Podcast Transcript

[00:01:02] Sean: G’day everyone and welcome to the ScaleUps Podcast where we help first-time Founders learn the secrets of scaling so they can fulfill the potential of their businesses, make bigger decisions with greater confidence and fundamentally maximise the impact they can have in the world. I'm your host, Sean Steele and my guest today is Steve McGinnes. Welcome to the podcast, Steve. How are you today?

[00:01:32] Steve: I’m absolutely fantastic, Sean. Thanks very much for having me great to see you, your smiling face this morning. 

[00:01:38] Sean: Mate, thrilled to see you. I'm thrilled to hear the birds in the background. I think they're perfect for our podcast today. For those who don't know your background, Steve. You’ve led Multimillion dollar businesses across multiple APAC locations. And therefore, you built a lot of deep knowledge in building business in Asia, you've authored “Surfing the Asian Wave” as a book that's really tried to capture some of those learnings and those insights. You're a frequent media expert and guest on BBC world news and keynotes and conference speaking. And I'm really looking forward to our conversation today. And we're going to talk of course, about one obvious topic, which is giving you a book, Surfing the Asian Wave. We’re going to talk certainly about international expansion of companies in Western countries into Asia and also the reverse, you know, I think our chat offline was really insightful that, there's some pretty different approaches taken by East, moving into West versus West moving into East. So, I think it'd be great to unpack some of that. And you know, I was lucky enough to lead an expansion into the Philippines in my last company successfully. And I think for those Founders who might be listening and are thinking about international expansion as a strategic option, you're really to want to hear this conversation and less obvious that we'll be talking about is perhaps some of your views on scaling. I think, it'd be great to unpack a bit of that up front, but also, I know you're a marketer at heart, and you've got some insights into what you consider sort of unique customer segments, maybe that are being ignored by a whole bunch of people. So, if you're listening and you're thinking about, “Okay, well maybe international expansion, isn't my thing. But I am thinking about, you know, where can I expand my business, maybe through some new customer types?” Today's your day. So, why don't we start then Steve, maybe with a bit of your background, if we can on some of the key parts of your journey that I guess provided the backbone for the insights that you now have on how to maximise people's chances of succeeding in entering Asia.

[00:03:36] Steve: Yeah, totally. Okay. So, I think there's sort of a degree of universality in terms of people's fundamental desires and their needs, what they want from life. My background, you know, I was a pub landlord. I used to run pubs in London and I think I always said of everything I know about running a P&L or running a marketing campaign, I learned running a pub in the East end of London. And it's about understanding people and making them. And realisation that nobody cares what you're interested in. Nobody cares what you want to talk about. Nobody cares what's important to you. It's about what's important to them. And I think that's as true standing behind a bar, as it is running a multinational brand, we get so caught up in what we want to talk about. We get so caught up in what's important to us that we forget we’re not our target. And I think that's true, whether it's in Adelaide or Bangalore or Indonesia, or any market in the world. But then the nuancing around that is where the changes occur. And I think in terms it's probably worth doing a little bit about the scaling bit at first, as you mentioned. So, my career followed kind of the classic arc, you know, well, not quite classic. I went from being a nightclub bouncer to running a bar, to running a chain of bars, to moving to a big international catering company, owning all of their bars to move into working on Stella Artois and Budweiser. So, I'm kind of an accidental marketeer. What really I found very rewarding and very exciting about marketing was nobody threw any bottles at me, no matter how bad the day went. So, we'd shuffle out a pitch presentation, going “Oh, that went awful”, “Well, nobody physically assaulted me and there was no vomit to clean up.” So, that was a good day from being on the front lines. So, I did the sort of classic arc of moving up and running one agency and then running two agencies.  And at one point I was running five or six different agency offices around the region; Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, Shanghai. And that really is where I guess I cut my chops in terms of understanding the differences in terms of the customer, in terms of what people wanted, in terms of those markets and, and to put it really broad senses in terms of Asia and the West or the East and the West. And that's where I think the idea for just specialising in that. And when I wrote the book, which receives a lot more attention than I was expecting, I was really writing the book that I wish somebody had given me when I got on the plane on the first time, it would have saved wasting a lot of money and a lot of mistakes. Fortunately, those mistakes were made with other people's money, in my formative…

[00:06:24] Sean: The best way.

