Gibraltar Trading Company
In this episode, we talk to PJ, a former Royal Marines Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
We discuss the founding the company on Etsy during the pandemic, finding massive growth through Instagram content, the strength of a community, how studying your idol companies leads to new growth ideas and how to define your USP.
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00:00:01 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Hi, I'm Chris, founder, senior brand designer and growth marketing strategist at House of hiatus brand Growth Studio, who wants to document innovative and disruptive ideas from successful small to medium sized enterprises to help startups to get strong market position as quickly as possible. In this episode, we talk to PJ performer Lyman Commando.
00:00:20 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Hostile environments instructor anti poaching, conservationist, firefighter and family of the Gibraltar Trading Company who discussed the family of the company and Etsy during the pandemic and the massive growth for Instagram content. The strength of the community of studying of idle companies, leasing new growth ideas and how to define a USP.
00:00:52 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Hey, PJ. Hey, it's less so funny to meet you. I've been following Gibraltar Trading Company for ages now. How's it going running this epic thing?
00:00:59 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Yeah. Nice to meet you, mate. Thanks for having me on. Yeah, it's been a whirlwind, mate, to be honest. In an absolute whirlwind. When we first started back in 2020, it was more of a an idea to keep myself busy.
00:01:12 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Which I'm sure will delve into a little bit more, but it's now developed into you know what it is today, which is its own own beast, own community, own entity and it just sort of keeps growing and ***********. And it's taught me a hell of a lot of lessons. And now it's my sort of full time role along with some other team members. So yeah.
00:01:13
Yeah.
00:01:31 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
It's it's crazy. As I say, it's gone, never intended to be what it is and who knows what it will become.
00:01:32
30.
00:01:37
But.
00:01:38 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Yeah, it's been a. It's been a rollercoaster.
00:01:40 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah, very epic. He doesn't want to kind of. My first question is, I was gonna ask kind of a bit more about the business. Like you said, it started in 2020, but kind of where did the idea come from? Like what was it, what was that come back that light bulb moment that sparked you to say, like, I wanna start something, but I don't know what that kind of looks like and.
00:02:00
Yeah, it's a.
00:02:01 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Good question that I.
00:02:01 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Mean.
00:02:02 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
The the thing with GTC, you know what to say to anyone that asks is it. As as I said, sort of couple of minutes ago, is that it was never intended to be what it is and who knows where it's gonna be in the future. So GTC the the sort of idea of it started. I had an injury from the court actually.
00:02:14
Yeah.
00:02:21 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
That I just put off, put off, put, put off and I was in the fire service at.
00:02:21
Mm-hmm.
00:02:24 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Time and it was getting to a point where I need his getting up. So I was getting an operation and it meant because of the the sort of situation I was going to be out almost bed bed bound for 6:00 or so months and then I'll be home from them. So essentially it sort of trickled down from the misses and the misses was like that. You need to find something to keep your mind busy.
00:02:39 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Ohh well.
00:02:46 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Most of my hobbies or all of my hobbies are physical.
00:02:50 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
And fitness related, if you like combat fitness related, so it was.
00:02:53 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Always like like.
00:02:55 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Find something to do that isn't practical. Otherwise you're gonna do.
00:03:03 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah. And I've.
00:03:04 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
I've always wanted to create something for myself, especially since I left the core belonging to something or having something that you can believe in that you can work towards, that you can strive that you can sort of be part of something bigger than yourself and then.
00:03:10
Yes.
00:03:18 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Creating that thing.
00:03:19
Yeah, yeah.
00:03:20 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
It was always a bit of a drive for me, so essentially it started with me just sort of playing around with a few designs, very poorly done and and a few drawings and things like that.
00:03:30 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
And and I was like, well, I like stickers. I put stickers on my water bowls from other companies and things like that. So I started doing that. And and that's really where it came from. It was from.
00:03:36 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah, yeah.
00:03:42 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Excuse me. It came from sort of just being like knowing I was going to be bored playing with.
00:03:47 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Some designs.
00:03:49 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Putting them together and one of the first ones was the the classic logo with the circle and the fire axe and the commander.
00:03:55 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Dagger crossed.
00:03:56
Yeah.
00:03:57 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
And I built.
00:03:57 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
That with the same sort of thought process as the.
00:04:01 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
The sort of globe and bust of the globe Laurel itself, where every element means something for a reason.
00:04:05
Yeah.
00:04:07 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Built that, made some stickers sold on Etsy and then, as they say, the rest is history. It was demand led. Since then, people requesting staff, people talking about staff, me having an idea, asking the growing community whether they wanted to do it and and it's sort of built from there to be honest.
00:04:28 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Epic man I I can't believe, actually. Do you know when you said you were 2020, you had an injury? I was. It's it's all good. I was recovering from a mountain accident at the time. Where I'd I'd I'd been climbing the Matterhorn in September 20, 2019, fell off. It got really backed off and went into hospital for three months and had to had to have half my leg amputated.
00:04:48 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Oh, no, no.
00:04:48 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
You know.
00:04:49
But.
00:04:50 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
I know, yes, but you can actually. You can get them back with an external kind of frame which you see a lot of blokes actually in the core, you know, kind of supporting that one has been blown up. So I have one of those for for 10 months in 2020. And again I've, I've been, I've been working on this company. You know, it's kind of like a side hustle for the previous kind of like three or four years. And then I was like right, I guess.
00:05:10 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Now you know obviously with the pandemic as well as like right, it's now free time.
00:05:14
Yeah. So yeah, exactly, yeah.
00:05:17 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
So but I I can't believe actually. You know, you're doing this the same thing as me in in 2020, where it's like, right, I've got, I want to create something new and lasting and.
00:05:25 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
You know, put my put my own stamp, my own personality, into cause. That's that's kind of where where I was as well. You know, I want to put personality into something which would otherwise quite a kind of bland. And I I'm with you with on the stickers thing. You know I used to ride mountain bikes and you know skateboard a bit back in back in the teenage years. And so I was like I just I like the idea of like.
00:05:45 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Flickering everything up, you know, like fridges, water bottles. You know, the the the works, laptops and so.
00:05:50 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Exactly that. And it. Yeah, that's the the parallel is quite interesting because it's.
00:05:55 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
It's the same sort of mindset and adventure mindset and skateboarder, BMX in type attitude that I think a lot of boot necks grew up with. You know, we were all sort of all any military, really, not just boot next, you know. And then one thing that they have that sort of outdoor active lifestyle.
00:06:15 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Use your a little bit of an alternative, didn't quite fit the normal mould in the in the growing up, you know skateboarding or watching motocross and things.
00:06:21
Yeah.
00:06:26 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
That.
00:06:27 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Riding motorbikes wasn't the norm, but it was where a lot of people sort of lent into that end up as boat next or in in the forces in general, and and then I think something that a lot of people in the forces lack is that personal.
