:15:27] So for us, we see a lot of people going to Shopify. So if they're on Wix or Wecommerce or Squarespace, those kinds of things, there's more and more. Movement. We see towards Shopify because people look at that as being the gold standard and people start there as well. So I think that we might see a bit of a change over the next few, maybe even like year or so of people. [00:15:51] Of the, the number of options there potentially reducing a little bit because the barriers to entry have got so high. I don't see many new options [00:16:00] launching in terms of  like retail brands selling online because the bar now to be at the level of a Shopify is. Is incredibly high. And there might be a bit of a roll up in that area. [00:16:11] Some, some smaller ones teaming up because yeah, again,  we just see so much value in network effect for Shopify to have to have multiple people using their platforms as they do. [00:16:21]Naga S: [00:16:21] So this seems like.an evolution in marketing right?. This seems like the logical next step in marketing, affordable marketing with an impact because whenever a particular segment or whenever a particular sector becomes extremely hot, what automatically happens is that the, the bidding rates for Google and for Facebook , they go insane. [00:16:44] And for people the ROI from the marketing spend reduces. So do you see what you folks are doing? It I'm just as being like the evolution of marketing and how do you see that panning out going forward? [00:16:56] Pete: [00:16:56] Yeah. The larger trend of what we see here is that. [00:17:00] The digital marketing is owned by two brands right now. So Facebook and Google, like it's, I can't remember the percentage off the top of my head, but it's something ridiculous. Like 65% of all digital spend goes through their channels. [00:17:12] It could be way worse. That number could be way off, but I'm sure if you Google it, it'll come up. . But the way that we see it is that this is a movement in our minds towards giving the control back to the brands. So giving them more autonomy to control how they advertise, because essentially what we're trying to do is create a third model here of yes, you can use Google because that is intent search yes, you can use Facebook because that is like passive interruptions in browsing and interest based targeting and those kinds of things. [00:17:45] But. What we're trying to do here is we're trying to say, but you also have control of this audience yourself, and you have a relationship that you've built with these customers. So that the larger trend that we're seeing is, is even like where, what someone's favorite brand is. So I think [00:18:00] if you go back. [00:18:01] 10 years. And you said what's your favorite brand? So the average person on the street,  there'd be a lot more homogenous answers between people of saying it's Nike, it's Apple it's this car company, it's this tire company, it's this technology company, that gaming company, whatever it is, There'll be a lot more homogeneity in their answers. [00:18:20] So everyone will be saying the same kind of things. I think what's changed now is that if you say to someone what's your favorite brand, it can be something that was started last year by one person who spun up a Shopify store and built a great following very, very quickly. So we're seeing  the interest moving towards . A smaller level in terms of these smaller businesses that are now able to, through social and tech,  very quickly grab attention. And then what we want to see is we want to see a model that allows them to have much more control over how. They build their business without having to go to a Facebook and Google and pay them because they [00:19:00] actually have the best asset, which is an incredibly strong relationship with their own customers. [00:19:04] So our model is obviously saying leverage that relationship that you have in a really positive way without having to constantly put your hand in your pocket and hand over money to Facebook and Google. [00:19:14]Naga S: [00:19:14] You mentioned that over the last 10 years, we've seen the emergence of these solopreneurs solo retailers, right? So what you mentioned a couple of factors that led to that. Could you elaborate? Could you double click on that a little bit and elaborate on what you think has led to the rise, these of these you know, solo business owners in the specific niche that you're working on. [00:19:36] Pete: [00:19:36] Yeah. I mean, I think there's. we've all like in our own example of why we started this business, you know, way we have kids. So we've got little twin girls and my wife became the ultimate consumer. And so I think the model was then changed. Around five years old now. And the model was then changed around that time, where there was this massive proliferation [00:20:00] of small businesses that were springing up that could then talk to their customers really easily through Instagram. [00:20:06] So my wife would constantly shop through Instagram and find brands all the time, find people that she wanted to. As you want it to support that you want it to be a part of as you want it to feel good. So when you buy from a small business, you genuinely know that you're supporting someone, you know, that the other end, their little Shopify app on their phone did the, that the till register noise whenever you make a sale and that someone else is happy at the other end. [00:20:31] And there's something that comes from that, that I think is, is now more relevant in our community and in our way of living. So the way that we see it is that now that's been shown and now technology has enabled people to spin up a business more quickly by having like there's a, there's essentially a playbook. [00:20:48] It's go and get yourself an Instagram account, go and get yourself a short, go get a.com go and get a Shopify site to, to power it all. Start talking through Instagram, load [00:21:00] your login what you're selling onto the Shopify store. And you can go. You don't need to try to think about where am I going to get $5,000 a month to. Have my rent, then I'm going to have to pay for internet and they're going to have to pay for  my till. And I have to pay for fit out, then gonna have to pay for this and that and stuff and this and not the other. You don't need to do that anymore. [00:21:19] So the model has gone from being a really high barrier to them. Being able to start a business to then actually a much lower barrier. And so I think it's a bit of a catalyst thing. A few people went early and