# Business Expert on the Budget, the Housing Crisis, and Intergenerational Inequality

An episode of [Straight Talk with Mark Bouris](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1572546872), 27 May 2026, 50 min.

Audio: https://p.podderapp.com/2544644999/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/2fb3740d-3436-44af-8cc0-a91900716aa5/1c4759f0-81fc-4f35-85d1-b305004fc1e8/5ec6c547-7011-4c5e-8541-b457007e7f20/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=573776d2-4dbd-4f2f-a825-b305004fc1ef

Naomi Simson is the founder of Red Balloon and co-founder of the Big Red Group. In this conversation, Naomi breaks down how she built a business that now delivers an experience every 16 seconds to small businesses across Australia and New Zealand. Simson also delivers her unfiltered assessment of the recent federal budget, arguing that too many changes implemented too quickly will cripple business confidence during an already challenging period of technological disruption. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Naomi Simpson. Welcome to straight Talk. It's about time you
[0:03] Speaker 1: come on my show. It's crazy. We've known each other
[0:05] Speaker 1: about million years. We've spoken lots of things together.
[0:07] Speaker 2: I don't think we need to reference a million years.
[0:09] Speaker 2: We're getting wise, that's true.
[0:12] Speaker 1: We've known each other for wiser years or whatever the
[0:14] Speaker 1: words are. But welcome and thanks for coming into the
[0:16] Speaker 1: studio today.
[0:17] Speaker 2: Good to be here.
[0:18] Speaker 1: It's good timing too, to get someone like you in
[0:20] Speaker 1: here to talk about some of the stuff we saw
[0:22] Speaker 1: on the budget. I just parked that for a moment, though.
[0:24] Speaker 1: We just if we could just introduce you first, so
[0:27] Speaker 1: you know, my first recollection of you is when you
[0:29] Speaker 1: did something quite disruptive when you launched Red Balloon, which
[0:36] Speaker 1: was an e commerce business, but like I don't know
[0:39] Speaker 1: if it was described as e commerce in those days,
[0:41] Speaker 1: but how many years back and now we're talking about
[0:44] Speaker 1: that's twenty five years ago. Twenty five years ago, it's
[0:46] Speaker 1: abound the safe time I did Wizards around the same
[0:49] Speaker 1: time and exactly the time I did with it, actually
[0:54] Speaker 1: I was twenty six years ago I started that. What
[0:58] Speaker 1: was disruptive, I mean, we can look at it now
[1:00] Speaker 1: says not the disruptive, But what was disruptive at the time.
[1:02] Speaker 2: NOI Well, believe it or not, We're at the very
[1:05] Speaker 2: beginning of the Internet way back then in two thousand
[1:08] Speaker 2: and one, and you know, there was no such things
[1:10] Speaker 2: as social media, smartphones, digital cameras, nothing, And I think
[1:16] Speaker 2: sometimes people wouldn't mind going back to that time, but
[1:19] Speaker 2: it was a very simple concept. The fact is that
[1:22] Speaker 2: there's a lot of small businesses who find it very
[1:25] Speaker 2: expensive to find customers and that's not changed. You know,
[1:29] Speaker 2: it was expensive to go in the yellow pages. Well
[1:31] Speaker 2: it's even more expensive now to run performance marketing campaigns
[1:35] Speaker 2: and try and build a brand. So I've been a
[1:38] Speaker 2: professional marketer my whole career. I worked in big brands
[1:41] Speaker 2: like Apple, IBM had set that was an airline. And
[1:47] Speaker 2: so I flipped the model. So instead of working for
[1:52] Speaker 2: each of these small businesses, could I give a brand
[1:58] Speaker 2: to a whole industry and take a clip of the
[2:01] Speaker 2: ticket rather than just them being a marketing agency. And
[2:05] Speaker 2: so yeah, I flipped the model, and the Internet enabled
[2:08] Speaker 2: that to come to life, which wouldn't have been possible.