00:06:28
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:06:43 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Baby, if you like, you know, some think that they create. There's not a lot of individuality for obvious reasons, allowed in the forces and the lack of that. I think when people leave, they sort of have something that is a link to previous service or what's created, who they are to.
00:06:45
Yeah, yeah.
00:06:52
Yeah.
00:07:01 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Day, but it's something that they've never had before, which is something personal, something they can create, something that's been built around their own hard work. And I think a lot of people go into veteran owned businesses or they call them veteran owned businesses, but they go into that sort of self-employed route.
00:07:21 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Or creating their own brand or ethos or designs or something when they leave the forces, because it's one big thing that you're missing. The forces, which is that individuality and that own thing for yourself.
00:07:33 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah.
00:07:34 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
100% yeah, like you're touching some some really important concepts there like identity and you know, tribe and all those, all those sorts of things which actually I, I I hear a lot more doing these podcasts when I have better owned businesses you hear like have a lot where you've got people who who have their personality beforehand.
00:07:54 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
You know, like maybe there skateboard or or or freestyle motocross or something like that. Beforehand they wanted to take the military aspects of what they they enjoyed and their the previous stuff they enjoyed and actually kind of like merge it together into this new new thing afterwards, which is is is it's inspiring. And I I reckon it's super cool because it's it's really like you say it's the non traditional.
00:08:15 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Vote When you leave the military. No, you don't.
00:08:17 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
You know, you kind of go into, you know, security risk management, which is is cool if if you want to do that. But I like, I really, I really feel like a a connection to those who want to go out and be like, right. I don't know what this is gonna look like or where it's gonna be like five years time, but I'm gonna get started and try something now because that's.
00:08:34 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
That's that's when.
00:08:35 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
You know, we're really talking to people who've got.
00:08:38 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
You know something? Something like a fire inside of them to kind of like bring into the world in.
00:08:43 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Some shape or?
00:08:43 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Form. So yeah, that's really like that.
00:08:45 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
100% mate it it's a strange one and I think especially boot deck or someone that may have done a course that isn't the normal entry level to a specific job. Usually they come out with a mindset of like they're willing to take risks. They wanna push themselves and they don't want to do the norm. This this always can be misconstrued.
00:08:48
Next.
00:09:06 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Like I do think you know. Unless.
00:09:09 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
It's exactly what that individual wants to do. The idea of, like, you know, boot next, leaving the core.
00:09:16 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Ending up on a a building site somewhere doing a job they hate. You know it is a waste of human potential. Now, don't get me wrong, I've got mates that left the core and they became electricians and things like that and they love it. They love what they're doing. They wouldn't change the world. And and that's not me speaking down on them and saying they shouldn't do that if that makes you happy. And that's what you want to do and it ticks.
00:09:24
Yeah.
00:09:31
Yeah, yeah.
00:09:37 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Your boxing.
00:09:38 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Right. But if you're not enjoying what you do, you're not testing yourself. You're not.
00:09:43 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Improving day-to-day and you're not actually enjoying your journey then it's like, well, that's when it is a bit of a waste of human potential because you're you're, you know, you're your potential or your ability outweighs your current situation if that makes sense. So great mates love to see people of all walks of life that are good people testing themselves, doing things that are outside.
00:09:50 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah.
00:09:58 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
And I've said here.
00:10:04 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
That norm and putting themselves out of their comfort zone and and just trying to do things that are not the the usual one in the real life sort of.
00:10:12 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Pages.
00:10:13 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
100% yeah, yeah. I mean I I could hear him talk to you right now. Like when?
00:10:18 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
I when I saw GTC.
00:10:19 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
I was like this looks like another disruptive brand, you know and and disruptive brand that is kind of almost my my kind of an entity. You know when I you know kind of like I like in the core when it said you'll be the first to understand the.
00:10:30 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
1st to ADAPT and the first to overcome.
00:10:32 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Like that? Kinda really spoke to me, you know? So I was like this. I know where. What parliament. You need to be and and and and kind of I could see.
00:10:39 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
That's come through yours, but it was gonna get into one of the next question is then do you know how people kind of like find and engage with GTC? Is it is it like maybe for like 1 channel like Instagram or do they hear hear about you for word of mouth, do they do they see your your you know your your merchandise out in the street and then kind of follow you from that you know.
00:10:58 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Yeah, I think it's something that early days of GTC, it was very difficult to track and know and and it was a lot of guesswork. But you know, we're four years in now and I think I've started to get a good grip of how we get traffic to our website and people join the brand.
00:11:14 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
And the majority is of social media and our biggest platform is Instagram and and that sort of grows and grows. But there is a growing.
00:11:18
Yeah.
00:11:21
Yeah.
00:11:26 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
There, there's a growing amount of people that find us now through word of mouth effectively or seeing the products and the brands out there. Usually they then come to us via Instagram anyway, but it's all back in the day or or a couple of years ago up until this point or up until about a year ago, it was all Instagram really. And we've diversified.
00:11:36
Yeah.
00:11:48 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
We've now got mailing lists, we've got Tik toks, we've got Twitters.
00:11:52 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
We've got presents on everything but very, very low compared to the traffic that we get from Instagram, we get a fair bit from Facebook as well, but mainly Instagram. But as I say now, we've sort of, we're starting to see a lot of people say ohh, I saw one of your flags in the company bar.
00:11:55
Yeah.
00:12:01
Here.
00:12:12 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
At X camp or we saw one of the flags up in a fire station gym in X unit at X department, you know or I saw your silkies in the gym or, you know, someone was at BJJ wearing one of your rash guards.
00:12:14
Yeah.
00:12:30
You there?
00:12:31 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
I saw the cap. Someone wearing the cap down the main drag on this camp that camp, so it's all now we're starting to see a lot of that. But in the early days or at least for the first three years, we we never heard of anyone wearing our brand outside and the very few occasions when it was like a mate of a mate or a mate would contact me and say, oh, I saw.
00:12:50 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
The T-shirts in the gym. It was like, incredible, blew my mind and it's still massively humbling now and amazing to see now, but it's a bit more like.
00:12:54 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah, yeah.
00:12:59 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
It's new people coming in and saying ohh I saw my mate with your silkies just wondering whether you you know can suggest this or got any advice about the site. So send me your Instagram but now there's a growing sort of word of mouth if you like or or view of I. However you want to put it.
00:13:19 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah, yeah. Essentially, you mentioned TikTok because I know there's there's some brands we've we've got, like we've experimented with our tails of.
00:13:27 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Code channel through through TikTok but it it can take a while to find the right the right voice you know of how you you know I'm I'm not very good dance. I'm pretty rubbish dancer if I'm you know brutally honest. You know I could be the be like 2 step and that's about it like how how are you guys cracking tick tock.