[00:06:25] Steve: Yeah, and then just in terms of where that took me in terms of my own role, looking after those five, six offices, multimillion dollar P&Ls to the point where I may as well have been working for a shoe company. So, I was in advertising and design and branding, but when you get to that level, the P&L and the people decisions and the operational considerations, you could be doing anything. And my passion disappeared for it, and I was becoming increasingly concerned about what part of the plane I was sitting on, rather than what I was going to do when I got to the destination. So, whilst I still hadn't become wholly cynical about the industry I was in, I decided to sort of step out of a little bit. So, I moved to a smaller regional agency looking at senior role there, felt the same way to a bigger role in even smaller agency, felt the same way. And where I've netted out as much serendipity in terms of the way the world has changed, in terms of the interconnectedness and no longer the need for the emphasis on the face to face, and the more globalised nature of business now, I've managed to find myself in a situation where I'm very happy at the scale of me and some partners and some retainers and some projects, and feeling happy that I got off the roundabout while I still enjoyed it. And who knows in 5 years, in 10 years, I might step back into those big roles again. But right now, I'm here in Northern Shanghai in Thailand, spent a couple of weeks down on the islands, probably popped down the islands later this week. It's great for right now. And I think I completely see from the viewpoint of your listeners in terms of how do I get to a million, how do I get to 5 million, how do I get to 10 minutes? If 10 million is going to make you happy, you know, 10 million won't make you more than 5 million. You know, there's a say, if you're not happy with what you've got, why do you think having more is going to make you happier? So, I think I would just add a caveat to that phrase Scaling Up to be whatever scale means to you. And for me, the scale right now is this. So, if having gone through that growth arc and deciding where to be at, it's a great spot to be, but to go back to your point, I have got a couple of specialisms, which are now around the East West convergence, or indeed divergence, depending how you look at it and how to target those marginalised consumers that are being ignored for the more organised vocal smaller groups. And I guess, my caveat for everything now is I think in 2022, there is very little need for local generalist. When you can get any specialist or expert in the world to work with you at the click of a few keys, do it all local is no longer much value. Whereas, being a global specialty, I think is where the value is and where the interest is and I guess where the passion is, you're passionate about what you do well, and you do well what you're passionate about and you can't be passionate about everything.

[00:09:53] Sean: There's so much to pick up on the, Steve, you know, the first thing that came to mind was, I saw somebody put in front of me a hundred year strategy the other day, and I haven't seen anybody do anything more than the three-year strategy the other day, it was fascinating because they'd looked at a whole bunch of kind of futures, predictions and so on. But one of the predictions, I think to your exact point was that, I think it was that 70% or 80% of white-collar workers will be working in a portfolio contract nature by the year 2050. And therefore, everybody thinks they've got a permanent job in security is the thing, even though that's been significantly disrupted in the last couple of years, and there's a lot of people going, “Ah, maybe that's not exactly how I want to run in my life.” But actually, the vast majority of the workforce could potentially shift to that kind of model where now very few people are doing a standard full-time 9 to 5 any more and at least in white collar professions. The other thing that really jumped out at me was the conversation around scaling up, I think is an excellent one because the first conversation, as you know, I mentor private clients, I work with Founders; either I chaired their advisory boards or mentor Founders, and co-Founders one-on-one, And often in the very first meeting, the question is; Well, what's your ambition for this thing? What do you want it to become? And it's usually the conversation that has the most blank looks like; I'm not sure, you know, well, I just want it to get better. But to what end? Is this a business that you're trying to build and sell on a timeline as fast as possible? We need to bring an external equity. We need to go super hard because you have a dollar figure in mind that you want to exit on, or are you trying to build a lifestyle business that actually you'd be very happy, if it never goes past a couple of million dollars and actually it's got high profitability and you're able to install someone and why sell the golden goose if it's continuing to lay eggs, kind of thing. And I think there's a lot of ego tied up in the concept of an exit, and people saying, you know… I was able to scale up an exit. It's like a big sort of badge of honour, but you think about, what you're giving up. I had actually a client recently, he received an offer from their business and they weren't planning on selling it all. So, it created a really interesting conversation and it's actually a reasonable offer, but that was the question was; “Well, do you still have energy for this thing? What do you want it to become? Are you happy with the way it is? Is there any reason to sell it? And what's the consequence of selling it?” You're actually selling the next four or five years worth of cashflow in addition to something that you actually really enjoy doing. So, what are you going to do instead?
 

[00:12:26] Steve: And a big chunk of your identity. 

[00:12:28] Sean: And a big chunk of your identity. That's right. So, if you've got something that you're just incredibly achieved to move on with, then I can say it can make a lot of sense, but there's so many ways to make the most of a business. But the thing that I always come back to is what is the stuff that gives you energy and what’s the stuff that takes it away? Because if what you're doing is not giving you energy, and many Founders find themselves in that trap, you know, stuff starts to get really difficult. They're having to do a lot of things. They absolutely cannot stand doing or the nature of the businesses becomes, somewhat to your point, maybe they've become too far away from the frontline and they really miss the customers, or they miss the sort of hustle of figuring out problems on a daily basis. And just the nature of the role or the company has changed and no longer is it giving them what they need.

