How Gymshark took on the sportswear giants - Carly Natalizia

0:00Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Uncensored CMO. Now, one of my favourite brands is Gymshark, and regular listeners will know that we had the wonderful Noel Mack, their Chief Brand Officer, on the podcast just a couple of years ago. Now, one question that I get asked over and over again to cover on Uncensored CMO is the commercial side. So not just brand, but how do you activate and how do you deliver the commercial performance of a brand? So in this episode, I'm being joined by their Chief Commercial Officer, Carly, who tells me all about the secret to Gymshark's continued success and commercial growth.

0:32This is an amazing episode. There's lots in it. Carly is great. You'll love it.

0:43Welcome to the show.

0:44Carly Natalizia:Thank you. Thank you for having me. It's great to see you. And this is a lovely addition to my conversation with Noel from a couple of years ago. And I feel like everyone talks about sales and marketing, don't they? yeah and one bit of feedback i always get on the show is john can you talk about commercials a bit more you're always talking about the nice sexy stuff from the brand side we need to know how it's delivered and commercial so i've got the other half of the equation we're doing it now yeah but before we get into gymshock it's an amazing story you've got an amazing role um tell us how you got to where you are today because you had some high profile roles in finance in particular yeah definitely i mean 25 year career at this point but the first 18 years of it was actually spent in financial services for my sins.

1:21Carly Natalizia:I've always been in marketing roles, always in very, mostly in growth focused businesses, a lot of digital roles as well. But yeah, 18 years in financial services. So I spent the first 10 years of my career at a company called MBNA, an American credit card company, since part of Bank of America, amazing place to start my career, amazing learning ground, really high expectations, very, very data led, very commercial business huge growth trajectory over those 10 years so just year year over year growth like you've never seen before I spent five years at Virgin Money which I loved um so if you're going to be in banking being in the Virgin brand is a really fun place to do banking it gives you the freedom to be a little bit more out there with how you go to market versus in other businesses and then I made the jump over into the retail sector after those first 18 years I spent three and a half years at the very group and then I've now been with Gymshark coming up on four years so So yeah, retail sector, hugely different.

2:16Massive shift, but loved every minute of it. That's an amazing trajectory. Looking back, if you were to go back to young Carly and give her one bit of advice, having done all that, what would it be?

2:26Carly Natalizia:I think I would, so the very early me, I would say, chill out a bit. It's all going to be fine. You don't need to kind of rush your way through things. And then I think I would just say, back yourself. Have the confidence. I think I'm much, much more confident now. I think a lot of that just comes with age and experience too. in my 20s I doubted myself so much and I think I probably could have just backed myself a little bit more push myself a little bit harder I don't know that I would do it differently though I think that kind of a little bit of reticence to push myself has made me build my career in a different way which I actually reflect back and think is a good way to do it but taking a little bit of that self-doubt away I think would have helped me.

3:05I'd have been exactly the same as you I just think like take the jump right because also when you're young you've got less commitments it doesn't matter as much if it goes wrong yeah and you've got that kind of energy and you know i'll try anything kind of thing i just think i wish i just taken the bets because often you learn don't you when you make the jump but that's when you learn the most is actually jumping slightly ahead of when you think you should

3:25Carly Natalizia:yeah yeah which is absolutely the opposite of what i've done so i've i've kind of waited till i'm super ready, then probably have been ready for ages and then have made the jump. But actually, I think that's allowed me to then approach it all with huge confidence because I've had this really solid grounding to know I can really do this. This is not a stretch beyond what I'm capable of doing. And so I've been able to deliver with confidence without that horrible self voice, like that nagging thing in the back of your mind, making you question whether or not you're ready. That's real, isn't it? That is real.

3:56And I feel that. It's funny, actually, when you get to a point in your career where you just go oh I do know something you know something it takes a while but suddenly go oh yeah yeah you suddenly kind of talk something else your advice go yeah I do know what I'm talking about you know yeah which is good to discover yeah so what inspired the move from finance to fitness because completely different industries aren't they and different

4:14Carly Natalizia:cultures and so on I mean when you spend 18 years in financial services you know a lot about financial services so I kind of got to the point where I was like oh gosh am I a banker or am I a marketer because I'm only really a marketer if I can go and do this on another sector because otherwise I just know banking really well. And banking is a really interesting industry because you've got nothing to touch. You're creating propositions for customers basically out of thin air. You're trying to convince them to get engaged with something that, let's face it, they don't always necessarily want to engage.