00:13:42 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
We're not. We're not. It's the. It's the. Yeah, it's the the the end of it. Like we're we're trying. We are trying most of our content that we put on. TikTok is it's been a recent element for us that we're really trying to focus on and put some time and effort into.
00:13:59 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
But most of it is based around the joking meme reels and and we put the same ones across Instagram and TikTok and it's just sort.
00:14:04
Yeah, yeah.
00:14:07 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Of.
00:14:08 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Jokey laughy, just that kind of stuff. You know, we're not a brand that's going to be doing the TikTok trends or going up and doing reaction videos or, you know, talking to people on the street.
00:14:13
Yeah.
00:14:20 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
And telling us, you know, what's what's your favourite move in the bedroom? You know, it's like.
00:14:26 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
That's the value. Obviously the tour guide was going viral at the moment and having bit that would be lovely. It's not who we are, it's not what we.
00:14:34 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Know for so.
00:14:35 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Our reach on TikTok is is very low and we're just trying to grow it and we're trying to figure out what we can.
00:14:42 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Push out on.
00:14:43 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
There. But you know some of them we get.
00:14:46 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
The the thing good thing.
00:14:47 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
About TikTok is your viewership over your followers is just ridiculous. You know, we've got handful of followers on there, not many at all.
00:14:53 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah.
00:14:57 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
But we still get hundreds of views on some of our tops if they're called tops. I don't know. So it's like it's overall, it's not great coverage, but when you look at percentages wise, you're looking at 3-4 hundred percent of your followership are seeing some of your content, other ones we're getting one or two views and it's like.
00:15:03 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
00:15:17 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
OK, that's not that's not worked.
00:15:17 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah.
00:15:18 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
But you know it it's it's a platform that we're not totally comfortable with. We wouldn't be on it 100%, but it's sort of like.
00:15:28 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Any social media platform has its challenges. Has its annoyances. Some are better than others. Some suit different brands or different audiences. Better at the end of the day, they're free. They're free platforms and they're not utilising every available means to get your message, your brand, your.
00:15:32
Yeah.
00:15:47 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Products into people's faces. Then it's sort of like, well, it's free. Why are you not at least trying?
00:15:53 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
You know, it would have been one of those things that before I was full time on this, it was just back burner didn't bother. It was sort of like we'll get to it when we can get to it now full time I make that time find those little bits of time and say look, let's try it. So it's not great, but we're learning and we're trying to develop.
00:16:10 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah.
00:16:13 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah, no, it it it's. It's interesting because I've spoken to a few people about this and they say it's like catching the wave as in like, you can't. You can't be, you know, be late on to a trend of, you know, on some on TikTok. But what what you can do is you can try other different things, see what resonates. And then that also pushes traffic back to the website as well, which they they then see spikes.
00:16:33 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
The traffic going back to the website which then might convert to sales might convert obviously to people joining the mailing list, so there there is kind of like a net positive effect to it in the long run. It's just it's so sometimes you don't see the benefits.
00:16:45 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Now for for nine months or weeks from the effort you put into Tiktok early on. So it's good to hear that from somebody else actually, because it's it's again we, we kind of like well. But she was about it after YouTube and but then obviously trying to sell out on YouTube now is is super difficult with you know some of the the ultra influencers there.
00:17:06 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
So yeah.
00:17:07 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yes, like a work in progress, isn't it? I guess. How, how, how has your brand had to had to adapt to kind of like standing out in other marketplaces because obviously you you you kind of experience the scene with an Instagram and then obviously you've tried a few different things, but have you have you found kind of other ways which you can actually stand out better you know like through?
00:17:09 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Yeah, definitely.
00:17:27 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
I think you mentioned about podcasts doing SEO the the website and stuff.
00:17:33 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Yeah, I think.
00:17:35 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
It's really difficult because standing out is is very difficult in any marketplace and any sort of any sort of genre field, wherever you would call it.
00:17:45 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
And.
00:17:46 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
And and whether we stand out or not, compared to our quote unquote competitors that I wouldn't be able to tell you how the whole brand is is massively customer focused like.
00:17:54
Yes.
00:17:58 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
We probably should.
00:17:59 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Maybe observe and take more attention to competitors. You know how they, you know, it's it's approach, marketing approaches where it's like, you know where you compare to focused. Are you customer approach, focus, all that rubbish you know?
00:18:04 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah.
00:18:14 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Essentially, we probably don't take as much notice of competitors as we should be. We sort of are aware we try and keep on track of trends and what they're doing and making sure we're not vastly overpricing, underpricing, not touching different areas, but in terms of being comparative in terms of.
00:18:20
Yeah.
00:18:33 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Whether we're standing out, whether we're not, it's so difficult to say because we we don't really focus on.
00:18:40 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
What some other brand are doing in terms of right, where are they? What are they doing, what we doing differently? Are we more aware than they are or are people more aware of us than them?
00:18:52 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
I would say.
00:18:53 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
We focused quite a lot on building that customer reputation and that return isness is very, very important to us.
00:19:01 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Again, our marketing director that works with us.
00:19:02
Yeah.
00:19:05 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
She is very annoyed, a lot of the time because our percentage of our sort of new customers versus our existing sort of customer base returning is just it's like you know at some points we're talking 10% to 90% in terms of new business and that's because of what we've done in the past.
00:19:21
Yeah.
00:19:25 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
But adapting and justice, trying to touch into all available means you know, if it's a tick tock we're trying to do that. We're we're trying to do a lot of real world real world marketing in terms of we support a lot of charities and a lot of charity events. So that's how we like to hit the real world is not.
00:19:42 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Very simple.
00:19:45 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Necessarily shouting from the top of our lungs on all of our platforms, but.
00:19:49 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
It's just being there.
00:19:50 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Sending T-shirts, sending kit for individuals to perform charity events, supporting the charity event by sending our our banners and donating money and.
00:19:58
Yeah.
00:20:02 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
That that's how we sort of try to stand out at least a little bit, whether it works or not, I don't know. But I mean in summary to stand out, we're not sure if we are, but what we do is we do as much as physically possible. So we cover all social media channels that we think we can have a voice on no matter how small the reach is, it's about if it brings one person in and it costs you nothing to do, it's worth doing.
00:20:21
Yeah.
00:20:25 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
We start to look at Google, Google ads and things like that. SEO is always a struggle for us, but yes, we we sort of try to adhere to SEO as best we can. Paid advertising is always the biggest one, especially on a meta platform. If they're not paying on meta, you're not being shown to anyone unless you're twerking in the bikini.
00:20:39
Yeah.
00:20:46 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Yeah. And the real wash, the real world stuff or just trying to get stuff in into people's hands in punk peoples faces one thing that is always underestimated is the subverse marketing. If you like the free gifts.