[00:13:12] Steve: And I think there's something within the idea of the kind of people that are listening to this. And the kind of people we interact with on a day-to-day basis are a certain kind of person. There's a nice line, it says, “Not all action needs to happiness. But there can be no happiness without action.” So, doing nothing goes in one direction, doing nothing ends up with depression and misery, but does that mean you need to be doing something 80 hours a week? And the question is you… So, I looked at the choice of, do I work 60, 70, 80 hours a week for the next 10 years and then have the ability to do nothing? Now, I'm not capable of doing nothing. And the idea of stopping, sitting on a beach and drinking cocktails. Okay. But what about the afternoon? What am I going to do then? So, the way I've looked at that balance is, well, I'd rather do 20 or 25 hours a week indefinitely or 40 hours when it suits me or 10 hours when it suits me for the rest of my life, then lose the next 15 years. Not necessarily lose, but put that up in order to trade off for 10, 15, 20 years of doing nothing at all, because I know my nature. And I think a lot of the people that do that build, they don't necessarily understand the fundamental nature. The idea that they think they can stop and do nothing and sit on a boat. Whereas, when they actually do that, they can't do it. And they end up moving back in again with it to do something again, not necessarily the passion they had first time, because it's just not the kind of people they are. If you're a builder, you're a builder and you're going to keep building. So, I’m stretching out my building to the time. And again, that allows me the ability to work on the things I'm passionate about and do the areas that I feel an expert in. And I think one of the things I found out of the last few years is, you know, the saying that; “The dumb people are full of confidence and the smart people are full of uncertainty.” And you realise that the answer to most questions is; it depends. And if I ask somebody a question now on any topic and they give me a hundred percent certain answer, I realise they're not actually aware of the complexity of the topic we're discussing. So, I would rather be a specialist in a few things that I can speak confidently on. And the nature of that global location neutrality and that shift from; oh, we can work anywhere. Which means, in the office, at your kitchen table, or in the coffee shop. To being, we're able to work for anyone. So, you can work at home in an office, in a coffee shop, on the beach, but more interestingly is you can work for Japan and India and the UK and Australia simultaneously. That then becomes a really interesting element. And then again, to take your point, that's where the people on either side of that equation, the people in London understanding the people in Bangalore, the people in Sydney understanding the people in Tokyo, beyond the ability to email or beyond having maybe one or two people in your business, the ones you send for those meetings, when suddenly everybody can be connected to their peers, when everybody can work either as an independent with another location or whatever level your role is within a bit, you're suddenly not only able to, but expected to talk to a partner, supplier, buyer, peer on the other side of the world. And I think that the few people that used to have those were aware by a series of hard knocks and experiences of 10 years to realise; okay, there's differences here, I need to approach these conversations differently. To suddenly be the click of a button, talking to somebody on the side of the world and not necessarily being aware of those cultural differences, of difference in values, difference in priorities. And I think the only place left in the world where you would only ever see a hundred-year business plan now is probably China because… 

[00:17:15] Sean: This was an Australian one actually, which was great and very visionary.

[00:17:19] Steve: Well, I think that's built with the exception that multi-generational families seeing a longer-term plan, understanding that the plan may completely take a circular route to get to that end point. Whereas, I think you're right. Somebody having a hundred-year plan for their business as an exception, but really seeing, I guess it's a vision more than what we do next month and the ….

[00:17:43] Sean: A tactical plan.

[00:17:44] Steve: And I think I'm one of the challenges that I've seen over and over again. When Eastern West is this idea of timeframe and prioritising when an Australian or a us business goes into China and starts talking about the long-term plan and they're talking five years, and the Chinese CEO is talking, you know, three generations down the line.