[2:14] Speaker 2: And I didn't know, you know, with first Marketplace, and
[2:18] Speaker 2: you know, I had no idea that I was such
[2:20] Speaker 2: a trialblazer. I was just putting one foot in front
[2:22] Speaker 2: of the other.
[2:23] Speaker 1: Yeah, it might have made a difference if you did know.
[2:25] Speaker 1: Actually you might have thought, well, what am I doing here?
[2:27] Speaker 1: Because I would just remind listeners that we had in
[2:30] Speaker 1: the ninety eight ninety nine what was known as a
[2:33] Speaker 1: tech boom, and your launch of your product is sort
[2:37] Speaker 1: of just off the back of the tech boom. Tech boom,
[2:39] Speaker 1: of course became a tech crash, as they always do.
[2:43] Speaker 1: And you're right. There was internet, but there was no
[2:47] Speaker 1: the devices didn't our phones didn't connect to the internet
[2:51] Speaker 1: those days. It was all computer laptops and stuff like that.
[2:54] Speaker 1: Apple laptops or I think that are Apple laptops.
[2:57] Speaker 2: Probably they were actually these iMac jelly.
[2:59] Speaker 1: Shape really, they're those big things.
[3:02] Speaker 2: Clunky, and you had a desk.
[3:03] Speaker 3: They were colorful though, Yeah, they were colorful, and you
[3:05] Speaker 3: couldn't move them, so you know they.
[3:07] Speaker 1: Were a desktop. You're right, yeah, and so do you
[3:11] Speaker 1: remember the moment though you had this thought? I mean,
[3:13] Speaker 1: because it doesn't seem disrupted today, but it was disruptive
[3:16] Speaker 1: at the time to build a marketplace to just correct
[3:22] Speaker 1: me if I'm wrong. Now, to link up suppliers of
[3:25] Speaker 1: or merchants of experiences in your in the red Balloon
[3:29] Speaker 1: case with consumers, where consumers could choose from a whole
[3:36] Speaker 1: lot of experiences instead of just going to one experience provider.
[3:40] Speaker 1: They are all listed there. So you effectively built a marketplace,
[3:44] Speaker 1: is that right?
[3:45] Speaker 2: And also we gave those experiences authority. So so where
[3:51] Speaker 2: did the idea came from? I was a freelance marketer.
[3:55] Speaker 2: I'd left my corporate career because I had small children
[3:58] Speaker 2: and I wanted some more flex ability in my life.
[4:00] Speaker 2: And back in the day, we didn't have any of
[4:02] Speaker 2: the things that we now have. And then I was
[4:06] Speaker 2: listening to my clients, who are mainly small businesses, and
[4:11] Speaker 2: I realized that what they really wanted they didn't want marketing.
[4:14] Speaker 2: What they wanted was customers. And so I one of
[4:20] Speaker 2: those clients came to me and the tech wreck was
[4:24] Speaker 2: going on, as you'd said, and he was in a
[4:27] Speaker 2: tech business. I was doing their marketing for them, and
[4:31] Speaker 2: he said, look, I think they're going to close me down.
[4:34] Speaker 2: And he says, but there's this business concept in the
[4:36] Speaker 2: UK called red letter Days, and it's a catalog and
[4:39] Speaker 2: call center business. And in Australia. We can never do
[4:42] Speaker 2: catalog and call centers because the country's too big and
[4:45] Speaker 2: the population's too small. And he said, I wonder if
[4:48] Speaker 2: we could do it online. But before we could start
[4:52] Speaker 2: this business, he was offered to do an management buyout
[4:57] Speaker 2: for a dollar of the tech business he was running
[4:59] Speaker 2: in Australia. He went off and did that and I
[5:01] Speaker 2: was kind of left with this. But I remember the
[5:03] Speaker 2: moment that I named it red Balloon. So Red Letter
[5:05] Speaker 2: Days was not interested in us in Australia. The Antipodes
[5:09] Speaker 2: so far away, so we needed to have a life
[5:13] Speaker 2: of its own. And I was literally walking around in
[5:16] Speaker 2: our backyard and I remembered a movie from when I
[5:21] Speaker 2: was a child called The Red Balloon.
