Bouncers, Pre-Digested Coffee and Why What You Call It Matters.

Welcome to Throb, The Reality of Business podcast. Real business chat from real people without the shiny veneer of gurus anywhere near it.

With your hosts Bertie Cordingly and Paul Chapman and maybe some guests along the route, we'll talk about our experiences of running business, helping others run a business and sharing real stories based on real experience. Hello Paul. Welcome back to the studio. Thank you very much. I don't feel I've left actually. You good mate?

Well, yes. I hear you're old and cross. You don't have to reinforce the word old. But yes.

Tell our listener why you're old.

Hold on. Let's just... This is still a little bit raw and I'm still... So I don't want to come across angry and yes, old, as I've been pointed out.

He is fuming.

So yeah, I've had a couple of things this week. I mean, one's amusing. One I'm actually still really fucking pissed off about. But anyway, I was turned away from an event this week for being too old, Paul.

I'm stunned.

So let me elaborate on this. So there's...

It says that kids' parties aren't for everyone. Just at the door. Hello, I've got Lego.

So yeah, I think there is some real value to discussing this because I think it touches on a lot of business aspects. And I'm actually torn looking at it from my point of view as a customer and actually from the business point of view. I'm genuinely torn. It's something that's really annoyed me. So let me explain what's happened. So I follow a DJ, James Hype, actually. I'm going to mention him. Fantastic DJ. Like really technically fantastic. Like watch his Instagram stories. Really, really good. And then he posted probably about six weeks ago his tour dates. And one of them was Nottingham. So of course, like completely on that. And so I was excited. Was then Googling how I could buy tickets. Tickets, nothing. Rang the actual club itself. Never answered the phone. Was emailing the club. Didn't get anything back. I was like, I really don't want to miss this DJ. So this is about six weeks ago. Anyway, and then about two weeks ago, I actually found the tickets on some websites. And yeah, paid the exorbitant price of £7 tickets with QJump. So yeah, bought two of these tickets. So completely excited. So I've been looking forward to this Tuesday night for about six weeks.

Yeah.

So on the day I'd seen on the story of the booking website, like there was loads of students there. I was like, oh, I'm going to be the oldest person here. Like, you know, it's fine. Yeah, I can live with that. Partying with the students, et cetera. No real problem. I've been to many, many student nights. You know, even like a few years ago, you just turn up at them and that's just it. So sort of the babysitter went out, got the taxi into town, pulled up outside the club. I mean, it was packed. Like it was absolutely round. But it's OK because I had the QJump ticket. So straight to the front of the queue, excuse me. And then I asked that question, are you a student? I'm like, well, depends on what a student is.

But technically speaking, you are a student, aren't you?

Well, technically I am. And actually like Leanne is as well. So, you know, we both technically were students. And actually, when we really got down to the nitty gritty, it could actually even prove that we were. The point is that, you know, they were letting people in who clearly were a lot younger. Yet we were the ones that got asked. And then were told that we couldn't come in because we weren't students. Now, I've been to a lot of student nights. I always feel that students is a guide. It's not very strictly students only. I've never been checked for student ID in a student night.

And none of the other people going in were being checked for ID. Exactly.

I genuinely thought he was joking. I genuinely thought. Honestly, this is like, yeah, okay, mate, yeah. And it's like, no, you can't come in because you're not a student. And then it's like, well, I had a point to prove then. So I was then trying to prove that I was technically a student. And anyway, I then asked the question, well, I then said the words, the reason you're not letting me in is because I'm too old, essentially. I mean, obviously I have a very young, sounding voice. So I'm 43. Are you? Yeah, I am. Obviously, I obviously don't look at it. I still go out. You're older than me. Am I? Yeah. Really?

I'm 43 in November.

That's a, well, that's brilliant. That's a, that's a, that's a shock to most, to most listeners. Anyway, yeah, turned away. Now, you know, again, looking forward to this night for so long. Really love that DJ. Bought the tickets. Then to be turned away at the door. I've been to a lot of clubs and I've been turned away at clubs before. Never for being too old. Obviously, back in the day for being too young. Turning up with your false ID that you've made from the back of a.

Rockbuster video card. Exactly. To prove you're 18.

You know, you know, that, you know, that, that I can accept.

Fair enough.

And when you turn up to a bar and a club and you can't string a sentence together. Again. Yeah. At the time, you know, you're a little bit, you know, pissed off about it. But you wake up the next day and you're not like, oh my God. You know that you should, you shouldn't have been let in there. I feel I should have been let into that club on the evening. I wasn't drunk. I wasn't obnoxious. But as we all know, you can't, you can't argue with Doorman. You know, you can't argue with Doorman, can you? There is, there's a big queue of people. You're watching it. I'm probably on some, someone's Snapchat stories. That's, you know, the old guy trying to get into the student night.

Angry old man arguing with Bouncer. Exactly.

But what pissed me off was the way that they handled it. Like, it was very much like, well, your name's not down, you're not coming in. It's like, hold on, mate. Like, I've got the tickets here. Like, you know, I've literally booked the babysitter, paid for the cab to come in. Let's, I'm not, as you can see.

You're the only person there that had booked a babysitter.