00:21:00 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
The the best example of this is Jim Shark. You know Jim Shark went to when they started, they went to all these Expos and they gave out free stuff. Now a lot of brands, especially fitness brands, give out free stuff. They give out the T-shirts, give out the caps at these Expos. No one was doing it before. Gym shark turned up. They took 10s of thousands of pounds worth of losses.
00:21:04
Yeah, yeah.
00:21:20 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Now there are, you know, start trading on the Stock Exchange and a billion plus.
00:21:24 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Company.
00:21:25 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah.
00:21:27 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
They they just got their name out there and it's sort of like we're kind of trying to do an element of that by, you know, when people order from us, if they order to a military camp, they get not BFPO addresses because we can't ship to them unfortunately. But if they order to a military camp, they get a free flag. It's not something we advertise, but it's sort of subtle. And as long as the flags are in.
00:21:43 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Venice, yeah.
00:21:46
Yeah.
00:21:46 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Stock. We send them every time.
00:21:48 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
In the hope that Grots are filling up, bars are filling up. Gyms are filling up with our brand, and people usually get either a wristband or a sticker as well, or both. So it's sort of like we're just trying to give these three things that.
00:22:04 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Everyone loves a freebie. Everyone loves to kiss it, but also the amount of people. Now that we see with people wearing our wristbands or stickers on on bottles, it just just one thing that maybe be a little bit different. That's gets us seen over some of the competitors possibly.
00:22:07
Right.
00:22:20 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah, it's interesting. You mentioned Jim Shock there because that's that's an example. We use them as a as a stand out example for like when we talk to kind of a companies about kind of like their their organic mark.
00:22:31 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Thing because as Jim Sharp, we're entering an industry that's dominated by the big players. I can like and added us and you know the all the other big sportswear companies and I like the way that like gym shark kind of came in and almost stole their lunches in the in a way of like they they really utilised.
00:22:45 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Influence and marketing before.
00:22:47 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
It was really people really understanding it and I think the example like Ross actually, you know.
00:22:51 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Before he did the the round, the round Britain swim.
00:22:55 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
He was he was very early influencer for for Jim Shark and I think it was. It was really incredible strategic decision making like that when they saw this opportunity to say we can get our reach.
00:23:05 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Out there under the Moss.
00:23:07 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
These these big brands, these these big brands are playing it too safe. They're not really engaging on social media. So they have like a like a like a.
00:23:14 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Your head start before Mike can address, you know, and I was like another billion dollar company. I mean that that's that should that should be an example to kind of everyone for the power of content marketing because it's you know if a company can come under the maze of some of the.
00:23:15 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Or, yeah, at least, yeah.
00:23:28 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Biggest biggest companies in the world and steal their lunches like that. I'm like, you know, that's got to serve as an an example for for some people, so yeah.
00:23:35 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
I'm really glad you brought up to him.
00:23:38 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Jim Sharko was.
00:23:39 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
A a great example. You know, Ben, the guy that runs it is, is whether he realises it or not. He's got a level of genius that is hard to tap into and it's sort of.
00:23:49 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
The When they sort of started, yes, there there is a certain amount like you were saying about trends. There is a certain amount of getting at the right time start at the right time and a lot of everything else was follow you know like the YouTube big YouTube as you're talking about now. They started at the right time doing the right thing. Now they're massive. You try and tap into YouTube, now you're struggling.
00:23:58
Yeah.
00:24:04 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah.
00:24:07 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yes.
00:24:09 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
TikTok at the beginning, if you got in at that when it was just starting, now you're massive on TikTok, they're laughing you know, same with stocks and shares. You know if you buy in at the right time, sell at the right time. Crypto Bitcoin most things are a lot of things are based around if you get in at the right time.
00:24:09 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah.
00:24:26 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Then a lot of that's done.
00:24:27 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
For you and but.
00:24:28 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
You've gotta have the bravery to do. You've gotta have the idea to do. You've got to see what's coming or the possibility of what's coming, and that's something he did really well. He does a bunch of things really well with Jim Shark, but that was one of them and he's a great example to go back to and keep an eye on and be like, OK, because.
00:24:32 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
I'm Gibson.
00:24:45 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Because, you know, it is essentially, yes. There's a portion of well, he just did that cause it was at the right time. But also it's an example that there's always a possibility. One of the things in the early days of GTC that a lot of people said to me, especially from the other military world, was why are you trying to do that? Like the market is swamped.
00:24:56 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah, yeah.
00:25:05 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
You know there's every name under the sun trying to do veteran owned businesses.
00:25:11 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
You know, and that was in 2020 when in the UK there wasn't actually that many veteran owned businesses we were. We weren't the first, definitely not. We always pay homage to the OG's of like, hmm, GSG contact coffee fight or parish. You know there there's quite a few that we quite humbly say no there are.
00:25:12
Yeah.
00:25:31 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Thought before us and we took some lessons from them and we.
00:25:34 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Especially people that's in it's Guild and contact. Coffee and HR 4K. You know, without them breaking into the industry and making a veteran owned industry within the UK, GTC wouldn't be here today. But on the same side, that market was effectively swant as what of a lot of people said, but we're still here four years later and it's a full time job and it it pays.
00:25:35
Yes.
00:25:52
Yeah.
00:25:55 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
With at least the contribution of a wage to a bunch of people that are working for GTC and creating things within GTC so.
00:26:05 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
And it's the same with with the same on a massively smaller scale than you know, Ben with Jim Shock, he was breaking into a market that was dominated by Nike, Adidas, you know, a six people that were like buying and supporting stadiums they were sponsoring.
00:26:17
Yeah.
00:26:24 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah, yeah.
00:26:26 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
And he went, I'm gonna make fitness boy, and everyone would have gone your high, mate. All everyone did say don't do that. Ridiculous. Now look at him. You know, so.
00:26:32
Yeah.
00:26:35 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
I think that's always a lesson for people, you know, listening that, yes, a market may look swamped, but if you do something different in a different way, it's not always gonna work. But it may work. And if you do it right, getting at the right time, do it in the right way. There is a space. So never get put off by looking at something and say well.
00:26:57 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
That market swamp, there's no more fresh ideas. There's no way no one can ever do that differently. I'm not gonna bother with that idea. Look into it. Take the risk. See what you can do. Mitigate your risk best as possible and invest in a way that's going to protect yourself and your individuality, but also take a bit of a risk. See if it can make it work.
00:27:17 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Scale it up and give it a go.
00:27:21 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah, 100%. I love. I love you both there about the importance of like USP because that's that's you know something really talking to brands about. It's funny your your, your unique sales proposition, your brand voice as such and and and again. But you're saying as well is is not being afraid.
00:27:38 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
To to you.
00:27:39 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Know get out there in deep water.
00:27:40 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
And try and find those waves because there are waves out there. It's it's a strong market means it's a successful market. So there's always space for you know, new disruptors to come in and say, right, well, nobody's owned.