[5:23] Speaker 1: Oh wow, Yeah, and it's about a.
[5:25] Speaker 2: Little boy who lives in Paris and his best friends
[5:28] Speaker 2: a red balloon. Wow, it's such a beautiful story.
[5:32] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[5:33] Speaker 2: So I thought a red balloon is a symbol of
[5:36] Speaker 2: joy and happiness, and I just wanted people to see
[5:40] Speaker 2: any red balloon and be reminded of the first red
[5:43] Speaker 2: balloon they were given, or that they gave that experience,
[5:47] Speaker 2: the emotional connection to being with people and connected and
[5:51] Speaker 2: ironically all of these years later, when we're so overwhelmed
[5:56] Speaker 2: with social channels and the messages that are coming at us,
[6:04] Speaker 2: there is a real move offline again, you know, so
[6:07] Speaker 2: we come online, as Pindra says it, come online to
[6:11] Speaker 2: work out what you're going to do offline.
[6:12] Speaker 1: Yeah, that's, by the way that in my world, that's
[6:15] Speaker 1: about it exactly. That's exactly right. And actually I'm really
[6:18] Speaker 1: glad you explain the the branding or the name Red Balloon,
[6:23] Speaker 1: because once youre the name is pretty easy to play
[6:25] Speaker 1: around with the branding and visual sense. But the sort
[6:29] Speaker 1: of emotion that sits behind it, I never really thought
[6:32] Speaker 1: it through because I'm not someone who used it, but
[6:35] Speaker 1: doesn't matter.
[6:36] Speaker 2: There's plenty of opportunity.
[6:38] Speaker 1: That's the way I live my life. But nonetheless, and
[6:43] Speaker 1: the emotion was that little bit, that little window into
[6:46] Speaker 1: the emotion that was very very good. Why did you
[6:49] Speaker 1: decide to make it about experiences?
[6:51] Speaker 3: Though?
[6:52] Speaker 1: What's the connection with experiences and what does experiences mean?
[6:55] Speaker 1: Like it doesn't mean just going on a holiday or
[6:57] Speaker 1: traveling up and staying up in a time home in
[7:00] Speaker 1: Barron Bay or something, But what were the experiences you
[7:03] Speaker 1: decided to put in there?
[7:04] Speaker 2: Even back in the day when I started the business,
[7:07] Speaker 2: we all had too much stuff, and really what anybody
[7:11] Speaker 2: wants is time with their family and friends, the people
[7:14] Speaker 2: who are important to them. And often people want to
[7:17] Speaker 2: do something that they've always aspired to do. And it
[7:21] Speaker 2: was in listening to customer stories that I understood the
[7:25] Speaker 2: impact that we were having on people. So this man
[7:28] Speaker 2: wrote that for his father's eighty fourth birthday, he gave
[7:32] Speaker 2: him a flight on a DC three and he drove
[7:35] Speaker 2: him to Bankstown Airport and he said, my father was
[7:37] Speaker 2: excited like a little boy going to a birthday party,
[7:41] Speaker 2: he said, And when we flew together, watching his joy
[7:47] Speaker 2: was amazing, he said. When I when we were driving home,
[7:52] Speaker 2: his father shared with him that as a young man
[7:55] Speaker 2: he'd heard the first DC three flight on the wireless
[7:58] Speaker 2: and he always always wanted to be on one. He said.
[8:02] Speaker 2: My father is a very quiet man. I'll always remember
[8:05] Speaker 2: today as one of the days he spoke. And then
[8:09] Speaker 2: you understand why you do it, why I keep doing it,
[8:12] Speaker 2: because that moment of connection, and it's what we need
[8:16] Speaker 2: more than anything, is to connect with the people that
[8:19] Speaker 2: we love to create conversations. Shared experience is what gives
[8:24] Speaker 2: us and not all of the experiences are you know
[8:26] Speaker 2: finn and they're sometimes exhilarating or exciting or challenging. But
[8:30] Speaker 2: that's what makes us human. On the flip side is
[8:34] Speaker 2: that because we bring people together, that's what we do.