they're doing it, but now when someone starts a business. They might start it because, well, they, they had they had a baby and they used to work at a big bank in the city. [00:21:40] And now they've been living in their house, bringing this child up for a couple of months. It's like, wow, I actually don't want to go back to the office. I don't want to go back and do that job anymore, but I've just bought all this stuff. I've been the ultimate consumer for a while. I can see the pain points that other parents have gone through. [00:21:56] Let me spin up a baby clothes company. You know that everyone's going through these [00:22:00] experiences. And I think that because they're able to see the winners and see other people do so well and people that they know who are now working for themselves, rather than working for  for the big businesses, they can look at those examples and say, Why not me. [00:22:14] Why can't I have that lifestyle? And I'm willing to trade the risk of giving up my a hundred thousand dollars a year job at the bank to try this out and to see if I can build a business because the autonomy and the fun that I'll have doing it is, is worth it for me. [00:22:31]Naga S: [00:22:31] That's really interesting insight because the reason I asked you that question is because we've also seen similar transitions happen with creators.  Creators who we talked to as part of the podcast, a recurring theme that, that has now started coming on is that once you've had like a large enough audience, you turn them into a community, which is the same that you said, get your proximity to your business and leverage it. [00:22:56] So in the creator context, what they do is [00:23:00] they have like a large enough viewer base or listener base or following whatever you want to call it. They start curating them into a community and then they start a business to support the community, whether it is it could be a retail business or it could be a services business, but I see a lot of parallels that's happening right now on, in the creative economy. [00:23:18] And what's happening with like online retail and solo prenuers that you're talking about. [00:23:23] Pete: [00:23:23] Totally. I think you're absolutely right. The analogy between, you know, even a tool like sub stack, it's the same thing. It's someone who maybe used to work at the New York times and you know, stuff gets cut over there, but they've got a lot to say about, about interesting things. And what if they found a way to then roll up this audience themselves soft, sell people into their content. [00:23:45] Stop talking about something that was niche and niche, like niche down to something that people really wanted to hear about or a small number of people really wanted to hear about. And then they can spin off a business from themselves that replaces their salary, that they used to get paid at that big office in the city, [00:24:00] in New York. [00:24:01] I think that the trend hit and becomes interesting in terms of how that flows out across the rest of society. So the, I I'm sure you you've seen the model of. Here's how to, here's how to make a hundred thousand dollars. You either need a hundred people to pay you a thousand dollars a year, or you need a thousand people to pay you $100 a year. [00:24:21]Or you need a hundred thousand people to pay you a dollar a year. So there's a lot of different ways of getting there. But if you can create value and share value with people, it's there's definite ways to go from that model of. Being employed and doing it for the, doing the hourly rate or the monthly rate or the yearly rate or building something for yourself that has. [00:24:40] Much more risk, but also incredible potential. And then, and then you don't, live in New York anymore. Maybe you find that earning a hundred thousand dollars and living in New York is actually not quite as good as  earning $70,000 and living in Ohio. Like you can find where you want to be and you can, you can live have more [00:25:00] flexibility as live the life that you want to live as well. [00:25:01] So it's, I think it's fascinating to how this whole creator economy shift, whether it's independent retail, whether it's people who are educating others, how that moves from one model of of how we live and go about our lives to it, to the next. [00:25:17]Naga S: [00:25:17] Right. I think underlying all of this is. The fact that through the internet, we now have direct access to our consumers, to our subscribers, to our listeners earlier, this access was kind of intermediated through in, in your substack example, it was intermediated through the newspaper you were working for other magazine, you were working for. [00:25:40] But what has happened is that all of these creators or writers also have their own individual followings that they are now able to monetize. And in the same context, even for the retailers that you're talking about that are springing up earlier, all of these folks were, have only thought about creating like  a small business account on Amazon or something like that. [00:25:59] But now [00:26:00] all of these. Places which have typically been like intermediaries who are getting replaced and brands and creators are directly engaging with who their core audience is. [00:26:11]Pete: [00:26:11] Yeah. And I think that their ability to have that flexibility as well becomes a critical moment there as well. So if you're thinking about, if you're a technology writer at the, I'm not going to use the New York times, example again, your technology writer at the New York times, But you write an article that hits a certain, certain number of clicks, or it gets a certain number of views or a set number of interactions, the model through which you can pivot your content to more, more frequently chase that that subject matter, it's a lot harder than if you're doing your own thing and you stumbled across something you say, Hey, maybe I should try to write something else about that and see if I can scope this out. [00:26:55] If I can share this out  through Reddit to try to get more people to look at it, maybe I can share it out [00:27:00] through this other channel over here. Maybe I can get a few more eyeballs on it. And then you discover the, actually the title of you being a quote unquote technology writer. Isn't quite right. [00:27:09] You're actually technology meets. XYZ ed, or you're not technology your something else. And that you find that you don't have this remit for you to stick to a certain box, but in fact, you can flex around what your skills are, what