Hunting For George started as a sidehustle for sisters Jo & Lucy … seven years on it’s turning over $5M per annum | #398

Jo

It’s very traditional here and a bit more sterile I guess and we thought well

Tim

What do you, what, online home ware stores or

Jo

Well we started looking at a physical space and then the reality hit of you needed to physically be there. The overheads as far as rental and we thought this isn’t going to work for us. And we turned our attention to online and we got really excited when we could think of when we were thinking of all the things we wanted to bring to the physical space in retail but how do we translate that into online. Give it an amazing personality.

Tim

Were you guys backpacking all those years ago or were you actually over there doing a bit of a recrudescence

Jo

It was a bit of both really.

Tim

You can’t do a backpack and recrudescence.

Jo

Well, I was over there for four years.

Lucy

We were not thinking of it when we were that way didn’t write that in the back of something you loved. I went over there thinking I would spend a year there working in a pub but I actually landed a graphic design, freelance gig and I’d just got some incredible experience. It was before the JFC so junior designers got an amazing job and yeah, I just got to experience some incredible brands.

Tim

So, you’re a designer by trade. What about you, Lucy?

Jo

I’m a nurse.

Tim

Yeah. That would be Jo, right?

Jo

I’m a nurse by trade. So, we’re very different backgrounds which is a big reason as to why this is worked. So, we had that common goal of what we wanted, but we’ve got very different skill sets.

Tim

Vastly different. What do you do?

Jo

You know, what I love customer service. Being in nursing, that was customer service at the next level. Completely amplified. If you think about the people we deal with, it’s every kind of emotion. But you know amplified as I mentioned. So, anger, anxiety, fear, everything. So, I love that. I love tailoring. You know how I was when I was nursing, telling that to a customer’s approach, and doing that in retail. So, the ability to listen and tailor for them and I’m all about relationships so that I kind of look after customer service and kind of relationships. Whereas Lucy with her design background.

Tim

What a great combo.

Jo

Yeah it actually works really well.

Tim

You’ve clearly had some success would you say that underpinning that is the diversity in you what you bring

Jo

Yeah definitely and we’re very different to a lot of retailers.

Tim

Lucy’s will get me going. I don’t know about that, I’m kind running this show and just as long for the ride.

Lucy

No, no customer service is one of the things we pride ourselves on and Jo has been the backbone of that, 100 percent. And it’s not only the relationship that we have with our customers, it’s the relationships that we have with suppliers and that’s incredibly important as well and Jo is the backbone of that and making sure that we’ve got really great strength of our community.

Tim

Let’s just hold the thought on customer service, I want to come back to that. The name Hunting for George, let’s just get that one out of the way. Go on

Lucy

George is actually a Georgia and it is Jo’s daughter. I said it one day, Hunting for George and it kind of just stuck. And look we liked it because it was intriguing and it had no particular connotations attached to it so it sorts of stuck, really. And now when people think of Hunting for George they think of us and they think of that really cool home wares.

Tim

Yeah, I love it. Okay, so you come back from travel, you’ve identified a gap in the market overseas but London I’m guessing is kind of where Europe is

Lucy

I spend most my time in London

Tim

So, you’ve identified this gap where it’s just boring. We can do so much better. Now you come back here going to start a retail store high street or as I would say when you’ve gone online, you launch with three brands none of which are your own business. What’s the business looked like in 2010

Lucy

We were in Jo’s favor. We didn’t have a space so are very small. Product range which fit on a couple of shelves in the spare room. Basically, we were both working full time. Jo was sending out parcels from the Alfred Hospital I believe at the time because it was.

Jo

Everyone got a special Alfred hospital stamp on their delivery so you know when I look at it, why is it the packaging

Tim

I love its hustle. I love it. So, you literally, out of the spare bedroom you’re taken the goods to send from work?

Both

Yeah.

Lucy

And look I mean we always, we’ve talked big we’ve talked the talk ever since we started you know. Fake it till you make it. And no one would have known from the level of quality of our website to the level of quality to customer service and how things were sent out. It was just exceptional. Those were the things that we could control. We made sure that we did those really, really well. Because in the early days, you’ve got to rely on that word of mouth you know every touch point with your customers is so important. So yeah, we focus a lot.

Tim

When you say fake it till you make it, I get it. And I’m pretty much everyone who’s sat in this chair who’s been a success with these small businesses at some point done that. You must have at the same time being, you know what this is our ticket out. This is your ticket out a graphic design, is your ticket out of nursing and we are serious about this. Maybe it’s a side hustle now, but this is going to be a big, this is going to be our dream business, right?

