How Gymshark built a unicorn with influencers - Noel Mack

23:31I think sometimes I've hired people in the past and they're like, what, Ben actually comes into the office? And then the one day I was like, yeah, he sits next to you. And there was like this girl that was a retoucher. She was like, oh my God. Yeah. Ben came in and sat next to her and spent, you know, eight hours a day sitting next to her. So he's in every day. Like it's a, it's a legitimate chief exec position. It's not one of these CEO for title, but swans in and out. Yeah. Yeah. Like he's, he grafts. But yeah, in terms of the thing on him being like the face of the business and all that stuff, It's very common these days, obviously, for people to do the whole building in public, found a story thing on YouTube.

24:02And Ben's sort of held up as one of the, you know, the poster boys of that. But what people don't realise is Ben's first YouTube video was once we were already doing, I want to say 100 million in revenue, something along those lines. But the first time he ever told the story in any kind of way. And even that wasn't born out of some I want to be a famous internet person point of view. It was a, we'd done an event in Dublin and this young dub lad came up to him and was like, I'm doing a college project on Gymshark, but I can't find out any information about it. Like, what have you ever thought about doing a YouTube video?

24:32And I think on the flight home, Ben was like, maybe I should just tell people like how I did it and whatever else. He's quite introverted and shy, made that video. And that's sitting at however many millions of views it's sitting at now. And it really took off. So again, just similar to Gymshark, it was more like, well, if the customers like it, let's just do more of it. And he kind of leaned in like that, you know what I mean? But it doesn't come naturally to him. You won't see him doing get ready with me videos because he just wants the views. It's not about that. It's like, well, if the customers want it, I'll do it.

24:55But I'm not doing it because I'm trying to be famous or anything like that. But he's honestly like one of the most humble. It's weird. I'm not really a believer in like stuff being meant to be and all that kind of stuff. But part of me thinks in some weird way he was meant to be as successful as he was because he can handle it really well. Do you know what I mean? We've seen people in the public limelight get really, really famous. and it derails their life and they become unhealthy and they get into all sorts of nefarious stuff that they probably later regret. There is zero chance of that ever happening with Ben Francis.

25:25I have to convince him to buy new shoes because he'll wear them until he's got holes in them. He's always wearing the same thing in every photo. Every single day. He's always wearing his black job, his black top hoodie. And he turns up everywhere wearing pretty much that kit. Everywhere, even down in the street. I love this story. Just for people listening, tell me about the day you met the Prime Minister because this is brilliant. Yeah, he went a lot... The funny thing about this is Ben got an invite to Downing Street, right? He turned up in his regular... Everybody else in the world would put their suit and their shirt on and all that kind of stuff.

25:55Ben rocked up in his exact same Gymshark outfit with his trousers tucked into his socks. I'm right in thinking, I only found that out when I went round to see my nan and she'd seen the photo online and was like, oh, I saw Ben didn't even get changed to go to Downing Street. I was like, what? And I took her iPad off and there he was. I texted him being like, tell me you didn't turn up in your Gymshark club. And he's like, yeah. But then the funny thing was, the next invite he got to Downing Street was the exact same format, but there was a big, bold sentence at the bottom, which is like, black ties required.

26:19Oh, really? Yeah. So, yeah, the next time. Did he comply this time? Yeah, I think the second time he complied, but yeah, it was funny that I think they changed the Downstreet invite. He got a MBA. MBA, yeah. He met the future king. Wow. Which is cool. So, I mean, carrying on the theme in terms of Ben and personality, how would you describe the culture at Jim Chark in terms of, you know, what defines it? it's such a tough question to quantify that. The thing I'd say is, like, everybody is so bought into the story, right? Everybody who works here either knows the story of this thing where this pizza boy made good and now, you know, building this incredible brand, or we're even part of the story from the early days and, you know what I mean, they were there and they know all the war stories and whatever else, but it's such a collective mission.

27:09Like, every single person here is willing us over the line. do you know what I mean? Like every single person, no matter what they contribute to the organisation. So that's probably the one most unifying thing. The great upshot of that is I think it kind of quashes a lot of politics as well. I was talking to a colleague a couple of days ago who's come from another big business and I said, as a sort of percentage, the politics you had to deal with at the last place versus here, what was it like? And she said, well, if it was about 50 % of the work at the last place, it's 2 % here. Because everybody, like, if you have a disagreement with someone, and generally it's not because I think you're being an idiot and I don't like your idea.