00:27:52 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
You know this particular space or that space yet so whilst whilst the big Titans of industry can, you know, look like they own all the all the market share, it's not, it's not always the case it's it's the same with us when we when we started like back in 2016 was you know people said well you know where you went into loans we're into branding or you into websites and you know we're like well because because there's.
00:28:12 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
There's a better, easier, you know, more affordable way of doing these things. But the big the big industries are big creative agencies in in London, you know, are not looking for this stuff, they're just, you know, they're personally expensive office costs to their to consumers, which isn't the startups or the scale ups or the, you know, the companies that are really investing in in R&D to make their company.
00:28:31 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Is, you know, for more far more innovative. So yeah, you know, we we found that space and like right it does exist. You know we should try and get it rolled out to other people as well.
00:28:40 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Because it's not.
00:28:41 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
You know, when you leave the military, it can be it can be quite intimidating where you say, right. I wanna start a business but this the the market space that I know seems to be owned by these big companies.
00:28:51 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
But a lot of time you you see a lot of big companies don't do very well in customer service. They have like real poor reputation when it comes to.
00:28:59 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
You know, looking after their their their staff or something like that. There's those. Those gaps can always be a a unique service proposition that you can get in there and do a bit better. So yeah, mate, I've got it. It's brilliant to hear that from somebody else.
00:29:12 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
For once, because I.
00:29:13 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Was a little bit mad and I was like, you know, you know, get into these difficult spaces where you know it's a good business.
00:29:18 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Yeah, 100% mate. And you know, I I don't disagree with anything saying I think you're, you know, we're saying the same points and it's it's a difficult one because every market is want you know and as you say about, you know, small businesses, startups, you know with the, with the birth of technology and.
00:29:29 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah, yeah.
00:29:34 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
You know, companies like Shopify, Companies like GoDaddy, Squarespace building a website, creating an online e-commerce shop has never been easier. And what that means is is name something I can tell I can give you 5 small businesses that are trying to break into that space or running that space. And I can also probably tell you.
00:29:53 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Five massive companies that are dominating that space as well. There's very few things that will go. No idea, mate. You know, and that I think that's most people. That's not because I've looked at it. That's not cause I've researched it, it's.
00:30:02 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah.
00:30:05 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Just things getting into your your brain from how easy it is now, which means it's more competitive but also means the barrier to entry is lower. So why not hey?
00:30:16 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
100% yeah, yeah, it it doesn't go on to the next question. So. So the last few years have seen like a huge amount of turmoil and change with obviously everything which we've we've previously spoken about like how, how is this changing business landscape kind of push your company to.
00:30:31 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Expand with some new ideas.
00:30:33 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
New ways of doing things, because obviously it's it's been, you know, OK list list all things that happened with AI and Brexit and pandemic and stuff.
00:30:41 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Yeah. Yeah. I think that as you say that the times at the moment are mental and we are.
00:30:47 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Weirdly, I think we're not alone in this.
00:30:50 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Sense as well, but.
00:30:52 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
A lot of.
00:30:55 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
I don't have to say it really, so a lot of businesses seem to be going back to.
00:31:00 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Old school type media, so or old tool, old school type advertising as well. And what I mean by this is I've I've follow quite a few marketing people influencers in different spaces on different social medias and things like that.
00:31:12
Yeah.
00:31:16 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
And what I've noticed is a lot of people are going back towards.
00:31:22 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Real world advertising as well, but there's like, yeah, like print media, like little gimmicks, like billboards like vehicles and branding vehicles, you know, black rifle coffee companies are a perfect example of this as well. One of the things they did before they listed on New York Stock Exchange.
00:31:25 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah, my print media.
00:31:29
Hmm.
00:31:43 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Where in America was they?
00:31:45 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
They bought the trucks, so they bought the trucks for their distribution of their coffee. So they bought the trucks and they bought the advertising on the side of the trucks. Some of the trucks they didn't buy.
00:31:53
Hmm.
00:31:58 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
They just bought the advertising.
00:32:00 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
And that's a very old school thing to do, which is put your brand in on a truck. Why while it's delivering the coffee and they started doing it, there's a lot of other brands that's starting to do.
00:32:05
Yeah, yeah.
00:32:11 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
That in person.
00:32:14 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
What would people see as old school marketing? So that's something that we've noticed and that we are doing.
00:32:16 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Here.
00:32:20 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Very, very small scale of is a lot more real world.
00:32:24 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Marketing and trying to impact the real world, it is really difficult because eyes on.
00:32:31 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Eyes on that advert, comparatively, money wise, it's a lot more expensive to do that real world stuff, you know, to put billboard up that thousands of people might see every day costs thousands of pounds a week, a month, depending on where it is.
00:32:39 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah.
00:32:48
Share.
00:32:49 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
To do a TikTok that thousands of people might see or real that thousands of people might see, you know, one of our reels has got over 17K or a couple of them have got 17,000 views to get in front of that many people that probably are in your market space in the real world would cost you a lot of money. So that's something that we have seen a lot of people doing and that some of what we're trying to do is.
00:32:59
Yeah.
00:33:05 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Hundreds of, yeah.
00:33:10 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Almost start bringing a lot of the old world advertising the real world advertising back into it. I think a lot of people, especially from the veteran owned space.
00:33:21 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
And veterans of stuff are.
00:33:24 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Leaning away from social media in terms of most people still have a presence, but what they're doing is they're limiting their time on social media. They're limiting their engagement on social media. I by no means do I think their social media bubbles burst. I don't, and that's something we're still trying to grow and tap.
00:33:28
Yeah.
00:33:39
Yeah.
00:33:41 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
In to however, especially within our market space and our demographic of people, the amount of people and the forces in the services that are no longer on any social media platform whatsoever is growing and growing every single day or they're only on one platform, they're on Instagram.
00:33:58
Interesting.
00:34:01
Yes, yes.
00:34:02 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
On Twitter, but it's a ghost profile. They use it to view, observe, keep connected to different people, but they don't actively go on the.
00:34:04 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah.
00:34:11 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
The other the other side of it is the amount of people that are especially in this space, again taking care of their mindfulness a little bit more, being a bit more aware of screen time, that sort of thing is growing. So I think real world stuff, that's definitely something we're trying to tap into, adapting to new platforms.
00:34:30 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
There's always 1 tip top being the main one at.
00:34:33 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
The moment.
00:34:34
Yeah.
00:34:34 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
I guess you could say X or threads as well, but they're linked onto other ones and it's obviously just a new version of Twitter.
00:34:39
Yeah.
00:34:41 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
So yeah, I think the the changes have been astronomical, and I think there was a a rising sort of lean away from social media for some aspects, but also social media was growing. You know, threads was the the biggest social media platform to launch for like years and years and years because obviously it's got the meta.