Lucy

And I think we had that wake-up call because in the first couple of years I think we both treated it like a hobby and it wasn’t until sort of two years in when we went, you know what are we serious about this? And when we made that decision, we said this is what we wanted to do. Everything changed. It was really, it was a mindset. I think as soon as we went, this is what I want to do for the rest of our lives. We’re going to do this. Everything then started to fall into place. Because if you treat it like a hobby, it will always be a hobby. If you treat it like a full-time career, then that’s what you’re going to get.

Jo

It was scale-able too. So, we were putting in the time and you know cash that we could afford. So, we thought well if we took this more seriously and put in the extra time, and went full time with it and gave it a red hot go for a year or two and see how it went, then we could see that it was actually it could be a viable business.

Tim

Tell me about the conversation. When you’ve gone, you’re living in the Alford you’ve been busted cause there’s way too many stamps

Jo

We were really excited and we kind of just looked at each other and went, yeah let’s just do it. And we kind of set it up in that you know. We could afford to fail we’ve got to give it a try.

Tim

What do you mean you could afford, have had you replaced your incomes?

Jo

Well we thought we could go back to work if we gave it a go for a couple of years and it didn’t work out then.

Tim

You’re both jobs that you’re always going to

Jo

You could go back and get work if needed. So, if we need to pay some bills. We thought, well that’s always there if required.

Lucy

Jo was always able to pick up extra. Everyone needs a nurse and I went to freelance design. So, there was always an out you know. If it all went pear shaped. We knew we could we could find work again.

Tim

When you decided to stop it being a hobby and jumped and all in, can you remember what changed? What was the like significant thing

Jo

Just a mindset. I think all of a sudden it was direction. We had clear goals. And it just everything shifted, it’s hard to pinpoint what happened but something happened and it just all fell into place

Tim

So, I seriously get goosebumps talking about this stuff because I’ve been caught in doing a whole lot of different disparate things, all within marketing and I’ve spoken to many people who have and every time they say, you know the minute I committed to the one idea and one is sometimes bad number in business it’s all your eggs in one basket right. But the minute you commit, the universe just opens up and says, “what do you want?”

Lucy

It’s incredible and you can’t put a finger on it and I think it’s just confidence. Anything you do, if you do it confidently, other people will follow.

Tim

Yeah right. Scary. You know, I just love it, the energy is charged. So yeah 12 months, you’re all in. You had a product that’s what I wanted to talk about yeah. Oh, the places you go, print, was this a bit of a kind of tipping point for the Hunting for George?

Lucy

I mean the first couple of years we were selling other brand brands. I designed a print for my boyfriend at the time and he is now my fiancé.

Tim

Love it! What do you mean at the time? He’s still around!

Lucy

He’s also our marketing guy.

Jo

You know what we don’t bring anyone within our business unless we’re going to go to a party. So, he’s amazing.

Lucy

But he was fantastic. So, I basically give him this print. It was essentially the words to this incredible story and the places you’ll go by Dr. Seuss. I’d actually never been familiar with it until I’ve watched this video on YouTube of a bunch of troopers in the desert for Burning Man. That was how they were promoting Burning Man and they were saying all the lyrics to this novel. And I thought that they’re beautiful lyrics I’m going to typeset them out, create a of print, gave it to John and he said this is great, like you should sell this. And for a long time, it was a long time wasn’t it before we eventually went like I will chuck it on the website and see how it goes. And then within like, I probably took about a month and we’d sold out and we hadn’t really had any bestsellers. Then all of the sudden, we had to print more you know. We didn’t really have a product that we’d actually just dialed that our customers just loved straight away and that was the first one wasn’t it? That we just thought, well wow okay.

Tim

So, it was a print?

Lucy

It was a print. It was an art print. So that was a very first product that we designed and we still sell it to this day. It’s incredible.

Tim

What a great story

Lucy

To be honest that kick started the business for us. It gave us a lot of confidence with product design and from that we’ve grown our range. Yeah that was just the start of the start of it all right. Just a simple birthday present turned into it.

Jo

We had an audience that we could start just playing around and finding gaps in the market and supplying products and even better is when you can make your own product and all of a sudden, it’s more viable because imagine, gosh it sets you apart from everyone else that are reselling products. So, we’ve now got our own products that you know, have better margins and we can be creative and have some fun with it as well.

Tim

How do you, in those early days because hunting for George. No one is hunting for hunting for George right. You know you’re not going to have search engine and go hunting for George. How are people finding you?

Lucy

Look in the early days it was very organic and look even to this day we haven’t all been pretty much organic. It’s only in the last couple of years that we’ve actually sort of started to pay for it.