27:44You're doing what you think is right to get us over the line on this mission of growing the most iconic British brand ever and I'm doing the same. Do you know what I mean? So we sort of test each other's ideas but there's an understanding from both of us that we're both just willing Gymshark to succeed. We just think different things about how to get there and as such I think that really, really helps. Do you know what I mean? It also means that people are more emotionally tied to it as well though so you take problems home with you more, definitely because you love it so much, right? I remember a customer saying this a while ago one of us, I can't remember if it was me or Ben got in touch with a customer personally on Black Friday because we'd let them down and she said, she was ranting and raving on Twitter and really angry at us about some cancelled order or something so DM'd her on Twitter, called her personally and said hey like really sorry about that and out of interest like why are you so upset and she said well because I love Gymshark so much she said if Curry's cancelled my order from a microwave during Black Friday I'd be like whatever it happens like it's Black Friday, it's chaos she said but when Gymshark let you down it's like something you love has let you down And it's the same thing working here as well.

28:41People will take problems home and get stressed out about this job way more than others. Because in other places, they haven't been as committed to the cause and the mission and everything we're trying to achieve. So it goes both ways. You give me a random flashback to, I subscribed to Jimmy's Ice Coffee randomly here. And I remember their customer service letting me down. And I had a right old rant on LinkedIn. I don't usually have rants on LinkedIn. It was very unlikely. But it's a bit of a rant about it. You're absolutely right, though. If it had been anybody else, I wouldn't have cared. It's weird, isn't it?

29:08are a big fan and subscribe and they let me down. But talking about those kind of challenges, how have you faced scaling up? Because when you joined, you were talking about 25 employees at a time. You're now 800, 900. So what have been the challenges? Because you've grown ridiculously quickly over the last five or ten years. So what have been the challenges that rapid growth has brought you? I think being big and thinking small has been something we've really tried to hold on to, i.e. still being as agile. I mean, I don't know if you saw the other day. One of my teams, the phenomenal, the organic social team, 24 hours after the Met Gala, they recreated all the iconic looks and they called it the Sweat Gala and posted that online.

29:47And the speed at which they did that was ridiculous, right? The Taylor Swift era tour was coming up in London this week and they've done all these Taylor Swift inspired looks and stuff like that. So that's been tough, holding on to that startup agility. How do you do that? Do you delegate responsibility to them to make decisions? Because you could be a bottleneck in that situation if you have to sign everything off, let's say. So how do you make that happen? Yeah, I'm definitely not that guy. I think when people ask me that question, it's funny because I feel like they're asking because they've faced that issue in the past.

30:17I've never really felt like I've faced it. I think it's because from the second this brand was, the inception of this brand, there's been phenomenal ideas from 19, 20, 21-year-olds with zero technical experience all the way along. So now when a social intern strolls up to me and says, no, I've got this thing I want to do, and I'm like, yeah, man, that sounds great. Get after it. Do you know what I mean? Whereas in so many other companies, there'd be all these rounds of sign-up and whatever else is sign-up. Yeah, whatever it is. Yeah, and just red tape and stuff. I think we just have a history of doing that, so it's kind of inbuilt in us.

30:48And like I say, I'm calling out the problem. I want to be big and think small. So when you're telling people that and that repetition of message, they kind of realise they have licence to do it. Do you know what I mean? Someone sent me an email today, one of the guys in the creative team, who's like, I know I'm stepping way out of line emailing you this, because I haven't spoken to my line manager or their manager or theirs and then that's you. But I just feel passionate about this idea. Here it is. I'm going to hit send and then run away. If you think it's cool, let me know. If not, forget I ever sent it.

31:15Do you know what I mean? Wicked email. I loved it. I love that. It's so cool. You want to hear that, don't you? Yeah, for sure. You don't want to be shielded from what people really think, do you? But a lot of people say they want to hear it but I think the reality of it can be different at times. Do you know what I mean? But like I said, it's been fundamental to our success. So why would we start ignoring that? I mean, how do you get people into a place where they feel like they cannot ask a reply straight away. I went back to him and said something like let's read out my reply. Let's do this.