00:34:52
Yeah.
00:35:02 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Backing everyone just jumped across and bought one, and and it's arguably underperforming now.
00:35:07 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
But you've gotta keep your head and you've gotta keep on these platforms.
00:35:11 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Brexit wise has and the thing that's affected us massively because war mail have changed all of the way. They do international shipping.
00:35:16
Yeah.
00:35:22 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
So that mess us up because we sort of started when they just started, started doing that. So we had to try and adapt and and.
00:35:28 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Work around that.
00:35:29
Yeah.
00:35:30 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
But we've pretty much got there now, but what it means is we no longer can ship to BFPO addresses because British forces postal post office addresses the way they now do. Their system is essentially doesn't talk to the way we do our business online account with Royal Mail.
00:35:44
Yeah.
00:35:46 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
So we there's no way for us to ship that. So again, that's a bit of a change we've had to pivot with that to adapt, you know as you can imagine especially with silkies short shorts, people are out in places around the world of BFPO addresses and they're like, well, the weather's here for it, everyone's wearing short shorts.
00:35:49
Yeah.
00:36:05 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
I can't get mine here. I have to wait on back home or get them forward personally. That's a frustration.
00:36:08
Yeah.
00:36:12 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
COVID we were born in COVID, so being out of COVID now it's just made everything a bit easier, moved a bit smoother, a lot more people are used to doing business online now, which helps us massively.
00:36:16
And.
00:36:21 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah.
00:36:27 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah, yeah.
00:36:29 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
And online spending habits have increased.
00:36:31
1.
00:36:32 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Thing that again is interesting and sort of links to the old school way of doing business is the the demand for physical locations for premises that people can visit.
00:36:45 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Is growing massively and people, people want to go to these bases. You know, if you look at HR4K, what Bengal was doing. People wanna go. They wanna go, they wanna use it as a shop. They want to be part of the community. They wanna try on the goods high streets 10 years ago were dead and they're only getting worse and worse now.
00:36:47 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah, interesting.
00:36:55 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah.
00:37:05 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
But through dark, their facility, people are knocking down the door. When they do open open days and things like that, people want a place they can go to.
00:37:16 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
It's just not necessarily in the same way that high school, High Street retail store was run, has been run and is run so.
00:37:24 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
107.
00:37:26 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
That's something that I think it links into the whole people and leaning to more, more towards the old school way of doing business. Now again, in addition to the online platforms and things. So that's something that I think is something to keep an eye on and something we are trying to look into is some sort of way of doing pop-up shops physical.
00:37:45 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
So again, I'm I'm going to bring up Jim Shark again, pick up shops, something they did so well, you know, massive pop-up shops all over the country, all over the world. Now they are ridiculously possible.
00:37:55 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Hello.
00:37:59 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Ridiculously profitable and you know, I think they even stopped going to Expos gym sharp because they were like, why are we paying to go to Expos, fitness Expos and now they get invited and people, the Expos pay them to go because they're so big and it's like they stopped or they at least reduced massively. And the reason why I remember seeing Ben on his social media.
00:38:14
Yeah.
00:38:20 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Years and years ago, talk about it was.
00:38:21 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
But he can set up a pop-up shop in New York and sell out of every single product, and he hasn't paid to do it. Where and brings his own athletes cause they've got the influencers, they've got the athletes, so they create their own mini.
00:38:34 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Expo wherever they go so you know, pop-up shops, physical locations seem to be coming back. So there the the pivots and changes that we've noticed that we're trying to sort of keep an eye on and tap into.
00:38:40
Yeah.
00:38:46 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah. Fascinating. I mean, I I-100 don't agree.
00:38:48 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
And like when you say that there there's multi like kind of world school retail spaces that are kind of dead you know like what if you're if you if you've got just a shop you'll be outperformed by somebody can do online and far better. And but where's where's he mentioned like bend, HR 4K and have, you know been looking to go there like quite a few times and and go to events and and things I think it's brilliant.
00:39:00
Yeah.
00:39:09 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
He's he's almost got the he's got the the shop element of it, but he's also got the gym element. He's got the cool motorbikes.
00:39:15 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
The the the beautiful Chesterfield sofas it it's it's instagramable. You know, every single corner of it. But then also it. He's got his his own range of coffee. He's got obviously is the cafe element of it and it's, you know, it's rolling on Thursday, Thursday and Friday night and I'm like that's that multi kind of like.
00:39:35 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Multi space approach I think is is is genius because it's you know it's like almost combining the coffee shop with the you know with the actual physical shop and then you can go there and do your fills and grab a bag of like you know your your favourite coffee as well or your favour.
00:39:49 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
But like protein shakes and stuff, and I'm like that's that is the future. Because if you look at Oxford Street, it's slowly just turning into US. Candy should stores, you know, and there's like they're trying to figure out what to do, what to do at.
00:40:02 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
The Boston Street I'm like, well.
00:40:03 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
It's a tourist attraction, isn't.
00:40:05 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Exactly. Yeah, it costs a tonne of money to make it. Yeah, it costs.
00:40:07 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
They're shopping.
00:40:08 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
A tonne of money to be there.
00:40:09 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
And why? Why are shops going to have an Oxford Street location when they can? People will just go there and try on the clothes and buy it cheaper online anyway, so.
00:40:16 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
It's like, you know, the data department stores are kind of dead or dying, but yeah, 100% yeah, that you've seen obviously was John Lewis and Debenhams. I went out of business like a few years ago and you know it just was, yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, yeah, that one. But then what you also mentioned about kind of print media making a comeback.
00:40:22 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
And they struck him.
00:40:29 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Yeah, yeah. How surprised y'all are you?
00:40:36 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
I think it was.
00:40:38 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Kind of 2018, when I and I I I we proud an article saying print is dead. You know if you're not digital then you then you're you know you're not with it. And now I'm like my own take that back but I see years have just been like you know the COVID and then the AI and the you know the the you know the Brexit and everything and it's like just like if I could just get rid of that.
00:40:58 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Article all together now I'd be like, right let's you know, print is definitely not dead. Actually print is the way ahead because you can see it with people with with having this concept of dumb phones where they'll have their their normal iPhone, they'll have like a non social media.
00:41:12 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
App, you know, old school, Nokia. Yeah, they Google them just because they don't want to have that 24/7 connection to social media or to, you know, to other people they want, they want, you know, just the the important messages and no other extra activity to cause you that anxiety and that other, you know, challenges to kind of like Wellness. So.
00:41:14 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Gold.
00:41:33 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
I mean, what about new?
00:41:33 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
After we.
00:41:34
World.
00:41:35 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yes. Yeah.
00:41:35 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
That a lot of that new versus old world marketing business strategy, whatever you wanna call it, it is coming back and I think it's very important to keep it in perspective. You know you're not if you just go right, OK, I'm gonna go print 4000 leaflets again. You're still only going to get a one that 1% return.