4:43Carly Natalizia:And we don't all kind of like jump out of bed in the morning and think, I want to think about my finances today. And so really what I wanted to do was push myself to go a bit like we just said, prove to myself I can do this and I can do this in a different sector. I was really lucky to get an opportunity at the very group. So the very group is kind of, you know, mostly a retailer, but also partly financial services, because there's a credit offering that underpins that customer proposition. And so I was able to go into a retail part of the business, but in a place where my financial services knowledge was hugely valuable.

5:14Carly Natalizia:So that, again, gave me that boost of the confidence that I would be able to add value straight away whilst learning retail. And I moved into that business in very much a sideways step, I guess back to the point of if I'm going to change businesses I want to go in at the level that I know I can deliver at and add value immediately and I didn't know how long it was going to take me to learn retail and whether that was going to be a big adjustment I think within about four or five weeks I realized other than a ton of different acronyms and a huge pace to retail which I think is very different to financial services actually you know understanding your customer?

5:49Carly Natalizia:How do I reach them? How do I get their attention? It's all the same. You're just thinking about a different product. And this time you've got a product they're excited to get engaged with. So that's really fun. And, you know, was able to quite quickly progress through that business. And so, yeah, that again gave me the boost. I was, you know, suddenly responsible for a creative studio. So we had, you know, models and we were shooting product and like all these things that never existed in financial services. I found that so energising. The pace of retail is like nothing I've ever seen. In financial services, you can get your results over a month, a quarter, a year.

6:25Carly Natalizia:You don't need to worry by day. In retail, you lose a day's trade and that trade is gone. And so the pace of reacting to commercial performance was very, very different. But there's so much data to feed off that I loved that part of it. Yeah. And anyone I talk to in retail, I'm always blown away by how fast it goes you know because i guess i mean my background is fmcg well supposedly fast moving but but you know you might plan something for nine months or 12 months out in terms of innovation or new campaigns in retail things are changing literally every single week it's like what price are we going to be this week what we're going to promote this week what new products we launched or how many products we're launching this week yeah and the pace and the competition in retail is intense yeah you know tracking your market share every single day kind of thing is you You know, it's a real place to cut your teeth, isn't it?

7:10Carly Natalizia:It really is. And you have to react so quickly, right? You put a product live, you think it's going to fly. It doesn't. You've got to react. The reverse happens. You put a product live, it's flying off the shelves. You can't keep it in stock. You have to react. So the reaction speed is the thing that's different. But I'm a naturally fast-paced person. So that just, that works for me and I enjoy it. Amazing. Right. Now, for anyone who doesn't know Gymshark, now I know in the UK everyone will have heard Gymshark, but people listening in the US and other parts of the world may not know about Gymshark.

7:36Just give us a short summary because the story is amazing. I mean, in an ultra-competitive category, Nike and Adidas and hugely powerful brands, you've taken on the giants and been rather successful.

7:48Carly Natalizia:Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it goes back to 2012. So our founder CEO, Ben Francis, back in the day was, he couldn't find the clothes that he wanted to wear for the gym. And so he basically got himself a sewing machine, he learned how to make them and he started making those products for himself. So he was very much, it was born out of, he could see a gap in the market because he knew he didn't have what he needed. So he started just, yeah, diving in and doing it for himself. And he literally built the business that we have today from a garage at home in Birmingham. We're still headquartered in Birmingham today.

8:22Carly Natalizia:And the brand now sells in 230 countries around the world. We've been hugely successful, largely in e-commerce, D2C until much more recently. So, yeah, massively fast-paced growth off the back of those very humble beginnings. It's an incredible achievement. I got the, I mean, when I interviewed, now I got the pleasure of coming around and having a look. It's an amazing place. Obviously, you've got an amazing gym, right? I kind of expected that, but the space is amazing. We have, you know, podcast studios, all sorts of things going on. So anyone who's thinking about a job, it's, yeah, go check it out.

8:56Definitely.

8:56Carly Natalizia:And yeah, our gym is amazing. We've got the lifting club that's there for all of our staff to use. yeah best gym I've ever been in yeah pretty impressive now what I wanted to know what it's like working for Ben right so he is I think he is the UK's youngest billionaire yeah one of the most successful people in the country backed himself being hugely successful and you know built an amazing brand what's it like working for somebody like that yeah well I think I mean the first thing to say is because people always ask me like is he actually in the business so he is he is our CEO he is in the business he's literally in the office every single day I think when you work for a founder, the energy that they bring is just different, right?

9:34Carly Natalizia:Because there's no work-life balance there. It's like work and life for him is all one thing. He lives and breathes the brand. He's always on. His expectations are really high. He wants to do everything tomorrow. He's always buzzing with ideas. And so I think there's just an energy that comes with working with a founder that is very different to working for a CEO of a business in another environment. He is great to work for. He and I click really well because I think at the core of it, we've got really similar values. So, you know, we've had really similar upbringings. We've got the same hard work ethos.

