Male stripper Sam Priestley & wife Hannah are working hard (and smart) to corner the Australian Hen’s Party market | #445

 

Tim

Hannah before we get stuck in how this business idea of men on fire came about. How do you manage this? Sam is your life partner. He’s off taking his clothes off in front of women of all shapes and sizes and intentions. You’re there running the business. How do you manage it emotionally?

 

Hannah

Well we get ask this a lot every person that we tell to they ask the same things we’ve been together for a really long time and I think because we’ve been together for so long we’re very open and we talk about everything. There’s no conversation we don’t bring up and we have really really strong communication and I think that’s what also makes our business relationship so strong as well. And I think I have this sort of maybe it’s an ego thing I don’t know maybe I have a bit of pride with sending my husband out and having all this great feedback they contact Hannah the booking manager and they say fireman sam was fantastic they don’t know we’re married we prefer to keep it sort of a bit more ambiguous and they tell us all their stories about how well the night went and how fantastic and charismatic he was and all that kind of thing. I think oh that’s my husband. I love it. That’s great. And yeah I don’t know I think that those two things are really what keep it going and there’s never a time where I’m uneasy or uncomfortable. I’m actually the opposite to an extreme I’m proud.

 

Tim

Has there been a time when you felt uneasy or uncomfortable?

 

Hannah

Oh I would say in the first year of business when they would just be sort of new things that would pop up that hadn’t happened before that now have happened a half dozen times like for example people giving their numbers out or suggesting oh well when you finish your night come hang out let’s go to the nightclub let’s do this let’s do that. And I wouldn’t say uncomfortable I think it was more just an eye opener as to how many people were throwing themselves at my husband. I think since then it’s sort of turned into a real confidence every single party every Saturday night he comes home and we enjoy like laughing about the stories together and just sort of sharing that time.

 

Tim

Oh that’s awesome. So so guys let’s rewind. Sam you were an engineer by trade and had a small engineering business in your early 20s and Hannah what were you doing before men on fire?

 

Hannah

I did a number of things my first job out of uni I did psychology I worked as a behavior therapist. That was a bit of insight into human behaviour and the way things sort of work and whatever. But yeah. Then I went from that into I needed a break from therapy and I went into commercial abseiling I cleaned highrises for a living. It’s a bit of a crazy time but it was a good break. It’s what I needed.

 

Tim

That is a great story what an incredible job so are you guys have been going out since you were 15 you get into your early 20s. You’ve clearly looked at each other one day and said well did you did someone suggest why don’t we start a hen party business. Is that how it worked?

 

Hannah

Yeah absolutely it was around the time we were getting married ourselves and I was planning my hens. I just came across everyone I guess who are now our competitors and I really didn’t feel great booking with any of them so I ended up booking things myself. We now operate as a booking agency as well and I guess I was doing that for myself back then and just found that they weren’t very helpful or didn’t even just simple things getting back to e-mails and phone calls a week later. That’s just far too late for someone trying to book things in and Sam said well even if we just do it as a small thing on the side why don’t we just do it better even if we kept it small and obviously it sort of built a lot more since then. But that’s how it started.

 

Tim

It sounds like a dream run right out of the gates six months after starting the business you’re already exceeded your full time employment income so what do you think you’ve really got right what was your secret sauce in those early days?

 

Sam

Well it’s been a little bit extra before that which is obviously the boring side that people sort of as they dont want to hear about starting business. We just start with a business partnership one of my close friends. We started the business together. We both actually married and we thought how to do it differently. Now all the other companies when you book someone to come serve drinks someone stands up and dance and that’s the thing we found this old gear on Gumtree on ebay and what not only picked up all sets gifts for a few bucks each and we thought this is genius. Every other company just did the same thing. They can choose whatever uniform you want. We were just firemen.

 

Tim

Fireman Sam Fireman Pete fireman I was going to say fireman Dick but that would be so inappropriate.

 

Sam

Everyone said this is great. The first 12 months actually didn’t go anywhere at all I mean all the marketing we did it was through Instagram and social media and we just didn’t get anywhere. Hannah and I decided we’re going to take this more seriously and my business partner at the time had a government job is about to buy second investment place and then said I have a family. So if you wanna buy me out of it you can go full time have a crack at it and yeah if we part way on really good terms there but I still thought there was potential I thought I’d have a crack at using Google AdWords. From then on it was just sort of skyrocketed from then six months later we hit its turnover which is just pretty crazy.

 

Tim

So AdWords your secret sauce Sam?

 

Sam

Well I think that’s how we managed to do pretty well is that when we started doing Google Adwords we were the only people doing it really. So I mean for about 50 cents a quick some of the returns were a thousand dollars.