Tim

You know when you say organic

Lucy

Just zero spend on social media, word of mouth, emails, Facebook, Instagram. We didn’t really come from a marketing background so in the first couple of years it was just literally us just doing our thing until we sort of had a marketing sort it that took a little while you know that wasn’t our expertise. And yeah, it came from it came I think actually the exposure came from when we did that first product. It was unique. So, we needed to create a photo of that unique product. So, then all of a sudden as well as having a unique product we also had unique content. We had to create our own content and that changed the game because that stands out on social media that stands out on Instagram. People are liking it. People are seeing something for the first-time people start talking about it. So, having content that people wanted to share and that’s what started to grow our business and that’s why I guess I mean by organic.

Tim

Yeah. Okay, okay. And social media underpinning all that I’m guessing. Okay. Listeners, I’m talking to Lucy and Jo the terrible, I was going to say the terrible twins but not really just sisters. Founders of Hunting for George. Now tell me, let’s talk marketing because you say we’re not marketers, you’re not from a marketing background. You sort of are Lucy, in the sense that you’re a graphic designer.

Lucy

On the creative side of things, I guess.

Tim

But one of the first things you say Jo is you know, you love customer service. I think to all of us are marketers. It doesn’t mean you have to have done a degree to shine in marketing. So, let’s talk marketing. What’s your view on marketing generally?

Jo

Marketing has to be holistic just like anything else in your business. Yeah.

Tim

Holistic, Just like all those things, integrity?

Jo

And we are all those things, Tim. The thing with marketing is that you can’t just do one thing and expect it to work. Everything has to roll out across multiple channels. And also, it comes to your entire business so you can have incredible branding, incredible marketing you can ramp, you know sales through the doors and customers through the doors. But if back end, if our customer service and that fulfillment doesn’t live up to the brand, it’s all one big based. So, marketing is just a way to get us out there. But ultimately, I think you need to make sure your business is strong enough and reflects how strong your marketing is as well.

Tim

True. I think more people have to get that which is marketing, great marketing generates great inquiry no doubt about it. What you do with that inquiry.

Lucy

And that’s where you get your loyalty. That you get that customer attention and they have that amazing experience, they want to come back again.

Jo

We’ve got that same voice across all of our channels. And this is when we started our first web site, it was our voice, it is us. It is real. And that is carried through all of our touch points with customers, whether it be Facebook, Instagram, you know live chat, phone, even when people call in to our shops. It’s consistent. So, I think that’s important.

Tim

Tell me about customer service in the way you approach it. Because it’s essentially an online business although we’re going to talk about this experience store that you own. But customer service online. What underpins your philosophy?

Jo

You know what it should be no different online to any other business whether you’re a plumber, or a doctor, or in retail. I think customer service comes down to listening. You work out who your customers are, what they want, to know how is it delivered.

Tim

How do you do that?

Jo

Talking to them rule not being scared to put yourself out there to generate conversations. So, whether it’s a conversation on Instagram, where someone’s written a question, you know don’t ignore it. Talk back to them. If it’s a comment and a review that’s negative, someone’s taken the time to give you that feedback. The least you can do is listen to it and have a conversation back saying what could we do better to improve our service. So, I think it’s just talking. It’s just talking to people and people want to be heard and they take the time to give you feedback then that is pure gold. If you’ve got them engaged enough where they’re willing to tell you what they think.

Lucy

And often, I think some of the most loyal customers come from some that may have initially had a negative experience. Perhaps something hasn’t turned up in the post and we go above and beyond to resolve it and sometimes they’re the most loyal.

Jo

Yes. Some of our best reviews through Google. So, they’re quite powerful because they are so if one wants to know what their peers think of the customer you don’t have, you can’t dictate what your reviews are. But yes, some of our best reviews were from where we stuffed up. We sent the wrong product or it’s arrived broken and the review has been so great as to how amazing the customer service was to resolve it. I mean that just speaks volumes because I think people want to know the worst that can happen and maybe the best they ignore all the mediocre ones in the middle.

Tim

You could almost manufacture mistakes in order to fix it

Tim

Well we’re on to something here. A few years ago, and in fact he wrote the forward to my book. Jay Bayer, he’s written a book called Hug Your Haters and he came on we talked about that and it was exactly what you just spoke about. Your you know, it’s all very well for someone to go on, I love hunting For George. You know I love getting a photo or whatever. But when someone says you know what, hunting for George bloody vase arrived. It was broken, I was distraught. It was a present from my friend the next day. Yeah and you’ve fixed it within like 12 hours. I mean that is a story that a customer can tell they are probably going to put it on their Facebook they’re going to you know it’s gold.