[00:18:04] Sean: Whilst we're there, it's a perfect place to segue. So, I think, one of the things I'd just take out of that last conversation that's super relevant for people is that, your access to talent is… people kind of know this, but I'm not sure that it's always leveraged in the way that it can be. To your point, the ability to hire people who are absolutely expert in a domain, in a different environment, to help you achieve your goals regardless of where you are and regardless of where they are, has never been easier. And sometimes we can forget, even though we know that and maybe, okay. Maybe we've done a… you know, we've tried a few people on Upwork or a similar kind of platform Fiverr or something like that, but actually there is a whole world of people now willing to and ready on more and more people are transitioned into an environment where they're willing to work across borders. But I guess just to sort of start to unpack, if we think about the, the big opportunity in this conversation, we've got a whole bunch of people listening and we've listened to numerous Founders in the last, say, 10 episodes. We had Mark Meili who specifically chose not to expand internationally and was able to grow his company from zero to 4,000 FTE and north of $500 million in revenue. And another Founder in Melbourne Pete Cleary who grew his company to north of 200, by expanding into 14 countries. And international was a very deliberate part of their strategies. If I think of all the strategic planning sessions I've had with Founders or leaders, there's always some part of that meeting where that comes up as part of the conversation. “Well, do we want to expand internationally? Why and so on.” So, let's assume for this conversation that there are people listening who go; we see lots of real value in doing so we want to expand into Asia and we want to avoid some of the things that people constantly get wrong when they are trying to entre a South-East Asian market, for example, recognising that, which I'm sure you'll talk about the fact that there is no one South-East Asian market and that everyone of those countries is entirely different. But maybe, you can talk to us a bit about what are the things that make people fail consistently when they're trying to expand into Asia?

[00:20:13] Steve: I can sum it up in one sentence. It's the expectation that what worked here, will work there. That is the single and everything else is essentially nuanced from that. So it is, it worked in my market. It will work in another market. And that I think is a stumbling block. And whether that's a case of, our approach to the consumer will be the same or our benefits we're conveying will be the same or a price point should be the same, or partnerships should be the same. It's the, this worked, we know what we're doing, we'll replicate it. And I think that is the fundamental. And I think the way of trebling your likelihood of success is a simple acknowledgement that things are different. If you go into it with the mindset of things are different, not better, not worse, they’re different. People have different priorities. They want different things. They have different needs. How do I adapt what I have to them rather than expecting them to match my expectation? And that could be anything from a banking product. It could be a logistics service. It could be HR service. It could be a chocolate bar. It doesn't matter. That would be the majority of the issue. 

[00:21:37] Sean: In circumstances where; okay. I, as a Founder, I've got my head around that and I've heard enough scary stories of Bunnings failing going into the UK and probably there's so many big fails, right? Like big public fails of you have done exactly what you just said, take existing format. We'll just plunk it in that market where such a big hit of here. We're going to just succeed on day one when we go in there, and just completely fall over. Let's assume that we've gone in with the mindset of, we're going to have to learn what actually works in this market and we're going to have to adapt and change with that. How do they think, what are the practical steps that you think about to ensure that you actually get that right? How do you start to think about who do I need to get around me? How do I start to want to take that kind of research that's going to inform how we can do it successfully as opposed to…? 