 

Tim

How long ago was this?

 

Sam

So that would have been 18 months ago now.

 

Tim

You know there is a lot of variables in AdWords. What do you think you got get your headline right you’ve got to get your link right you’ve got to get you copy right you’ve got to get the landing page right. Any particular tips there?

 

Sam

I think this thing that I’ve thought some other people as well is that you’ve got to have a high value product the clicks used to cost 50 cents are now costing me five or six dollars. So now it’s not quite working out as well. So we’ve got another tactic we’re implementing. So the main thing was that if your product only some products out there you might sell something for 10 bucks. You can’t possibly ever focus on AdWords. The biggest thing AdWords is having a high value product is the best return.

 

Tim

But even at five or six bucks a click if you getting a thousand dollar booking it really would matter if it was a hundred bucks a click would it hello Google.

 

Sam

Yeah definitely. So now we’ve gone more into the seo sort of thing so we always stay there which is what other companies aren’t doing that yet. We’re just staying ahead of them in that sense not turning out secrets.

 

Tim

So is that your focus is it because I interviewed a lady Dana DiTomaso a few weeks ago about seo she’s one of the leading local marketing seo experts in the world and we’re both talking about paid cost per click advertising but really your seo you get those foundational things right on your Web site and you give yourself a pretty good chance of being found organically.

 

Sam

Actually all of our big booking numbers will come from the ones that we were organically raised ranking in the top three spots so adwords were still working on small scale but we thought hey if you’ve got some random sort of outlying suburbs and stuff outside Sydney for example that we do rank number one or 2 and we absolutely kill it some very big bookings down there. So we thought hey if we’re going to spend some money and time and then get it organically in Sydney and Perth and Gold Coast then that should be and more success.

 

Tim

Do you create specific landing pages for each of your ad campaigns?

 

Sam

Yeah definitely so though the Website kind of got away from me got a bit of a mess because I was using Google AdWords and creating specific landing pages for my campaigns but it was resulting was actually quite confusing to navigate around because I had so many pages some similar and some were targeting competitors and that’s the first thing I did with our SEO company was sort of move away from that style of having it’s very specific. It’s like leading pages but not overloaded with keywords

 

Hannah

Consolidating the navigation bar as well just to make it much more user friendly. I think also it grew bigger than we thought it did in a short amount of time. So we were sometimes doing a bit of a catch up because we were doing so well with advertising. Sam was just creating pages without then going back and looking at the overall experience of the Web site. It works for a short while and then we just sort of changed it up and made it a bit more user friendly

 

Tim

When women are calling you to book a Hens party. Some of them a lot of them I don’t know would feel uncomfortable. Not quite sure how to start the conversation. So what’s your secret in helping them feel comfortable?

 

Hannah

I think making it much more relatable having them realize that I oversee all of the guys that works for us. We’ve got 50 guys across the country and I keep tabs on all of them. I personally employ them myself. We do. Even guys interstate I do Skype interviews I really make sure I get a feel for the kind of guy they are and I want to hang out with them for a pie or a night out if I can’t have a good conversation with them. Then there’s no point and I say this to the girls they say they’re not just gorgeous you know beautiful bodies but they’re there to make sure that your party runs as best it can and that everyone that you invite to this party will feel special and feel that it’s the best night of their lives. Once I remind them of the way the party should run and I put those images in their mind of how smooth it’ll run even with this gorgeous guy that some you know some ladies might feel a bit prudish and then they feel comfortable and they know that I’m on cal. All weekend they can call me any time and I’m here to help

 

Tim

Let’s talk about difficult clients. I mean I don’t imagine it all goes smoothly. Do you get the odd complaint and if you do how do you handle them?

 

Sam

What we found as funny is that we actually have a lot easier customers since we put our prices up. Which might sound strange to some of them what might make sense to others.

 

Tim

Yeah it sounds counterintuitive often when you charge more people expect more.

 

Sam

I think our secret is that we do charge more and then we still over deliver. So people are quite happy. I mean some of the packages are even double what the market value is.

 

Tim

When you say packages Sam I just want to be clear

 

Sam

Yes. So we put the prices up and we kept getting. It did drop off the number of bookings we were getting but we’re actually still making more money. And then what sort of word of mouth. We like to combine how all our advertising works and the free stuff we do whenever and then once word gets around. We’ve kind of actually got even more bookings a higher price which meant the customers I think we’ve had one complaint in the entire time that we’ve done it. We’ve done close to thousands of parties now.

 

Tim

That’s a pretty good track record. What do you do about testimonials do you collect them or you don’t bother?