Jo

Yeah absolutely.

Tim

So, for every 10th product something wrong with it.

Jo:

Give it a kick.

Tim

Yeah. I used to work with this art director when I was in advertising. This guy, his name was Fish or his nickname was Fish actually. And he hated clients always changing things. You’ll love this one. He hated client making changes to designs right, so he would always put a fish somewhere in the design no matter what the design was for whether it was an ad for the newspaper or a billboard or whatever. And the client would go, I really liked the idea, but can we take that fish out

Lucy:

And that was it. I like it!

Tim

Yeah. So sabotaging things in order to get the result you’re looking for. I love it. You say Lucy we a content making machine.

Lucy

We are, a bit.

Tim

Music to my ears. Clearly from a very early stage of the business

Lucy

Yeah for us, we have look, we are quite creative and we’ve always been creating content but there was one particular collaboration that we did with an artist and we took beautiful photography. We did a video and I had it in my head probably I guess its third year in the business and I had it in my head that it was going to be shared by a particular design blog and it’s going to be massive, it would be awesome and that didn’t happen. They said, look it’s not right, sorry, you know. And so, I had all this content and the way that I thought it would be distributed was no longer on the table. So, I’m like well, we’re going to have to do this ourselves. That may force us to push it out in every single channel we had available. Had no money, had no budget. So, it was just organic we just sent three emails. We put it on Instagram, we talked about it on Facebook. We asked friends to share it. We asked the artists involved in the collaboration to share it. And it was a really great success. At the end from our distribution we had a magazine come and pick it up. They wanted to talk about it. Anthropology and the US approach the artists about the collaboration that we did. So that’s where we were like, we’ve got a really powerful audience, we can do this ourselves

Tim

What was this content that you created? Was it a blog post?

Lucy

It was an artist collaboration so we were making clocks and we had some blank timber clocks and we said today’s artist can you just create some beautiful artwork on them. It was an Australian Jua peaches and cane and we auctioned them off and it was just a beautiful creative pay so we want to talk about

Tim

So, you thought that would be shared by Big Art or whatever. And your realisation is that, hey as a small business owner we need to create our own media platforms. I love it

Lucy

Absolutely and to be honest I think we also realise you can’t rely on anyone else to do your job for you can only rely on yourself. You’re the one that is only going to put in as much effort no one else is going to be able to put as much effort as you will as your business model.

Tim

Would it be fair to say, let’s explore those platforms that you’ve created but then in doing that and proving that how you guys create good content? Now it’s easier like you probably would have got shared on their art blog.

Lucy

Yeah. Yeah. Oh absolutely. We have multiple times but it’s and we love press and we love media. You need to have a really strong network and I think it’s blurring the lines now. I think people expect their retailers to be publishers, it’s a blurred line. People want to shop what they see now. So, I think the block line is quite blurred between publication.

Tim

You said shop what they see. What you mean by that?

Lucy

Well I think now you see beautiful imagery, people want to know where to get it. It’s no longer just, I think the space’s opening up a lot. It’s a lot more tangible, lot more real. I think Instagram changed the game a lot with that. It’s non-exclusive thing anymore and we’ve always maintained that having a home shouldn’t be this exclusive thing to make it beautiful. Everybody should be able to make it beautiful and feel comfortable.

Jo

And our styling is relatable. Like when we produce content, the point being any of our customers can look at it be inspired and take out products that will work in their own home. It is not over styled and. Yeah, we have zero ego here. So, we produce content that we know other people will enjoy and we can have a laugh at it all or relate to it.

Tim

So, one of the lines that comes through a lot of what I’ve looked up hunting for George is making your home awesome, which is not a tagline I’m guessing but it’s like a sort of mindset that you have which even the word awesome, like it kind of gets called daggy but it’s going to be really cool and not too serious. Like Vogue Living is not going to have it. Make your home must’ve. So okay, so what is the content. What are your top three content platforms, you’ve got a blog

Jo

We have a blog yeah. We have social media and we also have newsletters, EDMs we send out.

Tim

An EDM? Goodness mate. Do you fix those, or do you?

Jo

We love, look we love e-mails. We our take emails incredibly seriously. Are you subscribed to the Hunting For George?

Tim

Ah yes, yeah. I love e-mails don’t get enough of them, hey what more.

