[0:00]The main bit of advice that I would give to anybody starting a business is to make sure that what you're doing is unique, because there's no satisfaction in copying another brand and you will never succeed past another brand if you just copy and what they do. So I think that if you are going to start a brand, make sure that you have something new to bring to the market because if not, you're not going to succeed really, that's that's the top and bottom of it.
[0:24]We are back. Hello. Welcome back to the social conversation. Um, me and Adam have returned. And we're also joined by Jordan McCabe. Jordan. Welcome to the show. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. It yeah, it is afternoon actually. It is afternoon, yeah. I don't know what day it is, but definitely afternoon. I'm I'm losing track of time, what day it is, what week it is, I don't know what it is. I don't think it matters anymore, does it? I I wish it wasn't 2020. That's for sure. What shamos this has been. How are you dealing with lockdown, Jordan? Do you know what? I'm I'm quite enjoying it to be honest. I can't really say that it's been a struggle for me. I I think I'm in a pretty lucky good position in comparison to a lot of people. We've just kind of carried on as normal. I mean, everyone's working from home. Um, we've got one person in the warehouse that's still shipping out orders. Um, but apart from that, I mean, I'm this is probably the most chilled I've been in years. It's I think it's great really. I'm quite enjoying it. It's really amazing how quickly everyone seems to have just adapted. It's weird, isn't it? It's so normal now, isn't it? Like I can't even imagine like why would why would we go back to the office when everyone's just fine at home? It's weird. Yeah, especially like online businesses such as ourselves, it's like really easy to adapt. Cuz we were already like partially online and could probably work from home anyway. The the culture part of being in the office, I think with like, with your friends and obviously you you make friends with your work colleagues and stuff. I think that's the only thing that's really missing from my business now. I miss playing pool. That's what I miss. I miss like. I was just going to say that, man. It's like the crack in the office is what I missed the most. Like we all everyone everyone from the social group, we can all work from from home really. We genuinely can. Um, but it's it's it's getting the vibe and like the inspiration from people when you sat next to like other videographers and photographers. Bounce off each other exactly. So that's that. It was really weird at first, I think, like, you know, trying to do everything through like zoom calls and through messages and through WhatsApp. But yeah, it's it's just weird how quickly it's become normal. Yeah. Like it's absolutely fine now. I know. People have just adapted so quickly, it's crazy. There's a lot of businesses that like haven't adapted very well at all though. Yeah, there is some that haven't. I mean, I think it depends how used to you are. Like a lot of people working like on like we like young, we like we use our computers all the time. I think it's like a different different perspective when it comes from a business that's maybe not as online-based that they've found it quite difficult. I mean, Primark have made zero sales since lockdown. Oh my god, I know. I was Did you see um, I think it was no, they said Zero. Zero sales. Yeah, they have nothing online, do they? No. I didn't know that. Zero. Zero. Apparently they have like 1.5 billion pounds worth of stock just sitting waiting to be sold. Oh, that's bad. That's pretty bad. No. I mean, as if Primark wasn't cheap enough, there's going to be hella sales when that when they all open up. Be crazy. For sure. Like two seasons behind on everything. I mean, they always are. I did read that actually. Yeah, fair. That's crazy. So how have things changed quite a lot at Aztec for you guys or are you just pretty much the same sort of process? Um we when first when the virus first kind of was apparent in the UK and everybody started to panic a little bit, we had about two and a half, three weeks where sales literally dropped by like 60, 70%. It was really like literally just instantly cut off. There was barely anything coming through. So we were like, I we're in a luckily in a really good position just come off the back of Christmas, got quite a lot of cash reserves, so it wasn't really a huge worry. But you know, obviously you're thinking it's going to set you back quite a while if you're down 60, 70% of sales for three months for however long it was going to be. And then literally after a few weeks, I think when everyone kind of settled in at home and like really just got focused and normal again, with everybody being at home, we our sales have been phenomenal. It's like like Christmas kind of sales and I think it's just because people are at home, obviously they're people are still getting to ride their horses, I'm guessing. And yeah, we've I can't complain at all. I'm so so lucky that we haven't we've seen a rise, not a drop. That's amazing, isn't it? I was really I was shocked to be honest because I didn't expect it. I thought people would be kind of a bit more reserved about what they were spending and things but yeah, just it seems it's really working at the minute. I mean everyone's ordering everything at the moment. If there's a time to get stuff delivered, it's now. Like I Harry on the media team was saying that he's just got an endless stream of Amazon parcels arriving at his house. Every day. Every day there's something coming to my house like. I haven't been living at home. I've been living with my partner and every day when the doorbell goes and the Amazon guys there again with another seven boxes. I'm like, what more could we possibly need? There's like, it's like a sort an office in the kitchen. There's just boxes everywhere. I feel sorry for the Amazon delivery drivers because they're swear, I think that's what all everyone's been doing. Oh yeah. They're literally they're just sat at home shopping, aren't they? Yeah. What else do you do? What else do you do, man? 100%. And you've got all this you've got all this like money that you would usually spend on going out, getting food, like lunchtime. But everyone thinks they've got paid more because you haven't, you just don't have anything to spend your money. You don't have anything to spend any money. Yeah. Yeah. So, I saw that, uh, you know Monzo Banking, They they put like at the end of the year they do like a a your year in review of like what you've been spending. And usually it's like, you know, like travel and groceries and all that sort of stuff. But they've just they've done it for this year. It's like, oh, it's going to look a bit weird at the end of 2020 because it's groceries goes up like that. And then travel and like night out and everything else just drops off a cliff. It's going to be it's just going to be I just can't like imagine it now when everything opens again. Like everything's going to be so strained. I saw um, somebody I think it was Nike posted like a virtual gym, like a picture of a virtual gym of what it's going to look like and socially distance. And it was just the weirdest thing ever when you think like that that's what's actually going to be normal now. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. It's really strange to think about. I mean, it's it's kind of a, I would say it's given us a push in the right direction though. Yeah. Unlike a lot of things. Yeah. I think it's really kind of made um everybody realize what's actually valuable in life and what's not because doesn't matter how much money you have at the minute, nobody can call you ever do anything. Yeah. It's it is strange. Yeah. Like 100%. I mean, yeah. Hopefully. yeah. You do. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. We're we're definitely lucky living uh, living up north for sure.