00:41:46
Here.
00:41:54 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
You're gonna struggle. You really are. That's not really what I'm saying. But what I'm saying is.
00:41:58
Scare.
00:41:59 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Like book shops are taking a revival. People now want books again, you know, even though Kindles have never been better than they have been before, but the romantic idea of holding a book, smelling that paper, go into a book shop, perusing most of them, have got caps in them now as well. Again that multi use space.
00:42:02
Yeah.
00:42:15
Yeah, yeah.
00:42:19 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
It is making a comeback how it looks and how it's going to look as we move forward that print media is an unknown because something comes through the door, it still just goes straight into the recycling or in the bin. How?
00:42:30 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Never, you know, also less and less people are, as you say, looking at their phones. They're getting the Google phones, they're getting things away. They're ignoring things online on the same side, adverts are getting better and better with metadata. Becoming is stealing. Your metadata is getting more and more tailored so.
00:42:45 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah.
00:42:51 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
It's still worth putting a lot of time, money and effort into those digital platforms because that is still going to be the majority of your traffic. I'm I'm speaking as I know what I'm talking about and these are all theories and most of them unfounded cause we're not successful. But you know what I mean it it seems to be that sort of trend of.
00:43:06
Yes.
00:43:09 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
In person, upfront stuff is there's now a space for it where 510 years ago there didn't seem to be a space, there wasn't really a demand. Now it's gone back the other way. It's cycled round where people want to go somewhere and physically we get messages on a weekly basis. So I would say people saying, do you have a physical location?
00:43:28 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Can I just come in and see this or can I do click and drop? Can I click and collect? You know? Can I come and do this would be good to meet some of the team and and things like that and.
00:43:34
Yeah.
00:43:39 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
You know, it is something we're looking at and I think that is something that we're going to move into in the future. But the business rates being what they are, multi use space is like what Ben's done with HR4K or what through Doc do multi use spaces is the way to do it. You can't make a profit now. We're just opening one thing.
00:43:45
Yeah.
00:43:56 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Since it's.
00:43:59 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Even you see most calfs, most trendy, decent hipster cafes, which I love because the calf the coffee is always great.
00:44:06 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Yeah, but no.
00:44:07 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
They sell merch there, they've got all that's are designed well, which is there for you to go and get your Instagram photos. They do afternoon tea there.
00:44:08
Yeah, yeah.
00:44:15 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
They they do events on a Friday night, they do open mic nights, you know, they they do 24 hour licences for different events, you know. And they say alcohol, you know it's.
00:44:25 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
It's so difficult to have a single use premises now.
00:44:29 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah.
00:44:29 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
That the multi use premises and that.
00:44:32 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
In person thing is coming back and I think that's something to.
00:44:35 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Keep an eye on.
00:44:35 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Totally. Yeah. And this this comes up about hybrid marketing where you've got this like this really good online presence in these physical locations as well, where people can, they can come and get those physical kind of brand exposures and and brand interactions, can't they? And then they go away and you know and then they kind of like yell about on social media as well. And that then encourages more to come back to a physical location.
00:44:55 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Which, like you say as gun gun as it just being a single use location, it's now it's now a shop and a gym and a a cafe and now a a something else. So it's yeah it it it's it's exciting and like mildly terrifying times because it I know it's kind of hard to predict the future sometimes isn't it we're.
00:45:11 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Saying well.
00:45:12 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
How what? You know what roles they are going to play in this stuff, but.
00:45:15 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
And I'm I'm conscious of time and and not taking.
00:45:17 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Up too much of your afternoon so.
00:45:20 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
I answer the the the next question, do you see your your? Do you see your training company launching any products or services? You can tell us about and and no pressure to if if.
00:45:30 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Not.
00:45:31 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Yeah, no, absolutely. You know we we tease a lot on social media, especially on our stories of what things are coming up and I think.
00:45:39 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
I would say most of what's coming out has already been.
00:45:42 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Teased.
00:45:43 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
So again.
00:45:46 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
I like to do it on isolated platform so that it builds that little bit of hype and the people that are listening know and and don't know. But one of the big things that we're bringing out in autumn will be the Castleman Sherpas, which is essentially a Sherpa lined jacket, so that that's quite exciting. Again, the photos for that have been sort of sneakily circulating here and there, and we get.
00:45:48
Yeah.
00:46:01
Yeah.
00:46:06 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Great feedback of those, yeah.
00:46:09 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Variations on our silkies we always have new variations come in new camos new special editions, one that we're quite excited about is the elite version of the Silkies, and they are essentially they're coming in at first. There's a topo graph type camo design, but essentially it was to feedback that people wanted.
00:46:29 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
A drawstring.
00:46:31 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
To be able to make them more secure when swimming or doing grappling, but also just.
00:46:32
Here.
00:46:37 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Any print on logo will eventually fade, that there's no way of denying that ours is one of the best, longest lasting if you treat them right. If you wash them correctly, they will last for very, very very long time. However, if you're jumping in out of the sauna and then out of chlorine, it's gonna fade.
00:46:41
Yeah.
00:46:53
Yeah.
00:46:58 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Much quicker. It is what it is. There's no other way of doing it. So the elites, we've taken that out completely. The the logo, the branding is all either so.
00:47:06 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Running or which we don't want to do a lot of sewing and a lot of embroidery, cause them lightweight. They're silkies. It's actually in the sublime printing of the pattern itself is any low ground branding, so they're gonna last longer. They're gonna be a little bit tougher. They're gonna be easier to secure. So that's quite exciting. Other than that, we.
00:47:11
Yeah.
00:47:26 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
We've been victims of our own success, really. We test out a few other little bits and we got some restock to come in. But like we're victims of our own success in terms of our varieties and are currently our demand for specific varieties, specific sizes, specific colours of camos or.
00:47:36
Yeah.
00:47:46 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Flannel shirt is keeping them all in stock because the supply is out, the demand is outweighing the supply so.
00:47:55 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Our new products, we've massively scaled back on what we're bringing out new and it's variations. We do have some because we still want to keep innovating and keep bringing out new things for our existing customer base. But it's really about establishing and not being a drop company. We don't want to be like, oh, here's the drop, bang, sell out. OK, here's a pre-order.
00:48:02
Yeah.
00:48:15 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Is a drop, not denying them, not saying it's a bad business model, it's just not what we want to do.
00:48:19 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
And who we want to be so.
00:48:22 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
The we have got a few different products coming out Counterman Sherpas, but mainly it's restocks mainly it's about getting what we've got establishing a good level of stock for our demand and then getting more orders in so that we've always got a level of stock with the backfilling then we'll go back to more.
00:48:28
Yeah.
00:48:42 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Expanding into more different products, we have got a firefighter range coming of T-shirts because we've had a massive demand for.