It's like, yeah, it's a student night. Yeah, but it's not students only, is it? And so, again, context. On the DJ story, and I don't blame him one little bit, you know, no mention of it being student night. When I booked the tickets, no mention of it being student night. You know, when I've had the emails, nothing about students whatsoever. It was just when I was trying to find out opening times, just saw that, you know, there were students there, and I was probably going to be partying with a lot of students. And again, you know, that's on me. I could have lived with that. But what actual harm is it by actually letting me in there? Like, why? Why? But tell me. Do you know what? Why can't I go in? It's an odd thing.

So we'll come back to your kind of your second how old you are story soon. That's a good one. But yeah, it's a really interesting one, this, because maybe there's something we don't know. You know, maybe there's a licensing. I don't know.

But there's no license.

It just seems a, you know, whether, you know, this was an event. So you, I don't know, whether you pay a different license, have a student venue. I don't know. Now, I don't know if that's kind of a thing at all. But, you know, I just, and it's a really interesting case, because they don't give a shit. Because you're never going to go back. You're not going to be a repeat customer. You can leave the worst review in the world. It makes no difference. But I still, I just think of this kind of stuff. It just seems pointless. You know, at the very least there, you should be having a refund. Because it's 14 quid. Or whatever it is. I can't remember. Whatever you said now. It doesn't matter. They should be handling it better. And, you know, the rights and wrongs on this kind of thing. I think it, there is, you can't argue with bouncers. You never can. You know, the Arctic Monkeys wrote a brilliant song about it. But it's just that, it's that kind of pedantic kind of, look, you were there. It harmed no one. The whole thing was easier for you to go in. But, yeah, I don't know. I mean, it's a tricky one. I mean, you know, lessons if you need them. It needs to be better explained at the start. It needs to be, you know, that kind of thing. There's got to be something there. And, again, there is that in all our businesses. There should be something at the front end that makes it really clear who this is for, who it's not for. Not even kind of on this kind of thing. But, like, these are the kind of customers that we work on. That comes through with your imagery. And, yeah, I can see that you're still fuming. I'm led to believe you were crosser at the time. Yeah.

The thing is, it's, yeah, maybe I would have been, like, 30. Maybe this was 10 years ago. I probably would have got in. I probably wouldn't even have been questioned, you know. So, it's, yeah. And it's not that now I'm just, like, I'm cross at being old. Like, I'm very, very happy being the age that I am. And I was completely comfortable going to a place full of students. I felt it was handled really badly. And I think what made it worse is that even when they insisted on it was students only, and then saying, look, it's a student now. You have to be a student. I then remembered that I am actually technically a student and do have the student ID to back that up. Then, when that was then taken away and then brought back, it was like, oh, no, you now have to be a student at a Nottingham University. So, it was like, then the goalposts were moved. And it's like, that is not the case. So, you're telling me you are checking everybody here. And, again, you know, having this discussion with Dorman when there's people who want to get into the club behind isn't the best place. But it's like, so you're telling me that you're checking student ID that everybody is a Nottingham. It's like, it's absolute fucking bollocks. Like, they weren't. It was a lie. The reason I was not let into that club was because of my age. And, actually, you know, nobody had the balls to say, actually, mate, look, you're just too old. You're just too old to come in here and it's going to, you know, damage our brand, whatever. That was clearly the case. You know, I understand why they've not said that because it's illegal. Yeah.

I mean, it's interesting. I mean, if you could be asked, you could have some, not fun with this, but you could take this to another point. And, you know, but the grand scheme of things, I kind of, I don't know, maybe people should because, you know. But it is, yeah.

And this is, I suppose, this is why I want to talk about it. Because, you know, I get it, you know, from a student night. Do they want someone that's older in there? Do people actually care? Maybe they think that they care. I think the point about it, you know, it was just a young, jumped up fucking idiot who's nice it was. You know, in my opinion, he was a twat. Who, you know, then didn't want to consider or even alter the decision whatsoever. It was like, let's just find a way to keep this guy out rather than actually, like, empathise and think, okay, fair enough. We've just watched him get out of a cab. He's just paid for that cab. He's just told me he's paid for a babysitter. Is there actually any harm in him coming in? It's not like I'm walking in there with a bag full of drugs or something, in which case they probably would have let me in.

I think it's the intransiency of this. It's such a pointless argument to have, you know.

I wasn't there in, like, a tweed jacket or anything.

This is what I was going to say.

I was dressed as a student.

I was genuinely going to say, look, you look like you do. And if anyone hadn't kind of seen Bertie, he looks kind of cool. He's kind of covered in tattoos. He's got, you know, rakishly attractive hair. Now, if I'm turning up in my tweed and I get there is some, you know, I mean, there still isn't. You know, there is some kind of, you know, brand damage there. But it's just not a thing. I think, you know, these kind of things is a intransiency. Clearly someone has, I don't even believe someone has said to him, don't let in old people. I just think, yeah, I think this is someone that has taken it upon themselves to be the big man here and just give it the big ja-sui. And I think that is ridiculous. And we will go on to the second story. But, okay, this is a small, it's an interesting incident because it has no big effect on anything. But other people's businesses are doing this. Other people's businesses are kind of sticking, you know, adhering to some sort of rule. That pisses people off. That stops them coming back. And, again, it's been a bit of a theme over this series of that kind of you've got to stop putting any barriers in people's way when they want to give you money. Because it's just, you know, I think it is a good example of kind of what is happening in some people's businesses. And it is literally just some knobhead that, again, who's so far removed from the business that actually they don't care. They're just trying to be the big man. But that will happen in someone else's business. There will be somebody else who thinks they're doing it. And, you know, there is such a disconnect between business ownership, as it were, or whoever the business is, and the person doing the do in front of the customer. And, again, ignoring your situation. But that is happening in other people's businesses. That kind of intransity, that ability to not see the common sense of this. Because have this been a normal club and not, you know, actually this is real kind of damage now. Because there is now someone saying, well, actually, this club is now not letting me in only because of my age. And that becomes a massive issue. You know, and I think that bit is something that we as business owners kind of need to look at. Where is that sabotage happening? But, I mean, for me, I just love the idea of you being too old to go to a club. I think it's it.