[00:22:23] Steve: Okay. I think the answer isn't a half a million-dollar research project at all, the answer is a little bit of common sense, and I think there's four or five key areas that are going to be different. And once you understand what the difference is, I think then you create a strategy, whether that is hiring the right people, whether it's building a different offer, whether it's actually taking exactly what you've got right now and reframing the messaging. So, we give you a couple of examples. We'll talk about East and West. I know that one, you know, Asia and the West ones, it was a geographic construct. There was a cultural construct, but just for simplicity. Now we can say things like Asia is more hierarchical than the West, which tends to be flatter. People will point out an incredibly flat structured Japanese company and a very, very hierarchical German company. And of course, you're going to find exceptions, but my answer to that is usually, there are some very tall Japanese people. And there are some very short Dutch people, but we can say overall, the Dutch are taller than the Japanese. You know, even though I can find exceptions within that. So, we can make broad statements that are mostly right and say, in emerging markets, people tend to be more immediate benefit driven the longer term. So, if you're launching a toothpaste brand, in Australia, it's no cavities teeth retention gum health. If you're launching that product in Indonesia, you want fresh breath, white teeth today. Because I want the immediate benefits because I don't necessarily have the reassurance of long-term, and if you're developing a financial product, you might be able to work with a level of complexity and a technical jargon in the West because people ever know these, you're building on pre-existing knowledge, whereas you may be going into a market that doesn't know anything about what you're talking about. We mentioned earlier the long-term and short-term. Generational, you find a lot of, a lot of markets here where if you want to bring in a new service. So, banking in India, for instance, people in the West understand the benefits of having a bank account, you know why you want it, you know the pros and the cons. In India, it was very hard to get Indians to open bank accounts. They didn't understand the benefits to it because they'd never had one often. So, it was sold in as a benefit for their children. You want your children to have a bank account, even if you don't want one yourself, because people often can care more about the success and happiness of their kids than themselves.  So, it's about taking your product, your offer, and understanding that how you're approaching, it might not be the same way as everybody else. I did a project in China for one of the big electronics retailers on their electric razors for men. Couldn't sell them. Turned out, the closest shave wasn't a bit … if you're some big hairy ass Australian, you know, the closest shave is grey. If you're some Chinese guy, that's not particularly astute, closest isn't the easy thing, but they wanted the fastest. Shanghai business people, super busy. What's the faster you can give me. And then also we found out that every single image you've ever seen for an electric razor, it's the same shot. Good looking guy in the morning, having a shave, beautiful woman in the background. Every single time. You talk to guys in China, they go; Yeah, I shave at night. Suddenly, we didn't need to change the product. The closest shave razor was also the fastest one. All we needed to do was change the message and change the imagery. So, it might not be about fundamentally changing what your service or product is. It's about understanding what is it about your product or service that's appealing to that market. And as you say, there is no Asia market, you know, there's 110 million people in the Philippines. There's 240 million people in Indonesia. I live in Thailand and it always baffles people when I say to them, Thailand is exactly the same population as the UK, 66 million. But if somebody says, oh, we're going to adapt our plan for Thailand. Really? Well, would you adapt it for the UK? Well, of course. So, it's not necessarily about there being anything wrong with the product or service you've developed because clearly people want it, but what is it about it that people want? How do I nuance it for the market I'm moving into, how do I make perhaps merely some communication changes to make it relatable, understandable, and engaging in that market? And then, it's the action of, do I need to hire some people to be on the ground? Is this a market that I can run from a different location? Do I need to change my offer? My communication? I think going into it with the functional question of who do I need to hire? What do I need to change? What do I need to do is one step too far? The first question needs to be, what do the people in my market I'm moving into want? And it may be that, that question, is out of the markets in Asia and that we've got population and more than 50 million people, which of them already have a consumer that wants a lot of the same things that my current customer does. And then maybe it's about finding the market that best suits your product rather than finding the biggest market and then trying to adjust your product for it. But again, it's starting it with the why I don't know. Let me do some finding out first. And I think that's the major hurdle, and it almost seems that the bigger the business, the more likely it is to be; well, this worked, therefore it will work. If it doesn't work first time. I interviewed a guy for the book who had lead… It was three different businesses. Each spending, I think it was $10 to $15 million on their launch and each had failed. But each time they tried the same strategy over and over again, which was, let's throw money at it. And that's not a solution, it's barely even a tactic. But that base understanding of what is it that I have and what is it that people want? I think that is our starting point.

[00:29:06] Sean: And what do you think, Steve, what do you think drives that decision-making in larger companies where they've got this assumption that what we did already worked and we just need to go? And do you think it's just the pressure of usually very deadline driven, very financially driven, usually given very tight timelines, and therefore, maybe the research that they kind of go, I don't really have time to do all that research. So, it just sort of goes by the wayside and they just rush because they feel like they need to hit a number and hoping for the best?

[00:29:37] Steve: No, it's because it worked. 

[00:29:39] Sean: Yeah, right.

[00:29:40] Steve: So, if something works, it's much easier to give advice to somebody that things are going badly for. You know, if everything's going well, it must be because of the things that you're doing, therefore those things have worked somewhere else. So, I think the success is what makes people feel bulletproof. And it may be the success within spite of what they were doing. It may be that they were in a market where the rising tide took all the ships up, or it may be that what they develop was absolutely perfect for that marketplace. So, I think the success blinds people to the need to change. Whereas, if things are going badly, it's clear things need to change. And I think that's the challenge. And again, the successful business, the most successful person in that business is the senior decision maker. So not only has the business done well by those decisions, but that decision makers done well by their own decisions thus far. So, I think that becomes a sort of a double-edged sword in terms of the individual and the business feeling that whatever they're doing as well.

[00:30:46] Sean: I interviewed Sydney Finkelstein recently, who has written 25 books, I believe. And one of them was about this called Super Bosses. And one of the things that he said was, “The big mistake that leaders make is over valuing their own personal experience” because what it was relevant for was the problems that I'm faced with in the past. And if you're facing a problem that requires new thinking. Well, to be frank, your experience is probably not worth a lot. And actually, the worst thing you could do is to overvalue it, and transpose it onto this new issue, which is exactly what we're talking about here.