31:39Just so I can prove I'm not full of hot air. Don't worry nobody will ever be chastised for being passionate for the brand. I'll digest. I'll have a chat with Carly and catch up with you around the place and catch up. Thanks for your honesty and thoughts. And then Carly actually did you love us to come back and said echo that thanks for sharing. Chat soon. And now me and Carly will have a legitimate conversation about that and it'll probably come to something. So yeah, do you encourage it? Yeah, I don't know but keep it front and centre and make sure we know that it is a risk that we could lose it so we need to hold on to it the other one the challenge of scale I think is like a more personal one is somebody said to me a while ago somebody said to me who'd been here for a long time they'd been here for like 7 years they said no I've had the same job for 7 years and they were at head of department and I was like no no you have the same job title because when you started as that head of department we were doing 15 million in revenue right we're now 600 plus like your job is so different now and I always say to people like if the company's growing at x rate just to stay in the same seat you've got to match that growth rate as well do you know i mean to get promoted you've got to outpace the company's growth which is wild do you know i mean so like again for me personally like making sure i'm still the right chief brand officer for this business and never resting on my laurels and just assuming that i'll be in the seat forever do you know i mean and making sure that i'm still as hungry as i was still working as hard still passionate about you know hanging out on it would have been all well and good for me to have had some success in the early days and facebook and instagram but to make sure that I'm on TikTok and understanding what's going on there.

33:03Do you know what I mean? You just put a visual in my head actually, like growing ahead of the curve. You almost need this curve ahead of the curve. You need to be growing, learning, absorbing, improving ahead of the curve to drag the curve up, don't you? Yeah, that's really powerful. What are the biggest challenges you've faced in this time of rapid growth? Because it's not easy, right? I mean everyone looks, oh it must be great to be on this rocket ship and the success has been, you know. But success is a hard one, isn't it? And there are times where it doesn't go well. What are the times where it hasn't gone well?

33:29I think the times where we haven't gone well are the times where we haven't trusted our gut enough. We've taken, kind of back to our point earlier in the quote from your guy Adam, we've taken advice on, oh, here's how everybody else does it, and we've thought, oh, we better do it that way then. Do you know what I mean? And that hasn't generally panned out for us. I feel as though one of the biggest challenges about Gymshark, in my tenure anyway, has been ensuring I'm as conscious about what we don't do as I am about what we do. So, for example, it feels like we've got this you know if you ever try and start a fire in the woods it feels like we've got this little flame going and i've got my hands around it like this and everyone is willing to tell me here's what you should do next right i go over to my partner's family in wales and they're like you know what you should get into no equestrian right and i'm like yeah okay yeah uh and then somebody else oh i go down my local volleyball center all the girls were you guys should get into volleyball right everyone's got a suggested into here's what you should do next right and i I feel like we've got this little flame.

34:29I've got my hands around it like this, and I want to grow it into a roaring fire. Do you know what I mean? But you have to be so protective. And probably the moments where it's gone wrong for us is when we've allowed anybody to input into that. Do you know what I mean? Like the Gymshark brand is so cool. It's so individual. Tell me somebody else has bought the gym to Regent Street or to any kind of shopping street, Champs -Élysées, Fifth Avenue, anything like that. They haven't, right? People have bought sports. North Face have bought mountaineering. Lululemon have bought yoga. Nobody has taken the gym out of the grotty back streets and the sweaty whatever and put it in some of the most iconic places in the world but we have that's a great description that yeah it really resonates for me that because i know whenever i've like worked on a challenger brand that's been successful it starts off amazing right everyone is focused you've got you're going in the same direction you you really care about the execution and the detail and the products and the placement where it is and how it turns up and then and then and then you start proliferating with innovation thing then you're managing a portfolio then you've got people doing different bits and then suddenly you realize that you were focusing out and now all you're doing is focusing in you're just looking at oh how do we manage this and should we put a policy in for that and should we should we get someone expert over here and then suddenly you realize you're just managing complexity you're not managing execution just managing the complexity that's the danger is like how do you protect that flame as you said because i think you've you've touched on one of the secrets of having a you know a scale up is is make the one thing or keep the one thing the main thing or something?

35:53There's some phrase somewhere. I don't know I haven't heard it. We'll make it up on the spot. One of the ways that I've found doing that is ensuring that I'm close to the consumers as well so I'll drop into the Gymshark Run Club on a Tuesday at Regent Street and run along with them and talk to them and I'll hang out in the Facebook groups and see what their problems are and all that kind of stuff. We do this fitness challenge called Gymshark 66 every year and I do it myself because I think if I'm consuming the brand the way the customer does then I feel like I'm in their shoes. And it helps me so much stay close to them.