 

Sam

Yes we’ve got two things in there which we always ask for feedback and then we get testimonials page on our website. But other thing we do now is we are really pushing the Google reviews because I personally use them a lot. I recently bought a used car and I looked up the Google reviews and that’s what sold me on going with that and I looked up some other Google reviews of other companies and they weren’t very good. So we’re very big on getting reviews and testimonials that’s definitely a big thing and then people they really go above and beyond. One of them for about a thousand words they write us an essay about how amazing it was everything.

 

Tim

How do you use those testimonials do you just rely on people finding them in Google or do you attach them to quotes?

 

Sam

Yes we send them out. We absolutely drill them.

 

Tim

So just watch the language there Sam

 

Sam

We touch every every single thing. We remind people as well once when they have enquired they just had that quotation so we will attach another thing on the bottom saying Check out Instagram and you’ll see what your party is in for and on every single page on our website has a link to our testimonials as well. So we really really pushed it.

 

Tim

Paint a picture of what it actually looks like when Fireman Sam rolls up to a venue.

 

Sam: The biggest response I ever got was actually recently. We do a bit of a signature thing where myself or whoever is working we’ll go into a venue and put the bride on their shoulder and walk out of the venue with them. And then whatever package they’re going to.

 

Hannah

They have been rescued basically rescued from a place.

 

Sam

Where we do one in a Thai restaurant and I think they would’ve been easily 300 people in this restaurant and it just went absolutely crazy. Everyone was screaming and cheering and filming and then I’ve got branding all over me.

 

Tim

So what do you mean branding all over you? Men on fire branding?

 

Hannah

Yeah original legitimate fireman gear that we’ve obviously removed any official labels kinda branding and we’ve put men on fire across the legs the back to front you know the kind of stuff you could find so then as the guys carrying the ladies out of the restroom. It’s actually really funny when you’re filming behind them and you can see the girl’s face and the guy back with men on fire on their shirt.

 

Tim

I love it. Love a bit of good branding do you sell any merch?

 

Sam

We’ve done a rescue kitten charity calendar. All the boys donate their time. We had a big photo shoot in June and we were raising a few thousand dollars for a kitten shelter which works really well and that was something we did obviously the fireman saving kittens is a great easy marketing play. And also we donated a few thousand dollars to great cause but also for us I mean we sold 400 calendars so we’ve got 400 female workplaces across Australia now have our calendar up on their staff room doors. So yeah speaking of free marketing and merchandise for us.

 

Tim

Such a simple idea can you see the men on fire brand extending into other would you do women on fire. Is there other brand extinctions that you’ve considered?

 

Hannah

We’ve got a number of plans in the pipeline

 

Tim

Listen you guys are quite entrepreneurial. Putting aside men on fire have you found yourself on Shark Tank with an idea called Boss scoop. Explain that.

 

Sam

Yes that was something that took a lot longer than anyone could possibly think it takes and idea to get to market. But two or three years in the making and some prototyping and finally got an idea off the ground for that’s a scoop that’s designed to supplement industry so you can put your pre workout powders and whatnot into a regular water bottle. That was strange someone had not really been done before.

 

Tim

Has it been a bit of a distraction a bit of a bright shiny object to men on fire are. Maybe you should focus on your core business?

 

Sam

We actually quit our jobs primarily to focus on it. We’re never going to commit to it as much as if we quit our jobs and suddenly no income we going to work pretty hard to make it work. So it was a bit slower so that was when we thought well let’s have a crack and see if we can push men on fire a bit and once we just got our marketing spot on that is when men fire took off and kind of distract us a lot from the Bosscoop to be honest.

 

Tim

Because you did get a couple of sharks interested our mutual friend Andrew Banks and did Steve Baxter buy in?

 

Sam

Yes we got a deal on the show with both of them but unfortunately nothing really came to fruition with that. It has been a mix of the idea it was a bit too early they kind of want to see that it is already a big hit before they jump in but I guess the reason we went on the show is because we wanted to get into America. We see that we did have some good sales there but the issue is we don’t have any contacts or warehousing its going to cost a lot of money to set up something like that. That’s why we’re on the show but it didn’t really go anywhere with those guys.

 

Tim

Well Sammy you just keep focusing on taking a clothes off often. A husband that works one day a week and spend what do you do the other six day?

 

Sam

Well I like to say one day a week. Unfortunately when we first started it was nice. Maybe five jobs every weekend and I’d run around before them and have one bloke who the other one but never up to take peak season this coming on the 29th. We met 20 30 and 50 pies every weekend so that bloody admin side of things took off.

 

Tim

Guys thanks for coming on the show and sharing the mene on fire story. A good one. One in the making. Maybe I can get you back on in a couple of years time and see where it’s at.

 

Hannah

That’d be great.