[7:13]Yeah. How long do you think it's going to go on for? I've kind of I stopped reading the news and watching the news cuz I was getting myself I don't really get I'm not an anxious person but I kept watching the news and obviously I watched that. I shouldn't have done this. I watched ten minutes of that BBC documentary that inside and one where it was like going into the hospitals. Oh my God, it was petrifying and after that I was like, just mortified that I was going to get this disease and my mom was going to get this disease. And so I just stopped watching the news. So I'm a little bit oblivious as to what's actually kind of been going on. So they're saying that it's going to be like July, isn't it? That like start of July where hospitality venues are going to open. But that's the earliest, so it could end up being later than that but they're saying it like third of July I think it's the earliest bars, restaurant, cinemas are going to open. But even when that happens, surely they're going to have to have measures in place that you cuz everyone's going to go mad. Even if it's all, what as soon as somebody you have a few drinks, like as much as everybody wants to stick to social distancing, like nobody's going to do that. There's no way. So it, I think something else has to happen first. I don't know if they slowly let you meet up with little groups first. That's what I think. Or maybe maybe middle of June or something they start letting you do like little like groups of five, groups of ten people, ma. Outside and then see I would honestly if it I mean I've not I don't really know that much about it all obviously. But if it was me, I'd I wouldn't let anyone go to pubs and restaurants and stuff till like late way later in the year. Like at least. It's not it's not necessary for any of us to go to a bar really. Obviously it's not nice for the hospitality industry where they're not making any money. But like realistically, none of us need to go over bar. It's not it's not an essential. I think it depends on who you speak to there though. Yeah. That's so true. I got to get a point in is going.
[9:01]I must have a tequila. I mean, you you'll be all right, Jen. You haven't drunk in what is it? Two years now. Yeah and a half. Yeah. I just did a I did a little a little YouTube video on it. So I'm I'm just going to I'm going to link that in the show notes just cuz I can. Um, yeah, it started in November, uh, 18 months ago, which whatever year that was, 2018. And yeah, I'm I'm like 18 months in a few days. So that's that's where I'm cutting it. But yeah, it's been interesting. It's been so what are we doing for our holidays at all? Um, there was a lot of things that I needed to do like in the last year, a year and a half. Um, so I thought I'd I'd kind of try and challenge myself. And yeah, it it kind of started it by accident. And then I got to like I did Dry January and then I did it for Lent. And then I got to six months and I was like, mm, I'm just going to push this to a year. And then I got to a year and I was like, I may as well just to push it a little bit further. And then all all of this happened. So I just kind of I had I had no reason to drink really. Yeah. I mean, I'm not a huge drinker to be honest. No, same. I could um on holiday I couldn't not drink but apart from that I like I never really drink at home. No, I I'm not a big go out guy like maybe uh, the local pub with like my local friends who I've known forever like that's like I enjoy that and then the occasional night out but I'm not really the kind of person to go out every weekend. It's not it's not my vibe. You just prefer to spend more money on your car than on alcohol. Yeah, I'd rather save all my money for my car, yeah. I rather see you do that. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, she is. But yeah, crazy, crazy times. I I just hope it all gets back to normal like correctly. I I'd rather it, I'd rather, obviously everyone would rather us not to have a second wave because that would be horrible. The surely they can't lock the country down again. Like the the amount of money the the the country's losing every single day. But I know you have a lot of clients that are in hospitality. Have they seen obviously, are there any of them in problem or have you seen a lot of So, yeah, like I I don't know what the exact percentage is, but there's probably like 70, 80% of our clients hospitality. Like a lot of them in hospitality. Yeah, you have a lot of hotels and things like that, don't you? Whose venues, yeah. Um, yeah, that obviously it's it's it's awful for them. Um and and us for for posting content and stuff is obviously it's it's hard as well but I don't know for their sake, obviously I want it to be as fast as possible but for like I think they've got to do it correctly. You know, if they do open restaurants, do you only put a certain amount of tables in the restaurant or This is the thing but then it's that that's going to be worse than open in the venues. Like yeah, cuz surely if they've got certain amount of tables, they have to fill them tables every so often to make the revenue. Yeah. They have to police it as well, so they probably need more like door staff and God, it's a difficult one. I'm glad I'm not in that industry anyway.