36:23Because to your point, it's very easy to turn around and six months down the road you realise, I haven't spoken to a customer in six months. All I've talked about is process and budget planning and all this other stuff. So I find a healthy mix of doing those things with also staying as close as you possibly can to the consumer really helps there. I'm going to go for chart number two now because I've just realised the second chart. There is such a close correlation between the amount of time you spend with your customer and your success. And literally in my career, I could plot it out. Really? Yeah.

36:51So when I'm, all my possible time is spent with the customer, listening, getting feedback, being in their shoes, I've aced it. The moment I've suddenly, my customers become internal and I've been trying to impress the board or look good in front of me in the meeting or whatever, suddenly your powers dissipate because suddenly you just want to organise yourself. Whereas when you're with your customer, you know the answer to what the next product should be or the next innovation should be or how to improve it. Yeah. There you go. Stay in your shoes, man. Stay close to your customer. Well, talking of going to market, you talked about your store in Regent Street, right?

37:28But you launched that store during COVID, didn't you? Yeah, man. And that's pretty wild, right? But I guess you were born in direct-to-consumer, well, by constraint, really, because that was the only way you could get a product. So tell us about building a direct-to-consumer model and then why you then decided. It's still technically direct-to-consumer, remember, because it was our store on Regent Street. It was just direct-to-consumer retail, not direct-to-consumer e-com. Do you know what I mean? But it was still a huge task, because anybody who knows anything about the operations of an e-com business is, it's so different.

37:59I think if you've never worked in e-com or at a retailer, you might assume, but it can't be that different to go from selling it on the website to selling it in store. Trust me, I've got the battle scars. Yes, it is. so we have this real gut sense of like zig one of the zag and covid happened our revenue jumped through the roof without any real input from us it just did because it happened for everybody in e-commerce go and look at you know the results shopify were posting everybody was aware of it and there was all this talk about the death of the high street bricks and mortars dead you must have heard this right everyone there was this one line that kept getting repeated that was like the adoption of e-commerce has just leapt forward 10 years, right?

38:38It's never going back. Death of the high street, all this kind of stuff. So me and Ben actually are big fans of Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger, right? Berkshire Hathaway. And they talk a lot about like, what is it? Be scared when others are brave. Be brave when others are scared. Yes. Buy the blood when it's in the streets, all that kind of stuff. Well, all of a sudden, like everybody was bailing from their leases, right? And we'd been talking about when it was right to get into retail. and we were thinking about a little 3 ,000 square foot box in Shoreditch, test and learn, prove it out, and then slowly over time maybe work towards a flagship.

39:09But then COVID happens, the blood's in the streets when it comes to leases, right? And Ben texts me, I swear to God this is a true story. Ben texts me saying, just a random, during the day, he texts me, do me a favour. Now when someone normally texts me saying do me a favour, I think they want a cup of sugar, right? And he texts me, do me a favour, I said, yeah, what's up? He texts back saying, skip all the tests and learn, let's do flagship straight away. So I'm like, what? So I ring him, what are you talking about? He's like, think about it, man. He's like, it's never going to be cheaper than it is right now.

39:34He was like, there's going to be some incredible, do you know what I mean? Like, locations available. We should buy the blood on the streets, you know, Warren Buffett style. So that was that. We went down to Regent Street, met with the Crown, had a look around. You know, we have this pride in being a British brand. We want to become an iconic British brand. And when I stood on that corner on our Regent Street store and looked, and you've got the arch of Regent Street going down, I remember thinking, if we're going to become an iconic British brand, There's only one street we can do it on. Do you know what I mean?

39:59So I brought Ben back down about a week later. I put him in that same spot and I whispered, I can't do British brand these in. He's like, we'll take it. So that was it. And then, yeah, like we, we, we then had to quickly figure out how to run a store because we didn't have a clerk because we'd never done one before. So to go from having never done a single store to doing a 17 ,500 square foot flagship on Regent Street, it was quite the struggle. But going back to your point on growth and figuring it out and being big, but thinking small, do you know what I mean? That's, that lines up to all those decisions.

40:26The thing I love about this too, but basically if anyone listening is right in the middle it's literally halfway down Regent Street it's not tucked away in the back street it's on two floors as well but there's a gym and a studio which I know sounds obvious but you've kitted it out for people to go and work out in as well so it's not just where you can buy clothing so even that's, there's a funny anecdote about that myself and Mitch who's our retail and events director we found the agency we wanted to actually do the store design for us so we were getting into it and I was sitting with Ben and we were talking about what it could look like and all this kind of stuff.