Yeah, you know, I appreciate the humour in the story, hence why I'm telling it on this podcast. However, you know, I am genuinely pissed off and still pissed off about it. Like, I mean, yeah, I will go and see that DJ again. Again, I don't, you know, blame the DJ. You know, he's just, you know, being booked by a promoter. You know, and having worked in bars and clubs and things, you know, like in the past. Like, I know all this stuff works. And, yeah, I like, you know, thinking back, I remember like being in the clubs when I was younger and they were older people in there. There was always the old guy on the podium, you know, like whether he was 40 or 60 or whatever. You know, it was just it was a normal thing. You know, I think, yeah, I get. Yeah, I think if you're going to. Yeah, if you are going to run a night specifically for students from a university, you've got to make that really fucking clear. And actually, you know, adhere to that. You can't just let in, you know, the pretty women just because, you know, they're pretty. Like, you know, if you're going to have that rule, then stick by it. Yeah. You can't. I don't think you can retrofit these things into your business because actually people are pissed off and they are going to do something about it. Like, you know, we're talking about this here. I know it's not going to do them any brand damage, but, you know, like, you know, this isn't something that I'm going to let go. Yeah. And it is.

This is just an example of one of those other things that, you know, the reality is in businesses, it is happening. You've got to go and spot it. But before we kind of get too deep into that rant, tell me about the second reason for you to feel very, very old, which I love.

Well, yeah, I suppose this is a little bit more lighthearted. I mean, I was looking at I was looking at buying some clothes online, you know, as you do. Like, what do you buy?

Well, I'm just looking at you. I've only ever seen you in a black T-shirt. I just presume you had it on subscription every two weeks. Someone drops you another black T-shirt in. I mean, like, what other clothes have you got?

Well, this is what I wear during the week. This is what I don't have to think. But at the weekend, I do wear other clothes. And I didn't wear this black T-shirt. I wore, in fact, I wore a different black T-shirt to the student night. But anyway, so I was shopping online and it had, like, the big banner at the top and it said, like, buy vintage clothes. So, you know, look at our vintage styles from the noughties. I think it was, like, 2001 to 2005 vintage. And I was like, surely that's a misprint. But then I thought, shit, yeah, like, that's... So, you know, being in that, like, I remember buying, going to vintage shops in the noughties, which were seventies clothes. Yeah, yeah. But, yeah, I don't know, maybe it's just my perception of things. It feels that, to me, the seventies and the eighties and the nineties, like, when I think of the seventies, I can actually see the differences. Like, seventies, eighties, nineties, very, very clearly defined areas. Whereas it all sort of merged into one after the noughties. But is that the case for the younger folk? I don't know.

I mean, there's two things.

I didn't use the word folk when I was being thrown out of the night.

Now, look here. Yeah. Dear sir. Well, I mean, there's two things here. One interesting thing I read the other week that we are in round numbers as far away from 1980 as 1980 was from the Second World War, which kind of got me thinking. That's an interesting kind of thing. But I think the other thing that I really like about this is that how you label something changes the value and the ability to sell it.

Yeah.

Because I'm sure this is not what's happening here, but you could see, you know, this clothing business or whoever they are sitting on, you know, a 20 year old overstock. Oh, shit. We've still got 20 odd t-shirts. And if you sell 20, you know, t-shirts that are 20 years old, you can't sell them just as that because everyone knows that. But you suddenly you rebrand this stuff as vintage and it changes everything. I think this is a massive lesson to us all is, you know, what you call something changes it immeasurably. And again, it's interesting. I've got a little place at the coast and I was down there this week and there are two bakeries and they're literally dead opposite. One bakery has been there. I mean, I've been going there for 20 years, perhaps whatever. Back when your t-shirt was cool. I've been going there for 20 years and I used to go to the old one that was in that cafe. That bakery has been there, but there's a new one and one is a bakery and one is an artisanal bakery.

Right.

And the artisanal bakery charges, I don't know, three, four pounder croissant.

Okay.