Lucy

Yeah, I was going to say usually people say, I may have had enough

Tim

Okay so how do we get over that. Because that’s true of everyone, inbox kind of fatigue. EDMs are working for you I think, I think actually e-mails are fantastic if you get them right. So, what are you doing or are you getting them right

Lucy

Yeah. We’ve got a great open rate, we’ve got a great conversion rate. We just got a really good quality list and what we do to keep that is to make sure that the content is actually interesting. Yeah. Like what for example last week for the first day of summer even though we had torrential rains here in Melbourne, we changed up the pace of it. We talked about a summer block party, we put in some recipes cocktail that we could talk about with our customers.

Lucy

Yes, four pillars of jean quartos.

Lucy

Four pillars of Jean, a bloody florid door we reached out to them and said we’re doing this, you know summer block party vibe lets you know, you want to contribute?

Tim

Your EDMs, is it weekly

Lucy

Yes. Sometimes two sometimes three a week. Yeah.

Tim

And every time it is essentially it’s a newsletter, is it’s a small little, I’m going to use the word easy because I’ve used that for about 10 years. So, you’ve got you might have a recipe, you might have an interior design.

Lucy

We link through to our blog, we link through to stories, we always link through to product, I mean at the end of the game, we’re always trying to sell. And we’re not ashamed about that but we try and sell in a creative manner to keep it exciting for customers. And I think they appreciate that we’re not just ramming it down their throats. Creative in how we talk about it.

Jo

Yet we have our own Spotify playlists that people can follow us on like we have Friday beats. So, it’s not always yeah, it’s fun and it’s so we’re not always doing this shout out about our product or what you can buy from us. It’s mixing it up giving something back. So, you’re doing a collaboration with four pillars and Kappy mineral water. I mean yeah, it’s a fun cocktail that people can replicate at home yeah. So, giving something back.

Tim

How do you throw two to three times a week? Listeners are going Oh my goodness how do I, I can’t do that. I can’t get one out a week, can’t get one out of a month. You’ve got a team

Lucy

I do now yeah. So, I used to do all the emails myself and then now, I’ve got a full-time designer and I also have a part time senior design and that helps me out as well. I pride myself on it because it is not just an e-mail. That’s not just one thing that we do from that creative then that goes into Instagram story, that goes onto Facebook, that goes onto our journals. So, it’s putting, it’s creating content but it’s making sure you’re putting it across all platforms. Because you need to be wherever your customers want to interact with you as well. Some people might hate e-mails like you say, but they might love interacting with us on Instagram. So we make sure that whatever content we create we repurpose for a lot of different platforms because our customers need to be able to access us. Whichever way they choose.

Tim

I have a little fetish for subject lines and headlines.

Lucy

Oh, we’re always testing right. I mean honestly, we go, have you had your subject line? Subjectline.com or whatever. I love it. Yes, it is fantastic if we don’t get above 90 doesn’t make the cut.

Tim

90 openers?

Lucy

90 out of the 100.

Tim

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. So, what do you find works something that inspires curiosity or something.

Lucy

Yes. The last one we did was stocking fillers and free gelato because we’re giving out our ice creams. And that worked a treat.

Tim

Well. Hang on. A freebie

Lucy

Yeah. People liked the free ice cream, that worked great. It’s short and sweet and it’s something interesting and engaging. Yes. And people and it’s also mixing it up. Because if you’re on sale every single day no one cares. But if for example you have a promotion and you talk about it people will open it. So, it’s also making sure that you mix it up.

Tim

I love it like many EDMs are working. You’ve got lots of content in there that you’re using. You’re blogging anyway so you’re pulling that in and doing photo shoots you’re pulling out and you got Instagram all that kind of. Okay I love it. Just how you’re building a list by every time someone buys. They go on your email. So, you kind of lucky like that right. Some businesses don’t have that opportunity. Well if it has customers but some businesses have to do a lead magnet right and yeah kind of say you’re not doing a lead magnet.

Lucy

You just say we were trying and the only thing we’re finding is if you start trying to scale and get numbers quality drops then so we’ve got a really good quality list. But the big you go you know we want to maintain that. So, it’s a fine line between do we want a really large database that doesn’t really engage or do we want a smaller database that actually listens to what we have to say and we have great open rates.

Tim

So, using what CRM are you using.

Lucy

We’re on Infusionsoft but we are looking at other platforms so. That’s the thing with growth and being small you constantly evolving and you always outgrow one thing they need to grow.

Tim

And so, I had the guy from Salesforce last week you know. But you know they’re big there’s like a Lamborghini it’s got all the. You know you’re doing okay blogging, which you know a lot of businesses blog. Not enough, I think. I think everyone should be blog every business should be blogging the ones that do sometimes don’t know what to blog about. So, one minute they’re blogging about a new staff member. The next time what they want. And finally, they get to something of interest. What’s your, do you have an editorial mission or.