40:59And Ben went to me, what I want is a gym and if there's room, we'll sell some clothes in there, right? And we laughed and it was a silly thing, whatever else. But then got to thinking about it and said, actually, there might be something we can do here. So yeah, the point you're making is we're smack in the middle of Regent Street, which is, for those who don't know, it's the British equivalent of the Champs -Élysées or Fifth Avenue. All the product sits on bars, which are actually barbells and they have lifting straps up to the ceiling. You can press a button in the store all the product goes into the eaves of the store and it's gym flooring and we have dumbbells and squat racks we can pull everything out and do full workouts in there so when you think think about out of home media for a second right down the street at all the billboards are Piccadilly think what a billboard would cost you there right for your digital assets and all that kind of stuff what five, eight hundred meters up the street we have all those windows and at any given point you can have 250 to 300 people all training in there big gymshark over the door do you know what I mean it's like the best billboard ever.

41:57I think this is what people forget about retail. Izzy is media. Literally, retail is media, isn't it, in terms of the thousands of people that walk past every single day. It's a bit like Apple stores, isn't it? Apple stores are literally Apple's main source of media. Yeah, community engagement as well. It's kind of got a similar feel to that. I'm not going to lie, it was heavily inspired by Apple. Apple realised right at the start that one of the barriers to entry for the Apple brand was they were so invested in Windows and they knew how to use a Windows computer that Apple was an intimidating prospect.

42:26So they build a genius bar and they teach people how to use their products, right? So go back to what you said about Ben right at the start. The gym is an intimidating place. If you don't know how to use a squat rack, it's one of the most intimidating pieces of equipment in the gym. So there's a reason in our Regent Street store you can go in, book in with one of our pros, they'll teach you how to squat, bench, deadlift, how to stay safe when you're doing compound lifts. Same as Apple, the idea being if we can get more people into the gym, people will adopt Gymshark and when the tie comes in, all ship tries, you know?

42:53I think that's your killer insight. I definitely do. I think it really stems from that, doesn't it? So you've done Regent Street. We have. Where's next? Where else are you going to go? Stratford Westfield is opening in about six weeks now. So that'll be our second store concept. We've just entered into wholesale for the first time as well. So we're in Selfridges now with our sort of upmarket athleisure collection, which is really cool. I have a plan mapped out for three years, city by city, country by country. That's in my back pocket. I can't tell you about it yet. I would love to, but just know.

43:24Yeah, it's coming. Love it. Very, very exciting. Now, talking about Ben and you making the decision on going for Regent Street and just going all in, what's he like to work for? Because, I mean, like, you know, one of the most successful, well, isn't he the youngest billionaire, I think? Youngest self-made billionaire. Youngest self-made billionaire. Yeah, youngest self-made billionaire, which is an incredible achievement. What's he like to work for? Even you saying that at the end, it's really funny because I think he has to remind himself of some of those facts at times. I'm always reminding him of those.

43:55Like I said, when he's wearing the same pair of shoes for like the eighth month in a row and they've got holes in and all that. You wouldn't know it at all. Like the amount of times where we'll be on a train to London, a packed train to London, there's no seats, so we're just standing up. And somebody will look at him and be like, are you Ben Francis? And he's like, yeah. And they're like, well, I kind of didn't expect to see you on the rammed train in economy class night in London. Do you know what I mean? But that's just so Ben, he wouldn't have it any other way. Do you know what I mean? I remember somebody suggested a few years back he should probably get security or something like that.

44:23And he was like, nope, I'm not doing that. Somebody at an event in America that was organised an event in America just took the initiative on themselves and hired a security guard to follow him around. And Ben spent the day being like, stop following me. Oh, really? Because he didn't want it. So he's like, I'd never say this to his face, but he's incredibly humble and great to work with. I think there's no way, to the point earlier, I've never been in a corporate position until this. I wouldn't have lasted this long if it wasn't for the great relationship I have with Ben. Do you know what I mean?

44:51and he is incredibly humble. Challenging at times for sure as well. He knows what he wants and any founder-led business comes with its challenges. But yeah, incredibly fair. Like I said, I kind of feel like he was destined to be successful in one way, shape or form. Do you know what I mean? How do you define his leadership style? Because you don't get to that position without being very clear on what he wants to do and how he wants to do it. I suppose it's quite visionary. He's very clear in his head on what he wants this to be. Do you know what I mean? So then my job, the way I see it, is I'm translating that.