10:10Carly Natalizia:I think we're both very optimistic. We're focused on self-development. So at the core of it, we've got a lot of those natural aligned values. Then how we work is so different. And so it gels really well because we're really opposite. The things he's amazing at, his superpowers are literally the opposite of mine. when we come to a discussion we often start from a very different place and so you know the debates that we're able to have and you know influence each other and educate each other on how we're thinking about things and it just works really really well for us to find that middle ground in the middle you've articulated it really beautifully actually i love the ways that align on values and then differentiate on skills or competencies basically because that makes so much sense right because if you're not aligned on values you're not going to you're not pushing in the same direction and create friction.

10:54But equally, if you employ everyone to do what you can already do, there's no point doing that either. So I think that's really, really, really smart. Yeah, exactly.

11:02Carly Natalizia:And you know, he's got he's there to build 100 year brand, right? He's making decisions for the long term. So I think if you're going to work in a founder environment, you have to believe in the mission. So, you know, we know we're trying to make decisions to build 100 year brand and we're aligned on that. But the way that we think about getting there will be different. And that's where there needs to be tension. And I think I think the worst thing you can have around a founder is lots of yes people. And so I think the ability to bring an opinion to the table, have a debate is really important.

11:30Carly Natalizia:And the brilliant thing about Ben is he's really open to that. So he wants to be challenged. He listens. And because he's so focused on self-development, he's building his picture, he's learning, he's understanding. And then he does, he will change his mind. You know, he does start from a strong viewpoint, as do I, honestly, we both probably start with really strong viewpoints. But he will, you know, listen to the people around him and round out his views and um he does change his mind that's really good how do you deal when you have like literally what happens when you literally have completely opposite point of view on something how do you kind of get through that i think it takes you have to be quite a resilient person and have quite a lot of strength of character i would say so so if we're in that place i might just say i've got a different view let's discuss or unpopular opinion i'm going to chuck it out there and then we just get into the discussion i think the other good thing that we have is there's a good disagree and commit at the end right like we might think different things but 99 of what we're dealing with are not right and wrong questions it's a it's a decision that we're making about a direction that we're going and so sometimes i share my view he doesn't agree we we disagree and then we commit and i move on and i'm i back that idea 100 i love your disagree and commit because often often when teams fall apart because you disagree and you don't commit because you're like well i thought this i thought that and it becomes this big issue between you whereas actually going right we're calling it and we're doing this and i'm all in exactly and i think you can do that when you felt heard right it's easier to commit when it's like okay i've been heard but i get it the rounded decision has gone in a different direction and that's cool so then you have to get on board i love what you're saying about being a founder and what the traits of being a founder because you're right they do think in much longer terms yeah and when you're thinking in terms of years and decades you make entirely different decisions in terms of investing for the future building a team out you know you're not just chasing the next quarter's results i read this amazing book called the founder's mentality and it kind of looked at founder-led organizations between commercial corporate ones and it brought it down to three things it was frontline focus in other words what founders are great at is being with the customer every single day right and it's amazing how like founders will often be you know in well in ben's case in the gym he was the customer right exactly yeah he's in the gym he's talking to these people all the time um the second one was a bias for action and that's what you see in founder organizations i mean i I spent a very short period of time at BrewDog and about three months.

13:48Anyway, but I had James on the show actually last week, which is great. But the, I mean, his question to me was always, how can it happen 10 times quicker? And it's just the stretch of your thinking, that kind of sense of how do we do it faster? And we're going to learn from it and we'll improve it. And, you know, a corporate company will have an 18 month roadmap, you know, and, you know, small businesses will do that in 12 weeks, which is exciting.

14:09Carly Natalizia:Ben definitely has the bias for action. I think as well, when you're dealing with a founder, they've got, there's a risk appetite to do things wrong. So I think sometimes in a corporate environment, things can take ages because they've got to be perfect because failure is not an option. I always say like one of Ben's superpowers is he's really happy for something not to work. And so, you know, going a little bit faster and accepting that some things will work amazingly and will double down, some things won't and will stop. He's got that natural risk appetite and he bounces back from something going wrong faster than anything I've ever seen in my life.

14:40Carly Natalizia:and that's something that I'm really trying to lean into and learn from. That's really powerful actually. Because that doesn't come naturally to me. Yeah, I know what you mean. Yeah, because we are, yeah, corporate life is really about risk mitigation, isn't it? Rather than risk opportunity. Yes. And that's the different kind of mindset. I like the way you just said that is how you bounce back from a failure says everything, doesn't it? Because you're going to learn from it, improve it, go again, or you're going to use it to kind of not do the right thing, which is the danger, isn't it? Yeah, exactly.