Lucy

You look we have some pretty clear brand guidelines and we’re pretty clear about who our brand is and what it is about. Jo and I on a personal level, we’ve always said we want to tell our personal story. However, there’s a line between telling a story about founders and about how product was made to getting a bit too personal. You’re talking about things that people don’t need and no one cares about. So, you know there are certain things that we sort of do and don’t talk about. And we have pretty clear guidelines as well Instagram, and a checklist I guess. Yeah. Is it about you know, design is about the home is it inspirational or is it educational and what does it have to do with us. And if it doesn’t take all the boxes and we just don’t talk about it.

Tim

Good. Lucy you’re big on engaging versus educational content. Which again I don’t think enough people sort of get it. Can we explore that

Jo

Yeah. We love education and engaging. Honestly, and it’s finding a gap and just running with it. We did, we shot a video. It was years ago now on how to fold a fitted sheet and I was there. We had a show. We had no money I got shoved in front of a camera. I had to teach myself how to fold a fitted sheet which I did from this woman is like a Martha Stewart equivalent in the US with like a million followers. And we thought well, let’s put our spin on it like this is something we sell sheets we sell linen and it’s everyone’s problem you boil it up and you shoved in a cupboard.

Tim

That freak me out. My OCD won’t allow me near a fitted sheet. It freaks me out.

Jo

But let’s tell this story in our way and we did it on the cheap probably next to nothing we sat on it for a while and it was taken out. It went nuts. It was taken up by Lifehacker In the US we shared it and now it is going viral.

Lucy

Yeah but it is trending on YouTube. So, I think it took about three days we’d had over a hundred thousand views and then that repeated across Facebook

Tim

How to fold a fitted sheet.

Lucy

Yeah. Jo is famous now I mean, it’s ridiculous.

Jo

But our customers relate to it and the talking points that came from it. It just generated so many funny conversations. And that’s the key. It is related to our brand. It related to our customers. And we actually enjoy doing it. So, you kind of ticking every box.

Lucy

If you have never been able to make a video go viral. How can you define that again? I think it was real and authentic and we were just having fun and it came from that you know.

Tim

Well, viral videos, I’ve had a few on a few people on here who have created them. tom Dixon with Will it bleed, you know the blender guy? Melissa Koka L.A. fashion designer who did first kiss. Have you seen first kiss? Oh, the most amazing viral video you’ll ever see won’t go into detail here. Tell you about it later in the show notes as well. And I had a guy out of Melbourne who did eight different viral videos to prove that you can actually manufacture, you might remember one of them. The guy who jumped into Sydney Harbour and was chased by a shark. So viral video. Who doesn’t want one of those. So, can you could you put a dollar or a percentage increase or did you sell more fitted sheets as a result of how to fold a fitted sheet video

Lucy

I mean traffic definitely went up, I mean because we literally had so much exposure. Traffic to our site went up. It didn’t necessarily, all those people didn’t necessarily buy sheets. However, that’s just more exposure for our brand. Subscribers more audience. And we did notice a spike but it’s also hard because you can’t attribute certain growth because you feel you’re in a growth pattern anyway if your small and growing it it’s hard to put it down to one thing but it definitely, I think just the exposure. It’s always hard to put. You know a finger on and

Tim

Business owners go, oh nobody will go to the market and I need to quantify exactly. Sometimes I just can’t you know. So, you’ve got how to fold a fitted sheet now that’s educational content not in a relatively entertaining way. But you also have entertaining content.

Lucy

Yeah, I think for us it’s got to engage. It’d be great if it can educate and it’s got to inspire. If it’s all three. That’s amazing. But they’re the kind of the things that we focus on the other type of content that is huge for us is just inspirational content and its content where we show our users how to use our products in a space and by them to make their own decisions and to think about that.

Tim

What’s an example of that

Lucy

Well yesterday I was on a shoot with all our new products creating a beautiful home. So, we created video content yesterday we created a whole lot of imagery that we’ll be launching in February next year. It’s just a way for us to bring our brand across and to show a bit more of who we are and to make products because we do sell a lot of products that other people sell. So how we’re going to sell them, better how we’re going to sell them in our way and that’s how we do it.

Tim

If you are in a very competitive marketplace. I mean you can get some very, very big high street brands. Like a mini max for example. Bigger budgets So and everything you’ve explained so far is kind of how you’re creating that point of difference. But is it down to just creating that very unique personality that no one else can own. Is it

Jo

Yeah, it’s a point of difference. We’ve got a voice we’ve got a community because of the voice that we have. And I think that’s what we’ve maintained and helped us grow. We’ve got a personality. We’re not boring you know.