45:18Do you know what I mean? I think one of the reasons me and him I've got along so well together is because I can sort of talk Ben, as it were. Do you know what I mean? People will often come up to me and be like, can you help me get this over the line with him? Do you know what I mean? Because I can understand what he wants and I can figure out how to translate that. And I think a lot of people, like in our product design team, you've got our head of women's wear design, Lois, who's been with us for years. I think she's got that skill as well. I think she can talk Ben. So that's why they work really well together for such a long time.

45:41Do you know what I mean? I think that's a key thing. So very visionary. and then he's extremely autonomous as well so he'll leave you to do whatever it is you need to do as long as the end result is right for the business, right for the brand then yeah, he's great and super open to being challenged as well like the amount of times where I said to him you've got to do it like this and he's like no, I'm not doing that, I completely disagree and I've managed to convince him and then it may have gone the way I said it should go and he's more than willing to fall on his sword and go god yeah, you were so right, I was so wrong about that Why was it in the reverse of that situation?

46:14I think even in those times when he can see that he was born the logic made sense then it seems to work out as well he's often been like could we have done that better? yeah probably but whatever now when he says could we have done that better what he meant was me it was me that made the decision but he'll take it as a we which I think is that's really good it's quite emblematic I love that the best boss I've ever had have had that where even if you fail it's a collective responsibility they're not going to throw you under the bus Yeah, that's really, really powerful. Love to keep talking. Unfortunately, we're running out of time, but I'd love to get your career advice for anyone listening as well because, you know, you've had an amazing trajectory.

46:54What would be the most important thing you've learnt in your career so far? I was speaking to a very well-paid friend the other day, extremely well-paid friend, who was telling me that on Sunday night, he started seeing a therapist recently, and I was like, is everything okay? like anything I can do and all that kind of stuff. He said, it's just Sunday nights, man. He was like, Sunday nights I get depression and anxiety and I can't stand the idea of going to work Monday morning. And in that moment I thought, wow, I'm so, so privileged to do something that I absolutely love. Do you know what I mean?

47:28And I think that people think the thing that they love won't lead them to sort of like their financial success or the job title or whatever else they want. I argue that it definitely can. it's panned out for me but also as you get older you realise that success isn't job title and salary anyway, success is good relationship with your partner, with your kids with health and fitness and stuff like job title and salary and all that kind of stuff, it's just a very small slice of a much bigger pie but when you're young and naive like I was, you think it's just really simple, do you know what I mean so I suppose it's really cliche but do what you love, do you know what I mean, like I'm sure when KSI got into gaming and streaming on YouTube and all that kind of stuff, he didn't think that he could do what he's doing now.

48:14Do you know what I mean? Stands to reason if you love something enough, there will be others out there who love it the same amount as you do. So keep doing it and I think the passion comes through and eventually success will figure itself out. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Just to build on that, actually, the other thing I think I've learned as I got older is just surround yourself with people you want to work with. You know, a bit like do what you love, but do what you love with the people that you love as well. Yeah. Because that's a multiplier and people that are not aligned your values and direction all that kind of thing it just drags on you yeah i mean surround yourself with the kind of the same people i mean similar to you actually i was um i was kind of feeling a bit stressed earlier this week because the amount of events we've got on at the moment is just like insane i was thinking how on earth can i you know i feel like i can't cope and i i kind of checked myself i've got to be really grateful like very few people in the world get to do what i do and have the opportunities to meet the people and go and do the things like just enjoy it you know i I've got to do this, got to do that.

49:07But take the time out to enjoy the journey. When you zoom out like that and look at the 10-year chart versus the one day that you're looking at, you realise how ridiculously previous you are. I know, exactly. Even me versus three months ago, I look at the progress going, oh my God, I can't believe that I'm doing today what I didn't even think three months ago I was going to be doing. But you can lose that, can't you, in all the, what you've got to get done. And now you're in Birmingham, so you've made it. Mate, I have. I know, this is good. You know, I'm loving being in this podcast studio, by the way.

49:34we're going to recreate I think this in London that's going to be the next thing I've really loved this thank you so much massive success to you as well I love what you're doing and there's so much in what you said that I know a lot of people are going to get a lot of ROMs thank you very much for listening or watching Uncensored CMO I hope you enjoyed that if you did please do hit the subscribe button wherever you get your podcast and if you're watching hit subscribe there as well I'd also love to get a review Reviews make a big difference on other people discovering the show so please do leave a review wherever you get your podcasts If you want to contact me you can do I'm over on x at Uncensored CMO or on LinkedIn where I'm under my own name John Evans Thanks for listening and watching I'll see you next time