And in the big croissant, but you've got to remember if you're buying a big croissant, all you're buying is more air. That's a very, very good point. It is. Exactly. And it's really interesting. The one that's been there forever is empty. Obviously, the new one is rammed. You know, we were down there a few years ago and it was kind of Hurricane Helena or whatever it was at the time. And people were queuing out the block in these obscene conditions where over the road, a kind of the product, as it were, is the same. It's a croissant. It's a croissant. They're absolutely empty. And I think, you know, it's what these new guys have got right is that they've got it absolutely right for the market. You know, it is a, I mean, not me, it is, it's a really kind of wealthy area here. You know, big, big houses, big, big money. A lot of London kind of folk kind of in that sort of neck of the world. And actually, it is easier to sell a four pound croissant than it is a one pound croissant. But so much of it is how it's labeled, how it's presented, how it's, I think this is the interesting thing about kind of vintage clothing from the 20s is that it's just what you call it. You know, just how, because if they were just sold as kind of croissants, you know, next to each other, and one is, you know, one pound and one is four quid, it's not the same sort of thing. But different colors, different branding, all that stuff, it is so, so important. And it just lands a load of profit. And, you know, you see this in every kind of, you know, walk, look at, you know, kind of, you know, a car wash can only ever be like up to 20 quid. And we've spoken about that guy before that does valeting, valeting, valeting, valeting, valeting, valet, valet. And he does it at kind of 70 grand. And it's, you know, and it's, you see it's loads and loads of people will just not think about how they label their stuff. And that's a big chunk of cash on the table. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

The, the, the, the labeling, the brand. I don't think it's this. Yeah. It's more the positioning, isn't it? I suppose. Then the, I suppose the positioning, the branding, where do you position your. The product price.

You need to have a think about stuff. So, and again, this is kind of shows my age, but you were probably, you used to buy CDs. Yeah. Yeah. How much you pay for a CD?

They were like a tenner, weren't they really? Yeah.

And how much would you pay for like a book?

Didn't really buy and still don't buy. I don't know.

Shocking news readers.

Bertie is not a reader. But how much, like a book, like 10, 15 quid. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So a, so a CD and a book is 25 quid is what we're saying. Yeah. Yeah. But if I call that a business growth system. Okay. Yeah. CD and a book can suddenly be 250 quid. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And it is, you know, and this is, you know, you look at this kind of stuff and it's, I can have every industry's got it. You know, how you are labeling what you do. It makes a massive difference. And I think, you know, we've, you know, you see, yeah, I mean, you only need to look at, you only need to look at kind of restaurants and that sort of, and how they write about it. And this is really interesting because, you know, gin at the moment, you're a big gin fan.

Yeah.

Gin has been done to death. It has. I simply don't believe all of the, how many gins have you got on your wall downstairs?

A council, 35.

I don't believe all of your 35 gins taste different. Yeah. And they probably don't. But it's, they are. So someone has found a way to sell exactly the same thing, but differently. You know, as a friend of mine in the shoe industry. And is it, I can't remember, I should better not say the brand name, but he was kind of saying that there are two pairs of shoes that this factory makes. They are exactly the same pair of shoes. Exactly the same. One is branded ABC and the other one is that. And, you know, the, you know, ABC is like a, you know, sold at, I don't know, say it's 20 quid. And the other one is sold at something like 250 quid. And it's insane. And it's just, it's, it's this, what you do with it, how you do it. And anybody that's listening to this, should anyone ever listen? I think take a good, long, hard look at it and think, look, what, what, what could you call yourself? How do you, how do you label what you do? So, you know, cause you know, you know, it's back to your, your, your clothing thing. This is basically old clothes being sold as vintage because you can't sell them as old clothes. Yeah.

So, yeah, I suppose that, yeah. When you have like vintage, yeah. You know, you, you walk down, you know, like any sort of struggling high street and it's full of charity shops.

Right.

Like, you know, you rebrand one of those as vintage clothing specialist. And suddenly you're not selling, you know, someone's old jeans. You are selling vintage clothes. And I think that's, I think that's the difference, isn't it? It's the same stuff, but it's positioned very differently. Certainly. If you're in business, how can you position your stuff or how can you brand your stuff to be different? And this is a, it is a mindset thing. I think a lot of the times, especially like when you speak to, I've spoke to people before and it's like, oh, you know, I only do this or only do that or I'm just whatever. And sometimes people really can't see the value in the stuff that what they do. And we, you know, we had this conversation, a couple of podcasts back on the Salt Bay restaurant thing. You know, at the end of the day, it's a state restaurant. And like, he's been, I don't know if it's because of like, I've been following again recently. Like he's been posting to his stories reviews of his restaurant. And I don't know whether it's like a language thing, but he's been posting bad reviews like on his story. Like you just like look at them. Yeah, but it's like people are slating it and saying, you know, it hasn't even got the Michelin star. I don't know whether that's good or bad marketing, but we're talking about it now. So I suppose it's good. People are saying things like the steak's not even that good, but that's not why people are going there. They're going there because he's positioned himself as the Salt Bay. People want to see Salt Bay. They want to have one of Salt Bay's gold plated, ridiculously overpriced steaks. And, you know, that's what positioning has done. And like what we've said before, it's like nobody's forcing people to go in there. If you don't want to go in there, like if you go in there, you're pretty much aware of what it's going to cost now because we've told everyone.

And we cover the world. Yeah. There are very few people that don't hear this. Yeah.

So, yeah, the positioning is important. If you position something right, and it's not, I don't think it's bad in a way. It's just making sure that you are targeting that right market, isn't it? Yeah.