[00:31:21] Steve: And I think that speaks nicely into the other topic, we talked about it and the marginalized consumers. So, I think, taking your brand or product and moving into a new market with it. Absolutely. I mean, there's a huge opportunity within that, but there's also untapped consumers within the markets people have already in and by marginalised, I'm not necessarily talking about, you know, cultural or gender which I think gets a lot of attention, rightly so it gets a lot of attention. And I have friends, I know who do a lot of work around trans rights and those people who are marginalised within society, But surely in terms of the numbers though, I mean, so I work with some of the big FMCG is, you know, the very big FMCG is around this and their attention has been going on small gimmicky developments, often on the surface to target very vocal marginalised groups. But then when you look at just the Australian market, so 13 million Australians have some kind of chronic visual impairment, that could be blindness, it could be glaucoma, retinitis, which means they're going to find it very hard to interact with any form of sort of brand or product communication. 10% of the population is colourblind. Yeah, all the products and brands, whether it's a brochure, whether it's a range of packages uses colour as its navigation tools. Sadly, 12% of the Australian population and it's about the same in the UK, is functionally illiterate. And you have around 20% of the Australian population that don't speak English as their first language. So, the language at home isn't English. So, when you combine the people living to a degree of perhaps poverty, people living with visual impairment, people for whom English is a struggle. When you add all those people together, they're actually more than the mainstream. So, the marginalised people in our society add up to more than what we would consider to be the normal mainstream people. Yet businesses and brands are kind of ignoring those customers with things that could be quite simply fixed. And again, it's not necessarily about fundamentally changing your offer or your product or your brand, often it's about adjusting around the edges. So, what are we doing with our communication material in terms of how we speak in terms of what we say, what we like, the language we use. You know, when you have like say you add up the illiteracy and you add up the non-English speakers, you have 30% of the Australian population that are going to have trouble with written English, yet we write our communication material. We write our brochures, we write our website with this level of complexity and jargon and highfaluting languages, as my dad used to call it. Whereas, in fact, simple place. So, there's a thing called the Fleischer Kincaid test, which will evaluate the level at which something is written. So, the average in the UK can read and write at the age of a sixth grader. So, that's about an 11 year old. The average reading age is 11. Which you might think is awful, but Stephen King writes at the level of a sixth grader. Dan Brown writes at the level of a seventh grader. Ernest Hemingway wrote the levels for ten-year-old and you can't say that these writers aren't communicating complex, nuanced, engaging material, but they're doing it a way that everybody can understand. So, making things completely doesn't necessarily make them better. So just in terms of looking at the means in which things are communicated, the benefits that are being portrayed, the use of imagery and iconography can very simply make what you're selling and what you're developing or what you're putting out into the market much more engaging to, as I say, the marginalised groups that when you add them up a larger than the non-marginalized groups, which I think is always, is always interesting.

[00:35:44] Sean: are you seeing any examples of people doing this well at the moment that you can think of where you go, actually, someone's really nailing this?

[00:35:53] Steve: Well, I think there's a level of intuitiveness to things to browse like Apple and Netflix and where you can engage through the whole ecosystem almost in a culturally language neutral manner. So, you're engaging with brands in a way that doesn't require any pre-knowledge that doesn't inquire, but it is something that's building quite a lot momentum's, it's hard to point at somebody right now that's doing it, but there's a lot of movement going on underneath the surface. So, when you're working with somebody like Unilever or Coca-Cola or Nestle, or P&G, who are the people that I'm talking to about it right now, it's very hard for them to make even the slightest change of the great tanker that is their business. It's easy for them to send out a, this is our LGBTQ pack that we're going to do for gay pride month. This is our Blind Pack that has braille and an integrated QR code that we're going to do for a limited edition of one month. It's easier for them to shoot off these one-offs than it is to change the direction. And I think that's the benefit where the smaller companies, you know, the 1, 5,10 million, they can build this in. And I think they can build it in a way that just produces a better experience for their day-to-day customer, but actually as a step change in terms of engagement for the marginalised customers. So, we're working on things now where that your average consumer looks at and goes, oh, that's easy to read and it looks great, but somebody that was previously unable to engage with it, it's “Wow, this brand is taking the time and the effort to engage with me. I'm rewarding that brand with loyalty and my spending power.” And it's really a win-win. Who doesn't want an easier to understand and engage with product or brand or service? We all do. So, again, I think that's one of the issues where people have looked at this idea of universality and inclusivity and seen it as something for other people. I don't need it. So, it's not for me. Whereas in fact…

[00:38:10] Sean: It's some corporate strategy that sits over there. There's a committee that deals with that. Yeah. 