[8:38] Speaker 2: So we curate, we go out and there's four and
[8:40] Speaker 2: a half thousand small businesses that depend on us for customers.
[8:45] Speaker 2: And I was speaking to one ironically in December twenty
[8:50] Speaker 2: nineteen and he said, oh, names, I didn't know we're
[8:52] Speaker 2: going to get old together. I speak for yourself. I'm
[8:55] Speaker 2: just getting why. So that's mala and I stick with wisdom.
[8:58] Speaker 2: And he said, do you realize is that that first
[9:01] Speaker 2: year I had one hot air balloon and nine hundred passengers.
[9:06] Speaker 2: Over the year, in the whole year, had one hot
[9:08] Speaker 2: air balloon and nine hundred passengers. And he said, in
[9:11] Speaker 2: the twenty years since we've been together, I now have
[9:15] Speaker 2: nineteen balloons and twenty three thousand passengers. And he said,
[9:19] Speaker 2: and for every single one of them, when they come
[9:22] Speaker 2: to the Hunter Valley, they buy accommodation, they go to wineries,
[9:25] Speaker 2: they eat at the local restaurants. It's at least one
[9:28] Speaker 2: thousand dollars to our community. We've literally changed the economic
[9:33] Speaker 2: impact in our local region. So when we went into COVID,
[9:37] Speaker 2: we were able to talk to government about the impact
[9:42] Speaker 2: of driving economic outcomes for regional and rural Australia through
[9:46] Speaker 2: small businesses. Because people don't travel for the sake of travel.
[9:51] Speaker 2: They travel because there's something there that they're going to
[9:54] Speaker 2: do and experience. So when we can put the experience
[9:57] Speaker 2: front and center, we can drive economic outc comes for
[10:00] Speaker 2: small businesses throughout Australia.
[10:03] Speaker 1: We spend on our ridge around twenty six years of
[10:06] Speaker 1: her lives asleep, So if you're going to spend that
[10:08] Speaker 1: much time doing something, you may as well get good
[10:11] Speaker 1: at it. That's what got me interested in WHOOP. It's
[10:14] Speaker 1: a wearrible device that helps you understand what's actually happening
[10:19] Speaker 1: with your body, especially when it comes to sleep, recovery,
[10:23] Speaker 1: stress and overall health. What I like about WOOP is
[10:27] Speaker 1: that it takes all that information and it turns it
[10:29] Speaker 1: into simple, personalized insights you can actually use. You start
[10:34] Speaker 1: to notice how things like travel, late nights or even
[10:37] Speaker 1: eating too late affect the quality of a sleep and
[10:39] Speaker 1: how you feel the next day. So it's not just
[10:42] Speaker 1: for athletes, is for anyone who wants to feel and
[10:45] Speaker 1: perform better, to learn more here to join dot whoop
[10:50] Speaker 1: dot com, forward slash mentored and get one month off
[10:53] Speaker 1: your annual Whoop membership. So do you feel as though
[10:57] Speaker 1: then during that period continuing on today obviously because you
[11:01] Speaker 1: go still own it, But do you feel as though
[11:03] Speaker 1: that you've had a really big impact on small businesses
[11:12] Speaker 1: just generally when they can give you that sort of feedback.