Tim

Well we’ll be the judge of that.

Jo

We like to pump ourselves up and think about all these things. But it is being different.

Tim

But here’s the thing, don’t you reckon a lot of small businesses are scared of creating the personality and putting your head above the trench and.

Jo

They’re worrying about what everyone else is doing and what they’re told they should be doing. And if you stop worrying what people tell you to do and forge your own path it’s very hard to be to maintain being something that you’re not and people will call you on it every time. So, we’ve always stayed real to who we are and we are different to the bigger brands because of that personality. So, come to us because I mean, they’re coming into our shop because they’re loving coming meeting us and having a laugh and us helping them through buying some bits and pieces for their home. But like they get to have fun. They walk out of there regardless. If someone’s enjoyed their stay either on our online store or in our shop and they walk out having, just having had fun, they’re going to talk about it, they’re going to come back, they’re going to think of us when they need to purchase some art for their home or purchase a present. And I think this is why we’re not all about the hard sell. Selling products is important but it’s about the experience that people are getting.

Tim

You know it’s so important. Again personality, a soft marketing strategy some would say incredibly important. You know I had a mortgage broker I used years ago and we got started talking about content marketing and I said you should do some videos. And he said why, I said because you’re incredibly dry and boring and I knew you love numbers and he goes but isn’t that wrong? And I said no. Your personal example is great. Your personality is such that you just this numbers freak and that’s all I want in my mortgage broker just that video is what he was doing. It’s like watching rain man. But it’s ice, right

Jo

And there’s always an audience and it doesn’t matter. You should never look at what other people are doing you know, like who am I, what am I good at. What can I bring to the table and just go for it. Everybody’s different and you’ve got to make sure that you maintain really make sure you really give out the real thing.

Tim

Yeah, I want to do that sort of. Like New Yorker accent but it’s like there’s just no way to make it happen. So, we’re having a chat with Lucy and Joe the egoless founders of Hunting For George homeware store. Untainted by their success. You have opened an experience store out in the burbs. It’s not a Pop Up store.

Jo

Not a pop-up. We’ve been doing pop ups from day one and we’re popping up with markets who are doing pop ups you know on a weekend. But it was more sales orientated, it was more artistically stuck. I think this is an experience and I wanted to differentiate that from pop up because op up is a bit sort of… Well it was a lot of thought was put into it and essentially. We wanted to trial are on online concept and bring it into a physical space. So, this is a huge testing ground for us. Are we there for three months and Yeah look we know that there’s only I think seven per cent of Australian retail is spent online. So, we wanted to know what that looks like in the physical contacts and what that means.

Tim

It’s 7 percent, of what?

Jo

Yeah.

Lucy

7 percent of Australia’s spend online, of retail spend is online. Only 7 percent

Jo

So, we just yeah, we wanted to see what we could do. And the thing, the amazing thing with anyone that’s got an e-commerce site obviously knows you’ve got amazing data. You’ve got incredible data that you can learn about your customers you know you can look at your conversion rates, you look at traffic, you can see there’s so much you can learn from. With the physical store you don’t necessarily have that. So, we made sure that we built in you know people counting so we could track those metrics that we can track online, in-store because we really wanted to really compare them. Like we know what we can do online and we know we’re growing but we have no idea what that means the physical space in a shopping center with people walking past.

Tim

Is it different to every other home we shop then?

Jo

It looks very different. We’ve set it up to mirror how we look and come across online. So, if you go to our online store you we take you through rooms in your home. It makes sense and it’s comfortable. People feel at home on our site and that mirrored in a retail space so we are quite different. There’s a use of color and a way that people walk in and feel warm. A guy came in the other day and said This looks like I’m walking into my own home. Like you said your colors he said. This really resonates with me. That from a guy like he showed me a photo of his house. He’s like, look, it’s all we needed to prove himself. I’m like, I completely believe you. And that’s a lovely thing to hear.

Lucy

And we ran with more of I guess we have a leaner scheme now. We don’t have floor to ceiling products. We wanted it to be more inspirational because we didn’t want to just flooded with our entire range.

Tim

So is your intention, is your hope that people then buy online when they’re in the store or do you

Jo

It’s both, it’s the in-store sales but it’s also introducing our brand as an online brand that when we no longer here, please say as part of our community and continue to shop with us. Now you know who we are, our state of the quality of products, that there are people behind this brand that you can talk to for advice. We want to maintain those relationships once we’re no longer in that physical space. And it was how do we blur the online and offline. So even though we’ve got a curated range of products in-store if they come in wanting to have a look at prints how many have you got. We’ve got so many coming I’ll walk you through the iPad and I’ll flick you through. Tell me about what interests you so it’s introducing them to our own online store even though they’re in store and we’ve got the ability to sell products that aren’t necessarily there.