[00:38:14] Steve: Yeah. And this belief that something you throw money at, whereas what we've seen is, there is a huge ROI in it for a quite a small early on investment. Particularly if you build it into new product development or new materials. There isn't really any additional costs, but the ROI is there, it's the right thing to do commercially, and I guess it's also the right thing to do in human terms in terms of just doing the right thing. Win-win. So yeah, I don't see these really as being opposites from how to engage marginalised consumers at home and how to engage new consumers or customers abroad. It's really the same fundamental of what is it that these people I'm talking to want and need rather than what is it that I want them to want, and I need to say, I think it would be the …

[00:39:09] Sean: That's really nice. It's a really nice tie back in that makes complete sense. Yeah. It's right back to 101 where there's so much of what we can do in larger businesses where we're trying to get, we've got more people and everyone's got ideas and you can get more and more complicated and further and further removed from who is actually talking to the customer. And when was the last time we had a real conversation about what they want and what they care about and what they're going through and so on. And I see that regularly, particularly as businesses, if they're getting larger, quite often that connectivity to the customer disappears and it hasn't been embedded in the organisation where actually there's constant dialogue and constant feedback and iteration as a result. So, I think those things can be really easily overlooked and all of a sudden, your product stopped selling or things to start plateauing you're wondering why. But no one is actually talking to the customers and no one knows what's going on with them. Is there something that the, you mentioned when we talked offline that, “The companies from the East, expanding into the West, sometimes take a bit of a different approach to what the West might naturally do coming into East.” What did you notice about that, that we might need to learn from?

[00:40:17] Steve: Well, I think that one of the key aspects of that is we know all the companies that have moved from the West into the East. And we heard the fanfares and we saw the press conferences. And we know about when an Australian company moves into China. We know about it when a British company has a big win in India, because that is our style, we’re results oriented, we're action driven, we want to see the CEO with the big cheque, that's what we get. When it's moving the other way, often we are unaware of it because it is done very differently. Most people driving a car in Australia or the UK don't necessarily know that car is owned by a Chinese company that built it, that owned the company that built it in their home market. So, I think there's a quiet discrete global expansion going on from Asia into the West. That's actually much larger than the more-showy, glitzy expansions moving the other way. And I think that also belies the fundamental differences between the two cultures of look what I've done today versus look what I'm building for the future, and I think there's also a preconception that these kinds of things we're talking around with the cultural norm only matter when you get boots on the ground in the market. What I say to people, and again, this ties back, this idea of being the global specialists is, if you're talking to somebody on a Skype or a team meeting that is in India, essentially, you’re in India, you need to conduct yourself and talk and engage and be cognizant of the value system of the people you are talking to even if you're not physically there. You no longer become part of a foreign team when you step on the ground, we need to be aware of this every time we're opening up these conversations. And I think to go back to your point earlier that I didn't get chance to mention. I got spun off on something else. I think people do have experiences around engaging around the world, but they tend to be quite transitional functionally led engagements. I need somebody to deliver this one, and then I get it back. But I think actually there's the depth of relationships, the length of relationships, and the amount of value add that you can deliver is, is equal. I mean, I've had through the COVID period engagements with clients, I've worked with amazing, wonderful bunch of guys and girls in an agency in the UK for 18 months before we met face-to-face and I think I've done some of my best work with those guys, having never met them. And the depth, and value, and the other, the strength of that relationship, whilst it is virtual. And I think that's the other element these, so I think taking that into account of any engagement we're having cross-culturally, we need to take the same care and consideration and pre-thought and preparation as if we were stepping into their office, as if we're stepping in actually into their boardroom in that market, rather than just checking a button.

[00:43:28] Sean: And you absolutely make that preparation very differently naturally, you know, you're going to get on plane. Like I think about the first time I went to the Philippines and Malaysia and Indonesia, and so on, looking for building partnerships, looking at buying businesses and in pre each of those country’s entry, if I hadn't had experience there, I was researching like crazy. I was making relationships with people on the ground who would help me to make sure that I don't stuff up, but why all of a sudden, if I jump on a zoom call, should I abandon all of that work? 

[00:43:58] Steve: The good news is most people do abandon all that. So, if you're one of the people that doesn't, you have a huge advantage. If you still take the time to find out who is on that, what their background is, what their role is, who their friends are, who would you have in common? What small talk can you make? What should you be wearing? All the things you would have done as a matter of course to step into that physical room. Most people aren't doing that. And I don't know about you, but I'm not really interested in most people. So, if most people aren't doing it, it's a great advantage for the people that are. So, I think that's one of the fundamental ways that we can still whilst everybody can talk to everybody everywhere in the world, most people won't bother taking the time. Most people won't go into it with an open mindset about what they don't know. Most people won't do the prep. So, for those of us that do, we've got a huge advantage on everybody else. And again, whether that's home or abroad, wherever you're going into it is we're not the smartest people in the room very often. And particularly when you can access any room in the world at the click of a button, the chance of knowing more than everybody else's is pretty slim.