And I think, again, maybe we just need to not podcast and just every week just say, think more. Think more. You know, it's like that. It's kind of you talk about him posting bad reviews. There was that review that did the rounds that, I don't know, you know, come and have the worst coffee. Karen from Swindon's ever had. Exactly, yeah. And it was that, and actually it is, that's, you know, because now people want to know, they want to see it, they want to be part of it. People are nosy. They look at stuff. Yeah. And I think, you know, this is where, this is where we have to get to as business owners, that we look at different ways of using what we have, whether that's kind of branding, whether positioning. I think the positioning is a really interesting thing to talk about because, you know, it's one of those things that you can do all the time when you haven't got anything to do. And I think, you know, there's a lot of, I mean, there's kind of loads of great examples of this, but there's a lot of people that don't realise how long it takes to have a position, to have a brand and that. And it comes from starting to do it, you know, doing it from day one and just doing it and kind of having that kind of cast iron belief that this is what I want to be stood for. So there's one guy in particular, and actually he has just held his position, his particular view for a long time, probably a period of years now. And I think it was not ridiculed at the start, but he has built himself a following of people that like that position and like that view. And I think, you know, positioning is something that comes over a long period of time. And I think, you know, if we say about salt bait, that did not happen overnight. It's taken a long time. And I would imagine an enormous amount of mockery to get to the point where he's probably the most, you know, the richest steakhouse owner in the world or whatever it is. And I think, you know, this part of it, and again, if I could, I mean, I made so many mistakes in business. If I could go back again, I think I would have a stronger positioning from day one, because I think I knew what I wanted to do. I think I knew what I believed was right for people. But I think, you know, probably if I'm honest, kind of chasing the money, I sort of did different things. I became kind of different things and different, which is, you know, all within quite a narrow thing. But actually, you know, I can think of, you know, loads of people have just, they've just had this, this laser focus. And they've known, they've understood that it takes a long time to do it. And actually, there is real value eventually, whatever eventually is in actually having that kind of that single position. Yeah.

And I think this, you know, even smaller businesses can adopt this, you know, like the croissant, I think, is a perfect example. You don't have to be a massive, big business with a really good established brand to position your products at a different segment of the market. Like when you just said, you know, the shoes, the same pair of shoes positioned different segments of the market. Supermarkets do this, right? Like I was trying to compare two porridge oats, you know, your basic value porridge oats. And then the top tier one, literally looking at the oats side by side, exactly the same. The ingredients are exactly the same, you know, even like the same. Oats. It's an oat, yeah. You know, when you have like, you know, the 0.7% of whatever. It's the same fucking, it's the same thing, packaged differently. One costs 30p for whatever it is and the other costs two quid because it's in the different packaging.

Yeah.

And there will be some people that will only buy that top tier because that's what they want to see in their cupboard. Or if their friends come, it's like, oh, you've been buying the value oats.

They don't be walking out of a supermarket with value oats. Exactly.

It's positioned differently.

It's weird, isn't it? Even though it's exactly the same.

Exactly the same. Yeah. And, you know, I'm not saying that all of those, you know, supermarket products are exactly the same, but, you know, a lot of them are. So it's always worth looking at. I mean, you can tell, but some people will not even think about it. Other people will just go for the cheapest one. But the majority of people will just go for the middle. So they like to have the cheap products and they like to have the expensive ones because you just, they're not. I'll just go for the middle option. Yeah.

And I think what's really interesting here is the stuff that we're being told now that we put value on or we think we put value on. Like, so we bought some chocolate, some actually really nice coffee chocolate, dark chocolate. I don't normally like dark chocolate, dark chocolate. It's a bit like you like it or you don't. I do. I love it. I don't understand it. You know, it's like, it's like carrot cake. I don't want a carrot in a cake. If it's cake, it needs to be filth. It needs to be something like nice, sweet. And it's the same with chocolate. I don't understand dark chocolate. It's like, oh, it's chocolate, but it tastes like shit. You know, and I don't get it. Anyway.

I love dark chocolate. Really? It tastes like shit. Why?

There's no point to it. It's just bitter.

You see, I think my taste of like, okay, so digestives.

As an old man, your taste is probably quite different. Fuck off.

Digestives, dark chocolate or milk chocolate? Milk chocolate. Oh, no. You see, now I just think it just tastes like everything else. The dark chocolate, they, I mean, they are kryptonite. A pack of dark chocolate digestives, gone. Disagree. 60 seconds. I'll eat the fucking lot. Do you know what?

I pay to watch that. I pay to watch you do. I think. Anyway. So we brought this chocolate and it said on there, single origin. Or, yeah, kind of. And this was, I know, kind of from Indian cocoa. But it was like this single point of origin stuff. And, you know. And it was premium. It was packaged well. It was packaged premiumly. Premiumly? It doesn't, is that right? But I was like, I've no, I don't know if that's good or not. But they are selling, ah, you see, the fact that this comes from one source, therefore it needs to be more expensive. And I don't believe it. I don't, well, I don't know. I'm not a, you know, this is not built on. I'm not an official. Not a fish in our. Not built on again. But again, it's really interesting. Somebody has sat and thought about, look, what can I say about this product that is going into a massively, massively crowded market? What can I say is my point of difference? I think this is really interesting. You know, until then, I don't necessarily buy a lot of chocolate. But I'd never even considered the fact that, you know, it's kind of single point of origin is a good thing. You see this with coffee beans as well. You know, it's, again, I'm not a big coffee man. Coffee makes me even more obnoxious than I normally am. So I don't drink a lot of coffee. But it's been a really interesting thing to see that actually you've got, you've got all these coffees that are kind of essentially the same that I would guess the majority of drinkers can't tell the difference between. Yet they've got all these extra layers. And this is exactly what's happening with the clothing company. They're just finding different ways to brand it. Yeah.