15:07Carly Natalizia:That's really fascinating. Now, we've got some breaking news, haven't we, on the show? You've just got a new role. I do. So tell us about the new role. So I'm just transitioning out of chief digital officer into chief commercial officer. So essentially what the chief digital officer role was, was our end-to-end digital customer experience. So all of our off-site paid marketing, things like CRM and our loyalty program and how we manage our customer base, and then all through our e-commerce experience. Essentially, what the commercial officer role does is roles in our other channels of business alongside that.

15:38Carly Natalizia:So after having many successful years as an e-commerce only business, we're now venturing into omnichannel. So we've got retail stores and we've also got some wholesale and franchise partnerships. So really thinking about any way that a customer can interact with Gymshark product and purchase, whether that's through our website or through one of our physical environments. All of that now will be in one place. So we're able to really see things as the customer does. And how do you keep yourself close to the customer as well? Because, I mean, customer obsession is such an important part of the role, isn't it?

16:08Carly Natalizia:Yeah. And I think, well, I mean, as a brand of Gymshark, we've got so many people we can talk to at different times, right? So we can physically get people together. So through our community events. So we do big lift events, for example, where thousands of our community are there. And you can literally stand in the middle of your customer and be completely surrounded by them. You can see how they're behaving with each other. You can see what they're wearing. You can see what they're queuing for, what they're excited by. And we've got an insiders program where our customers are very active in giving us feedback about different things that we put out to them.

16:40Carly Natalizia:We'll have user trials on products that we're planning to launch. And so, yeah, we consume customer feedback from every direction. I also think a lot of us as a business just live and breathe it. So, you know, we're all in the gym, people are lifting. And so you understand it a little bit through the own lens of your fitness experience as well. That's true. So you're unusual in that you can be the customer at your place of work because you've got a whole big gym and you've got classes going on there as well. So you get to sort of like, you know, the feedback is instant, really. And it can be dangerous.

17:10You go upstairs and you can just implement it.

17:11Carly Natalizia:Yeah, it can be dangerous, though, because then you start to think, well, a straw poll of one, I know what the customer is. Everyone thinks like me. So it's really, it's important to make sure we're, you know, our customer, our muse, that we're listening to them all of the time as well. Now, one of the challenges I often find when talking to kind of CMOs and senior leaders like you is the difference between being a functional expert on a thing like I'm the direct consumer expert, I manage digital, through to leading an organization and a large team, you've got a couple hundred people probably under you kind of working for you.

17:39What are the kind of tips to how to be an effective leader in the C-suite and lead others?

17:44Carly Natalizia:I mean, I think within the C-suite, I think in a role like I've got, the important thing is peer relationships out the gate, right? Because if you've got a marketing budget and you haven't got a strong relationship with your CFO, then that's not going to be a good recipe. If you're in any kind of customer facing role and you haven't got that good relationship and engagement with your CTO so that you understand how all of the technology is working. So I think you've got to be quite literate in all the different areas so that you can engage through peers. I think in terms of leading a team, I mean, I just try to keep communication channels high, as much repetition as possible of what the priorities are.

18:21Carly Natalizia:We have our OKRs that we execute. And so that filters down through the team. And I just try and stay as connected as I can on a personal level with people. It gets harder and harder because when people ask for time, my bias is to say, yes, let's have time. And obviously, as the team gets bigger, that gets harder. And so for me, it's about really making sure that my leadership and I are really aligned so that I know that they can represent that with the teams as well. Well, talking about peer relationships, of course, working with Noel, you know, your dynamic duo combination. I mean, the reason to ask you about this is I think in my experience and in most organisation, the friction you get between the kind of sales and marketing function is probably the biggest fault line in most organisations.

19:05But, you know, one thinking long term, one thinking short term, you know, one valuing price, one valuing equity, you know, it's where a lot of tension can come out. So how do you and Noel work together for the benefit of the business?

19:16Carly Natalizia:It's an interesting one, because on paper, You've basically got two marketing professionals in the same executive team, which isn't how most people would draw out an org, right? You wouldn't necessarily start there. It works amazingly well for us. So I think, firstly, Noel and I have just got a great relationship. So I think just straight out the gate, we invested in our personal relationship and we built trust with each other. So there's huge respect there. There's a really nice Venn diagram as to how we work together. So his superpowers and his amazing skills are literally the opposite of mine.