[00:45:11] Sean: Pretty low. I've got one last question for you. So, this has been a fascinating conversation. And for me, as we've been talking, I've been thinking through all the experiences I've had, and all the learnings that I got going internationally and setting up joint ventures and so on. And there was lots of mistakes made and lots of things that worked really well. And a lot of learnings that you're talking about, a really kind of coming home to roost in the ones that we did exceptionally well around the preparation, and around, I guess, the customisation of our approach, the understanding of the local environment and local styles and cultures and values. I'm wondering though, in the last couple of years, if you think about, if we go back to generalisations, we were talking about the front going; okay, there's lots of nuance to the generalisations clearly, but in circumstances where, doing businesses in the East has always been known to significantly important to have a very strong relationship and often forged in bars after the pitch during the day and all that kind of stuff, where a COVID made that incredibly difficult. What have you noticed that's changed in the way business has been done? If it's a new relationship during COVID that somebody is trying to set up in an Asian market that they haven't been able to get to and maybe still can't get to, how has that changed or has it changed?

[00:46:25] Steve: It has changed. I come from the generation where we believe that the best relationships were built in the bar, or long boozy lunches. And that is how you built that trust and that connection. And that may have been true for while. It may not have been. It may just be what we all wanted to believe to be true because we liked boozy lunches and hanging around in the bar. I'm not sure that really any big deals were actually done that often in those environments. I certainly haven't found taking myself out of the 2:00 AM at the karaoke bar circuit has done my business any harm. It hasn't done any harm whatsoever. I think the importance of relationship building cannot be overstated in Asia. I think there's a lot to be said that, in Asia you build the relationship and then get the project. Whereas in the West, often now you get the project and over the course of that project, you build the relationship. It's still the other way round, but that relationship building doesn't need to be done in that classic ‘drunk in the bar with the CEO fashion’ and I've done my fair share of drunk in the bar with the Chinese CEO's, I'm just not sure what really ever delivered anything beyond what it could have achieved by, as we said earlier, taking my time, understanding them, making a connection, reaching out, understanding that… and I don't think going and getting drunk with them was ever a shortcut to build on those relationships.
It was part of. But I'm not even convinced even now that it was a necessary part of. And I think as you say now, people are realising that actually I quite like spending time with my family. I quite like being home. I didn't necessarily enjoy being out five nights a week. But that doesn't mean the relationship building isn't vital. It just means we know to go about it in a different way. And that is around opening up lines of dialogue with individuals outside of those big meetings, it's around taking the time to find out about people. So, you can mention them reference what you know about them. It's about finding the commonalities. It's about finding a mutual contacts and mutual points of trust, where you have had somebody in your network that shares their network and leveraging that and the personal connections. So, I think how we go about is different to previous. I think the shortcut of the social events may no longer be possible and may no longer be appropriate with a completely different generation of decision makers. Albeit with the caveat that was it ever really necessary or was it just a two-way habit that everybody got into. So, I think that to state your point, absolutely vital, but executed in different way in 2022. 

[00:49:28] Sean: And that was a really nice summary also of, I guess, some of those key points in how we can go about that differently. Well, Steve, thank you so much for your time and sharing your wisdom with us. Folks, if you've been listening to the show and you'll be thinking about international expansion, I'm sure you have learned something today, and whether that's in relation to international expansion or whether it's in relation to maybe some markets that you're not really paying attention to and a chance to sort of do some reflection about the why that you're marketing and your messaging is positioned and how well that's going to be getting cut-through to some of that more marginalised groups. Steve, how can people follow along with what you're doing or get in touch?

[00:50:08] Steve: https://www.stevenmcginnes.com/ is probably the best bet. My name and.com at the end of it. I've also dropped into LinkedIn quite often. I'm not a tweeter as yet. So yeah, Stevenmcginnes.com and my direct phone number is on that again in the spirit of direct communication, my hand phone numbers are there, I'd much rather have a conversation with people.

[00:50:33] Sean: Beautiful. Thank you so much, Steve. Well, folks. I hope you enjoyed the show today. Thank you so much to you, Steve McGinnes. Folks, couple of things before you go, if you enjoyed today and you think other people might want to hear this, take a screenshot, send it to a friend, jump on the podcast, leave a review on Apple that I know that Spotify now is accepting reviews of podcasts as well. So, you can jump on there if that's your favourite platform, you can join us at @Scaleuppodcast on any of your favourite social, except Twitter. Just like Steve, haven't quite got there yet. Not quite my thing. But just to remember in the context of scaling, whatever that success looks like to you, the only thing that can guarantee that you won't ever scale, whether you're expanding internationally, going after a new market, or just trying to create a lifestyle business is that it's going to get hard sometimes and you've got to remain unshakable in your faith that you're going to achieve that goal and remain flexible in your approach. You've been listening to the ScaleUps Podcast. I'm your host, Sean Steele. Thanks so much. And we'll see you next week. Thank you so much, Steve.