I mean, yeah, with coffee, I mean, I really can't tell the difference. So I can tell the difference between instant and beans. And I've got a bean-to-cup machine downstairs. I'm interested, whenever I post a picture of a coffee, I always get someone, people slide into the old DMs, like, oh, what coffee have you got? And then it's like, I can't even remember the brands. Kenco.

Oh, the brands are available.

Yeah, it's like, I buy it in bulk from Amazon. And it's not a cheap coffee. But actually, I probably get it cheaper than what I would get from the supermarket shelves. Like, I've tried more expensive ones. And when I've been to, like, you know, the food festivals, you know, I'll try this. It all tastes the same. Like, I can't. By the time I put milk in it, it doesn't taste any difference to me. And it's probably what you were saying about gin and stuff earlier. I think a lot of it is that brand perception, right? And this is what we're saying. It is positioning. This isn't about people selling, you know, the same shit and repackaging it. But you can position things to a different market. And if those people then choose to buy it, then that's on them, isn't it? That's what they want.

It's the value of thought. And it's back onto coffee. Sort of a friend of a friend for a while was selling, I think it was the world's most expensive coffee.

Right.

And it is a coffee bean that is eaten by a particular animal. Oh, yeah. Shats out. Yes. And this, I mean, this, I love the fact that, you know, this is, I don't know, 50, 60 quid a cup.

Yeah.

And the point of difference is that it's already been eaten and shut out by another animal, which is lewd. You think, actually, so that makes it more expensive. In fact, this is an animal dropping. This makes it more expensive. But this is it. And this, and there is a market there. And there are people do it. And there are people that are bragging about this. And I do think in years to come, they go, hang on. It's been shit out by an animal. But they are bragging that, oh, yeah, this is the process this coffee goes through to get it tasting like this. And this, and it's, and this, I love this because this opens up literally any avenue in the whole kind of universe to sell something. And it just takes that thought. And, you know, you think that you've got into, you know, you know, they used to have sausages. And now you've got kind of, I don't know, Gloucester Old Spot sausages. Or you've got rare breed sausages. You've got all these different things. And all of these things, there is just more value there by putting a different label on it. And it's across absolutely everything. And, you know, this is what we kind of urge people to do. I mean, it's got to be right for the market. First and foremost, what is important to your market? You know, and there is a market that actually thinks, I bet, if they're onto themselves, they haven't got a clue. They think it's a single point of origin cocoa is a good thing. You know, it's the same that, you know, kind of you talk about environmental aspects now. And actually, that is important. You know, actually, so there is profit to be made by being more environmental. You know, that actually, you know, this, this, you know, kind of pig was fattened down the road or whatever it is. But it is, it's, there are too many people that are just kind of blanding it along. And they're not thinking, well, okay, what is the point of difference? How, you know, if anyone is here is in a really kind of crowded market and battling to sell against other people, there has to be another reason. You've got to give people another reason to buy. Well, who's your perfect target market? What's important to them? You know, and then turn your coffee from, you know, coffee to artisanal. Is that artisanal?

Yeah, and I think we've said stuff about, I think you've got to be, I think you can get it to at least as close as you can to the top of your game as well first. So I think if you're selling something shit, I don't, I think, I don't think it's very ethical, for want of a better word. Coffee. Yeah, to be selling.

They are literally selling.

Yeah, yeah, well, shit coffee. Like, oh, you know, our product's okay. Let's position it, you know, in really like top end of the market. You know, that doesn't feel the right thing to do. But if you've got something that is actually like as good as you can get it, then you can start positioning it higher. And I just had a really good example that has just slipped through my mind, really.

Bacon. I was thinking about bacon.

Ooh, I love bacon.

I get my bacon from the butchers. And the reason that I get it from the butchers is because it is actually nicer bacon. Like, this bacon will take the Pepsi challenge against other bacon. Like, you know, and I'll tell you why I notice it. Because I always cook my, I've got a barbecue outside, which I use all the time. We'll get into the gas versus fire debate if we want another time. But gas barbecue, very easy. I'll just fire up in the morning, cook the bacon on there. And what I notice with the bacon I get from the butchers is it keeps its shape. It doesn't shrivel up. If I buy bacon from the supermarket or I've ever run out, like, I put it on the barbecue and it's like, you know, when you put like cling film on. Yeah.

It's just gone. Yeah.

So, you know, the bacon that I put on there has no resemblance to the bacon that I take off. When I get it from the butchers, like, it's higher quality, more expensive bacon. It's a good product. So, I feel taking something like that and even, you know, they could position it even higher, I think is fair. Taking the shit supermarket bacon, position it as something like, and again, I've done it. Like, when I've not been that organized and not bought my bacon from the butchers, then it's like, okay, so I'll go and get the top ends supermarket bacon. It's the same. As we've said, it's the same bacon. It's just packaged and positioned differently. But I put it on the barbecue and it just shrivels up straight away. You know, it's just all stuffy water. I don't know what to do with beer.

Yeah, and it's important to point out, you know, we are, not everyone wants to pay more.

Yeah.

And, you know, you were taking the piss out of me about kind of Bill Tong and saying, well, I didn't realize anyone was into it. Everybody is into something. So, everybody sees more value in something, whether it's motorbikes, if it's cigarettes, whether it's gyms, whatever it is. So, there's always that kind of thing. But I think it's, for all of us listening kind of as business owners here to actually look, there is more money if you place something else with it, some more experience with it. Great example of this. So, we've just gone out and bought pumpkins.