Lucy

Practical things that we did as well. There’s always printed material in bags when people place an order so that they are incentivized to go online. At the end of the day. We said to ourselves if anyone walks into the store they’ve got to walk out knowing they can visit huntingforgeorge.com. That’s like big picture stuff here. We just want to grow our audience.

Tim

So is this, am I hearing to online retailers who… And You’ve had pop up stores throughout the journey, you’ve now got this experience store. Are you trying to convince yourself that we have to have a high street presence? Because I’ve had you know I’ve had the girls from Spelman Gypsy collective who have got an amazing flagship store in Byron couldn’t live without it. But I’ve had a lady from the, not nourished life, help me here. It’s an online cosmetics brand. She’s from Adore Beauty

Both

Oh, Kate Morris, of Adore Beauty.

Tim

Kate, of Adore Beauty. So, Kate had a store and got never again. Yeah. So, are you trying to convince yourself?

Jo

No, we’re not convinced of anything. We’re literally, this is a massive test and it’s a massive experiment. However, I will say this. We’ve always had a physical presence and a showroom and that people can come in and choose that avenues to visit us face to face. Yeah, we’ve always had that presence but it hasn’t been a high street beautiful shop. It’s just been a simple head office.

Lucy

It’s in backstreet in Richmond pretty much where our warehouse transformed part of that. And I think.

Tim

Is it Cremorne or Richmond?

Jo

Richmond. I think it’s important to some degree but I also think that e-commerce is incredibly powerful and it’s scalable and you know for a small business, if you think e-commerce makes a lot of sense and are priority will 100 percent or may not be online. But where you just want to experiment we can and we will and we want to know more about who our customers are. And I think it’s naive to just think that you know at all without testing it, and we were going to do it eventually. So, we’re like we may as well take a risk and do it now and then see where that takes us.

Tim

Of all the things you do and all the things we’ve spoken about, I’m sure there’s things we haven’t spoken about in regards to marketing. What’s the most effective way for you to get a customer?

Lucy

I was going to say old school word of mouth but it’s really not the most effective at the moment with all our channel.

Jo

I guess our most effective marketing is just organic social media because organic being that we don’t pay for it and it’s ROI.

Tim

Well you do. It takes time. You do pay for it, you’re spending on photography, for creating the content. Word of mouth, can I challenge you on that? Because I reckon word of mouth is the result of great marketing and great marketing can be the result of great product or great customer service or so word of mouth. I hear it all the time. If I’m in a room of 100 small business and say, hands up if word of mouth is number one most of them will but it’s like what are you doing to get the word of mouth

Lucy

I agree. But if you have that consistent and that great brand experience then you get the word of mouth from it. But you’re right it’s all the background stuff that you need to do to be able to get that is there.

Tim

You haven’t really answered my question but I’m just going with the fact that everything you do is a test and some of it works and some of it doesn’t. But it’s also not unusual for someone to not know what’s really working because it is so. It is like having 10 balls in the air knowing that a couple are going to hit the ground and well.

Jo

Yeah, you’ve just got to take a punch and it’s about taking risks. We’ve made plenty of mistakes. You have to try different things.

Lucy

Yes. Someone who we still go to every now and then for advice. You know he said, if you throw a dozen stones down a hill and chase the one that goes faster. So simplistic but it’s so true, you got to try different things and then make sure you are confident enough to follow the ones that are working.

Tim

You are brave business owners. Is there something you haven’t tried that kind of scares you a bit and keep putting off?

Lucy

This physical space for us was my biggest challenge. Yeah, I think in this case

Jo

What didn’t we try though?

Tim

Podcasting. That’s what you should try

Jo

We should try podcasting shouldn’t we. Look I think whenever we are nervous as business owners or feel like we’re out of our depth in certain areas, we just make sure we reach out and surround ourselves with people that can help us and whether or not they’re part of the team or if we’re just roping in friends. I think any small business needs to just rely on their network. And if you ever feel out of depth to make sure you can fill the gap elsewhere.

Tim

Well done guys I think it’s an inspiring story. Probably feels like in day one, day one or two plenty of upside. 93 percent by the sense of people buying online. Thank you for sharing and huntingforgeorge.com

Jo

That is correct.

Tim

I think you get a 50 percent discount for small business big marketing?

Jo

We should create a Tim Reid’s special.

Lucy

I would get my marketing team to create it.

Tim

I would love it.

Lucy

20 percent for Tim Reid.

Tim

I love it. Thanks guys.