you're interested in and what other people are interested in hearing from you about. [00:27:26] So I think the flexibility that that enjoys , is really intangible, but it's probably underplayed in terms of how important that is. [00:27:33] Naga S: [00:27:33] Absolutely. And we always talk about what are the, the things that keep us doing the things we do right at the end of the day, it's autonomy, it's mastery it's purpose. If you're able to find something that appropriately balances, all these things with financial rewards, I think you have that. [00:27:50] Pete: [00:27:50] Yeah. And I, and I think that the, the one thing that we overlay to that is the, is that genuine, joyful moment as well. So. If you want to enjoy [00:28:00] what you're doing as the creator, as well as the shopper. So I think that that's important for us to, again, it's sort of super like intangible piece and difficult to line up, but it, but it critically makes a difference in our market. [00:28:12] Like people will spend more with independent retail to get the same tangible outcome. Because they have a sense of, I supported someone. I felt, I know where this comes from. I feel like this is a good thing, and I'm willing to spend an extra 10% on that product to come from that person because it means more to me. [00:28:32] And so that's a, a small shift that actually makes it when you like extend that out, it actually makes a massive difference. [00:28:41]Naga S: [00:28:41] I think Peter, you have like a very unique perspective in terms of this transition from your earlier marketing to, you know, leading amp jar in terms of working with all of these independent independent brands. So as we wrap up our episode as closing thoughts, could you just share what creators can [00:29:00] do? [00:29:00] Like now there are a lot of creators have come up because of Covid and the rise of content creation. Could you share some insights in terms of how can creators build their own small retail business and you know, any top couple of things that they need to keep in mind when they're going about doing that? [00:29:16]Pete: [00:29:16] Yeah. I mean, the first thing is probably All the evidence is out there for you. So you're not blazing a trail independently that you're having to work all this out for yourself. If you want to find the perfect website style that you want to go for. Look at who else is out there. Go and look at what other people are doing. [00:29:35] Like do your research and not doing this blind. So , you can very much build upon what other people have done to find your own place that you should have. Faith is going to convert as well. So think about what else is out there that you can kind of say, like borrow from and find, find what works for you. [00:29:54] Then it is genuinely about how you can build. Meaningful [00:30:00] connections with your customers. You want your customers to be people who will spend 10% more with you versus going to Amazon or best buy or whatever the store is local to you, to your eye. You need them to have that sense of loyalty to you, because if you can make that happen on a scale with 10 customers and 20 customers and 30 customers, the beautiful thing about social and digital these days is that your experiences are. [00:30:33] Scalable. So there's no reason why, if you can achieve that relationship with 50 customers, that you can achieve it with 50,000 customers. So think about who you are and what story you want to tell and why people have an interest in listening to you. And it can just be a sense of, Hey, I'm a mum to talk to me about being a mom. [00:30:55] I'm going to share my story. That that's enough. It's enough to [00:31:00] have something like that and say, I'm a genuine person. I want to open the door and let you in. And, and have you be part of my journey. That can be enough. So find the position that you think works for you, be clear with yourself on what you're willing to give up. [00:31:14] So, you know, one thing that happens with social is that there's this notion of, I'm going to point a camera at myself all the time and talk about stuff. Okay, cool. Now you have to be willing to do that. You've got to decide, am I willing to do that? Do I want to do that? Am I that kind of person? Now, when I pointed the camera at my family, what? [00:31:28] I pointed the camera at my kids, when I tell people, Hey, we're swimming practice today. Like where do you draw the line? Like have a, have a bit of a sense of that, because it's important for you to know what you're getting yourself into and not burn out a year later because I went, God had just showed everyone every single part of my life. [00:31:44] It was too hard, but. I think that there's, a lot of scope to use what has worked incredibly well in social channels. And to use that to your advantage, because that's how right now you're going to build a really strong relationship with your customer [00:32:00] base, who will then be your advocates who will then be your storytellers, or then be the people who help you go from nothing to a business that will replace the salary that you have at a full-time job. [00:32:13]Naga S: [00:32:13] I think that's a phenomenal way to wrap up our conversation, Peter. Thank you. Thank you so much for your time. And before we go, could you share you know, where people can reach out to you where  where we can find you in case they want to continue this conversation? [00:32:27] Pete: [00:32:27] Yeah. So the company is just amp, joe.com. So amp, J a r.com.  I'm super interested to hear from people. So if you want to drop me a note, you can via Twitter. I'm the worst tweeter in the world, but I, I look and listen and lurk, I think the word is so on there, if you want to DM me, you can just. Pay the James, sorry. [00:32:44] Pete, Pete Davis, UK. So Pete Davis, UK and yeah, you can even hit me up on LinkedIn. Email me, you'll find me anywhere. I'm happy to happy to have a conversation and to hear from smart people who are doing passionate things. [00:33:00] [00:32:59] Naga S: [00:32:59] Fantastic. I'll also make sure that I include all your social channels as well as the  website on the show notes so that people can find it. [00:33:07] Sound Attribution and Credits - Music from Pipo and Wowa(you should check out their music on Spotify here - https://open.spotify.com/artist/6zZPxLiRfbGUnoEAJmfJJN) from Unminus. All music other than the jingle on the episode is under the CC0 License and downloaded from freesound.org , freemusicarchive.org and unminus.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.