Yeah.

Because whilst I truly dislike Halloween, our kids are very excited about it. I will. I look forward to it. I love Halloween.

Why do you not like Halloween? Do you know what?

I don't know why. Yeah, I don't know why. I think I'm just kind of just far too reserved. And do you know what? I've got into it more. Jack loved it. It's my youngest. Like, bless him to you. He's only had kind of one year of trick-or-treating. But he was like, this is mad, Dad. I'm literally, I'm, because you tell your kids, don't, no, no, don't pick up sweeties off the floor. Don't do that. You go Halloween, he'm like, yeah. I can't remember his face. Everything goes. Yeah, he says, literally, we went around to the first house and he's all dressed up, bless him. And there's like this pot of sweets. And he's like, he's looking at me, Dad. Like, Daddy, can I? And it was a game changer. We took it and literally that boy came home with a thousand sweets. And it was like the greatest day of his life. He could just kind of wander around. So I am, I am more into it. Well, I don't know. Maybe I'm just old and grumpy. I just, I find, I find kind of like the horror genre thing a bit weird. And I quite enjoy picking up free stuff. I like that. But I find that, anyway, find that. Anyway, so we've went, we've gone to buy some pumpkins. And we went to a little farm just down the road from us. And inexplicably, because I was mucking around with the kids at the time, when we came back and I said to Amy, you know, we've got like four or five different pumpkins of different sizes. We've spent something like 30 quid on pumpkins. Wow. Yeah. I mean, we've got a lot of pumpkins, probably kind of five or six or seven. I don't know. It's like, you know, different shapes and sizes. We then went off to a well-known supermarket and pumpkins, the size of what we bought, our biggest one was £1.50.

Yeah.

And I've just paid eight quid. Eight quid for a pumpkin.

You've paid for the experience, haven't you? I've paid for the experience. And do you know what?

The kids were not excited at all about going to the supermarket, but they loved tramping through a field, choosing their pumpkin. Yeah. And that's it. And I guess this is where we're getting to with all of this stuff, guys, is that just a bit of thought, there is a massive chunk of profit there. There is a different... And again, I know that supermarkets will do this as lost leaders because someone coming in for a pumpkin will probably buy some Halloween gubbins or that kind of... I know there's kind of bigger things at play here. But as ever, you and I, on these kind of occasions, we have to kind of raise stuff up in people's mind to get them to think about it. And it is. It's that really interesting, look, what you call this, how you do it, what the label is, how it looks, the experience, that is where the money is. There is no money in the product you sell, whatever that is. There is only money in how you sell it. Because if you've only got money in the product, you and a 50,000 other people are selling exactly the same thing. At that point, in my humble opinion, you end up on a price battle and it's a race to the bottom. And there is no winner when you're the second lowest price. Yeah, exactly. And yeah, that's it.

And I think the pumpkin picking, Peter Piper, Pixabekka, anyway, I think the pumpkin picking is a really good example, right? And I'm going to delve into this a little bit more because it just got me thinking as you were using your words. So it seems that it's only a recent thing, right? As in the last few years.

Tell my parents, use your words, Paul.

As your words are coming out of your mouth, I was using my brain to think about those words. It's a recent thing. Is it always like, it wasn't a thing when I was a kid.

You didn't go to pumpkin for it. Yeah. No, no, no.

So what makes me think is that, you know, and correct me if I'm wrong. So we always see the thing that we would like, you know, supermarkets driving down price. And that's a great example that you said, you know, like a hundred, sorry, 150 quid, £1.50 for a pumpkin. A farmer somewhere has actually thought, fuck this. I'm not selling my pumpkins to the supermarket for 10p of pumpkins so they can sell it 150% markup. No, anyway, whatever it is. Keep going with the math. Do the maths. What I'm going to do, I'm going to open my farm up and let people have the experience of choosing the pumpkins. Not only that, I'm not even going to sell it at the supermarket prices. I'm going to quadruple it. And people are still going to pay that because they're paying for the experience. So someone somewhere has done that and it's worked. And actually, like, you don't see. So now on Instagram, when I scroll through there, there are people in fields with pumpkins. You didn't see people in supermarkets checking out their pumpkin like it's not a thing.

It's not a thing. No one's selfying that. Yeah.

So, you know, like someone's thought of that and that's good. And then other people have done it. So you can take this. And the result is the same, right? They've got a pumpkin which they can carve. I'll tell you something else. I bought a pumpkin. I don't know if this is a normal thing. I remember buying a pumpkin a few years ago from a supermarket. And on the sticker, it said this pumpkin is not for human consumption or something. Like it wasn't. Yeah.

So I'd like.

So I bought a pumpkin. The pumpkin was just for display. So whatever, however they'd grown that pumpkin, I couldn't then scoop out the seeds and eat them or do whatever or make a pumpkin pie. It was a display pumpkin. It wasn't made of plastic. So, you know, there's a much better car. But, you know, how do you, how do you even make it? It's like, how do you make a display apple? Like, what have they done? Like, what have they done to that pumpkin? Like sprayed it full of. Anyway, it wasn't safe to eat.