00:48:45
There is.
00:48:50 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
That.
00:48:50
Yeah.
00:48:51 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
So we've got three different designs linked to that as well. Is the thin red lines of the thin line baseline range. So we can have a range of.
00:48:58
Yeah.
00:49:00 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Very simple, our baseline tops, but with the red like a red for the fire blue-green amber line through the the logo. So it's still very subtle. That's within our branding who we are, but it gives you a way of showing support for those different services, blue light services in a more subtle way. You know, we're not the.
00:49:04
Yeah.
00:49:10
Yeah.
00:49:20 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Guys that are gonna have massive back prints. We have a few back prints.
00:49:25 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
But that's not what we are. That's not who we are. That's not what we're made for. So we have some, we enjoy them, but we're more about subtle branding and so you can.
00:49:32 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Wear a.
00:49:33 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Maybe not thin blue line. You may get some heat, but in the gym you'll be fine.
00:49:39 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Swing, red lines, swim, whatever, and you can be out and about, and only the people that know will know. So you can support a bit more everyday without causing thing.
00:49:43 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah.
00:49:48 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
And some cut offs for the summer, so some vests, some cut offs for the baseline range. So we've got a few different things here and there, but the main focus is about building our stock on our varieties and making sure we're not a drop brand. So they're always available when people need us.
00:50:04 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah, I think I've got make the the jacket. Actually, that jacket sounds pretty epic. That's I've got. Yeah. I've got living living in a a Baltic country. I'm all for walking.
00:50:16 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Yeah, it's very exciting. The the people that I've seen are very excited about it.
00:50:20 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
You know it's a.
00:50:21 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
It's a Sherpa flannel shirt essentially, but made into a jacket and very sort of Montana cowboy in the winter type vibe. And and it's going to be that perfect layer for the the spring, the autumn into the winter sort of evenings, things like that. So yeah.
00:50:23
Yeah.
00:50:25
Yeah.
00:50:37 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah.
00:50:40 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
I think uh, can't wait. Well, then I guess just to kind of bring bring us into.
00:50:40 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Very excited.
00:50:46 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Like a funny few questions.
00:50:48 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Well, what's what do you see the main challenges to to startups trying to grow and stand out in that the current and I call it like the chilly economic climate because obviously it is with business rates going up and global investment kind of on the on the way at the moment. Do you see that the main challenges are for for startups?
00:51:06 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Individuality and unique product base. That's definitely the biggest one because as we said earlier.
00:51:12 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
The every market is swamped, so coming up with something new for any space is very, very difficult nowadays. Mm-hmm. Assuming you've got that idea, the next thing to get started is capital. Everything is so expensive in this modern age. You know, whether you're investing in samples, whether you're trying to experiment with.
00:51:15
Yeah.
00:51:25
Yeah, yeah.
00:51:33 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Products, whether you're trying to promote a product, build a brand, create com.
00:51:38 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
And equipments, expensive people are expensive in terms of their time to get the skills in. Everything costs more than it did yesterday and tomorrow it will cost more than it does today. So I I think that's the big ones really. It's first the unique product, the idea, the individual individuality, the brand, the thing that's going to make it stand out.
00:51:41 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah.
00:51:47
Yes.
00:52:00 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
In the market space, that's definitely the most important thing. And then second to that, which is probably true for for most things you go into, but especially right now with the cost of living crisis and and everything like that.
00:52:14 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Eligibility has never been higher, so for someone to start a side hustle now, it's very, very difficult just because of capital, you know, buying products, buying equipment to like materials to make a product is very hard. I think if you can nail both those two things and you've got a bit of capital and you can scale up slowly.
00:52:16
Yeah.
00:52:27
Yeah.
00:52:35 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Then the next thing that's going to be your biggest issue is scalability.
00:52:39
Here.
00:52:40 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
A lot of people start talking to me and or asking ideas, and it's sort of like I'm going to start doing this. And they had really personal touches to everything they're doing, which is amazing because it really brings in a lot of traffic and people want their personal touch.
00:52:54
Yeah.
00:52:55 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
However, then they start and their USP is essentially that personal touch, whether it's personal written messages, whether it's responding to every follower they get on Instagram, whatever it is, maintaining that personal touch as you scale is going to be borderline impossible and.
00:53:11 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Yeah.
00:53:12 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
We got the advice relatively early on. I can't remember where we're from, but of just making everything scalable and you know, we're really responsive on social media, our our customer service is great. We'll respond to everything as quick as we physically can. We dispatch things as quick as physically can, but we're very keen to not over promise and look forward into the future.
00:53:32
There.
00:53:33 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
And when we are, you know, even better on our gross incomes, even more, we still want to provide the same customer service, the same, support, the same interactivity that you see now and you get now and you're part of now.
00:53:45 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
So yeah, I think those are the three things, unique, unique idea or brand or something different to bring.
00:53:53 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
To the space.
00:53:54 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Capital to do it however you raise it, make sure it's sensible and it doesn't affect you personally in personal life, cause that's the biggest difficult thing right now with the cost of living and they're making it scalable for the.
00:54:03
Fair.
00:54:05 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Sure.
00:54:06 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
100% yeah, fantastic stuff. Well, I I guess.
00:54:10 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Now on on.
00:54:12 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
That note let me let let's let's wrap it up there and leaving the rest of the afternoon. It's been utterly epic having you on the podcast. Now. I've gotta say I've I've I myself have learned tonne tonne from your insight as well. So I know people out there who's gonna, yeah.
00:54:23 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Oh, thank you mate.
00:54:26 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Definitely be in touch and and.
00:54:28 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
You know, kind of following the the company. So yeah, mate.
00:54:31 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Yeah, I appreciate it.
00:54:32 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Thank you again.
00:54:33 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Thanks very much for having me on again. Caveat to everything I said about these are all just lessons I've learned, things I've picked up. They're all my ideas that I'm coming up with that I'm the way I perceive it. Also, hopefully people can sort of listen and go alright. That seems a bit far fetched or it doesn't really get it, but this bit might apply to me and.
00:54:39
Here.
00:54:52 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
If it helps, it helps.
00:54:53 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
And and if not, we had a good chat and, you know, we geeked out and.
00:54:57 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
That's all that matters. Great stuff. Well, great. Yeah. Been great jamming.
00:55:03 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
Jamming with you and yeah.
00:55:05 PJ, a former Royal Marine Commando, Hostile environments instructor, Anti-poaching conservationist, Firefighter and founder of the Gibraltar Trading Company.
Yeah. Appreciate your time, mate. Thanks very much.
00:55:09 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
It's really great chatting with PJ and hearing. I took an idea and made a company out of it. Wanted to know about GTC. You can find links to the website and share it below.
00:55:17 Chris Shirley, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Haus of Hiatus, website and brand design studio
And we'll see you next time.