Which is, which is, there's a whole new kind of whole new kind of episode of madness here. But, you know, looking at what's happened here, and this is why it's so important for everyone, all these people, all these, I mean, yeah, the pumpkin farm is exactly the same as Salt Bay. Yeah. This is exactly the same thing. Salt Bay was a butcher. You know, there's no money in that. There's no money in the product. Remember, there's money in how you do it. And, you know, it's the same here. All that has happened here is that the pumpkin farm has made it less convenient, muddier, a separate trip, and vastly, vastly more expensive. And they were crowded as hell. Yeah. And they're crowded as hell. And despite the fact that it cost me loads more, despite the fact that I have to walk through a muddy field to pick my own stuff, you know, which I don't have to do. I am, I'm not, but people are sharing this on social. So the marketing is happening for itself. And I think, you know, people need to look at this. And again, you know, it's easy to kind of talk about this and say, oh, there's no value in that for me. I can't do that. Everybody's got their pumpkin farm thing. Yeah. Everybody's got a different way of doing it. Like we did, there's a great gin company out sort of the other side of Loughborough, make good gins. They have a, you can go make your own gin. You can go distill your own gin. And Amy and I did it. And it's, I'm going to make it up. I'm going to say it's a couple of hundred quid. Yeah. So a hundred quid each kind of thing. I forget it, but it was sort of that kind of thing. And Amy and I went and did this ages ago and you get your own bottle of gin. So you're paying to make your own gin, which is, I mean, it's great and you love it. But when you actually break it down, you think, well, you could have a product that A, you know, is going to taste nice, you know, because it's not just us two dicking about going, oh, we should have some pomegranate in it. So you know that you're not going to do it, but the experience was brilliant and they did it brilliantly. I mean, you got there and there was a large gin and tonic and there was a very kind of cursory kind of walk around the facility to show you how it's done and this, like that. And then you go and do it. So you are paying, I don't know, I can't do the math, four or five times what you could do anyway to do all the work to produce something. And when you break that down, that's nuts, but that's just massive profit, massive, massive profit. And anyone can do that. That's in every industry.

Yeah, I've got, I've got downstairs, like, you know, I got bought a gin making kit and you can't obviously distill gin in your home. I think that's still legal, but you know, it's what I didn't realize is it's vodka. It's made from vodka, right?

Well, it's made from a space, a base spirit, isn't it? And I think the closest thing to that is vodka. So yeah.

So in my gin making kit, like I then went out and bought a bottle of vodka to make the gin and poured in the botanicals and left it for a few days and then put it through some, what do you call it? Those thing, paper coffee filters. Yeah. To take out the bits. But now I've got a bottle of gin on my shelf, which I've made, which I don't want to drink because it looks like cold fucking tea. Like it's the most disgusting colour. Like I'm going to have to put it with some real, like, so yeah, yeah. I think sometimes you can, you can have an experience and just end up with an inferior product. So it's probably the same. The flavours that I'm not trusting the gin. Oh yeah. Let's put a bit of this in a bit of milk chocolate in this gin. That'll be amazing. Milk chocolate and pillotong gin. That's what you're going to have. Like, no, it's a big no from me. So.

But that is really interesting because I bought Amy, Amy's a big gin fan. And I bought Amy like a gin making kit and it has sat on our side for, when was it? I don't know. When was it? What? Six months? Yeah. Whereas when we got the gin making day, because there was stuff around it, we went straight away, you know, and we'd go back. We would go back, you know, it was only kind of because the boys then kind of came along and sort of time became a bit more premium. We'd go back and do it. It's the same thing. You break this down and think it is loads harder to do. It takes a lot more effort. But I've got to go and do it. Yeah, I'm paying absolutely through the nose in this. And it is. It's what's your version of this? What can you do? What's that thing? You know, regardless of what you do, there is this other way of doing it. And a lot of it comes back to, as we kind of said at the start, kind of how things are labeled. It's a brilliant example you've done. If you can sell a load of old clothes, because even if these are, I mean, I'm sure they're not for legal reasons. I'm sure they're not stuff that they've just found in a warehouse. 20 years ago. But the patterns haven't need to be made. Exactly, yeah. The, you know, all the stuff is there. And it's just money. And, you know, there is no money in selling 20-year-old clothes. Yeah. Unless you call them vintage. Exactly. Or even retro. And I don't know when, you know, vintage becomes retro, becomes antique. I don't know what.

Yeah, that's it. Well, yeah. Antique, yeah. That's probably, my old wardrobe is probably antique now.

Well, they're just slightly smaller black t-shirts.

Yeah, exactly. I just keep buying bigger sizes. Because I'm so muscly and definitely not overeating on a daily basis.

Which is probably... Or old, yes.

Or old, yes. That's it. It becomes harder to lose it. Old man, Bertie. I think this is... I'm going to cut that bit out. I think this is a very good time to end today's podcast, Paul. It's been a pleasure. Thank you for letting me rant about being called old.

Do you know what, Grandad? I've really enjoyed it. Oh, okay. Nice to see you. It's not like you're going grey or anything. Cheerio!

Goodbye! Bye, everyone!

Bye, everyone!

We'll be back next week for another edition of the Throb Podcast.

If you want to find out more, you can find me at paulchapmanuk.com.

And you can find me, Bertie, at bertiecord.co.uk. Thanks again. See you next week. Bye, everyone!

Bye, everyone! Bye, everyone!