[11:15] Speaker 1: And as a result of that, do you feel did
[11:17] Speaker 1: you ever feel as though to yourself that you should
[11:20] Speaker 1: have paid forward your luck in your life? I mean,
[11:24] Speaker 1: why did you do this? I mean apart from me
[11:25] Speaker 1: obviously made a few bucks out of it, but why
[11:27] Speaker 1: did you do this? Was it a pay forward I
[11:29] Speaker 1: want to pay forward my experience with other people or
[11:32] Speaker 1: did you positively want to say I really want to
[11:34] Speaker 1: connect the small business community and I want that small
[11:37] Speaker 1: business community, for example in the Hunt of Valley to
[11:39] Speaker 1: build ecosystems where not only is the balloon business doing
[11:43] Speaker 1: the hot air bloon business doing well, but by accommodation,
[11:46] Speaker 1: they go to the pub, they go and visit a winery.
[11:49] Speaker 1: They might buy some booze. Whatever they spent petrol money
[11:53] Speaker 1: on petrol might forget the repair, hopefully not, But you
[11:56] Speaker 1: know what did you think? What was the process? Did
[11:59] Speaker 1: you think it's about a bigger story or do you
[12:01] Speaker 1: just initially think, no, it's just about putting matching parties
[12:05] Speaker 1: to you on my marketplace.
[12:07] Speaker 2: Any startup, it's always just one foot in front of
[12:10] Speaker 2: the other. We don't overthink it. I have a passion
[12:13] Speaker 2: for small business, always have. My father had a small business,
[12:16] Speaker 2: my sister has a small business. Small business is in
[12:18] Speaker 2: our blood. Ironically, when I worked for Apple, I was
[12:22] Speaker 2: the marketing manager for small business, and when I worked
[12:24] Speaker 2: at ANSID, I was the marketing manager for business. So
[12:27] Speaker 2: I've always had this kind of B to B approach
[12:30] Speaker 2: to my marketing. So I didn't overthink it. But it
[12:33] Speaker 2: was only in listening to customer stories on all sides
[12:40] Speaker 2: that you realize the impact you're having. And it is
[12:43] Speaker 2: that impact that keeps us going. Purpose comes from knowing
[12:47] Speaker 2: you've made the world a better place. But no, I
[12:50] Speaker 2: didn't overthink it. Who would have thought that we're now
[12:53] Speaker 2: delivering an experience every second, every sixteen seconds that is
[12:57] Speaker 2: a customer to a small business that they didn't have
[13:00] Speaker 2: to pay one of those monsters. And I shouldn't say
[13:03] Speaker 2: Google or Facebook, because of course we all have to
[13:05] Speaker 2: do that, but we're the marketing experts. They can be
[13:09] Speaker 2: the world's best hot air balloonists, jet boater, macrime, makeup,
[13:15] Speaker 2: whatever the experience is, they can be the world's best
[13:19] Speaker 2: at that because they can trust us to deliver them customers.
[13:22] Speaker 2: And when we went in the COVID time, that was
[13:25] Speaker 2: our job just to make sure that they were still there.
[13:28] Speaker 2: On the other side, it's their livelihoods.
[13:31] Speaker 1: COVID are like your gift to some to some extent,
[13:34] Speaker 1: to be businesses like yours because that sense of being able,
[13:37] Speaker 1: to particular if you're from Victoria better under reconnect with
[13:40] Speaker 1: your community or reconnect with your family or your friends
[13:43] Speaker 1: somewhere doing something. What was the initial effect of COVID
[13:48] Speaker 1: on you guys.
[13:49] Speaker 2: Oh, well, everything dropped off a cliff. But as and
[13:53] Speaker 2: this is way before we had job keeper and job
[13:55] Speaker 2: seeker and all the rest of it. But we knew
[13:59] Speaker 2: our job is to keep these businesses with customers. And
[14:04] Speaker 2: so we went out to our community and we said, look,
[14:06] Speaker 2: could you an invent an experience that was in a box?
[14:08] Speaker 2: Could you invent an experience that was delivered virtually? And
[14:13] Speaker 2: we published two hundred and fifty new experiences in about
[14:16] Speaker 2: three weeks, really because we had seven hundred thousand customers
[14:20] Speaker 2: sitting at home with a red balloon voucher board as
[14:23] Speaker 2: wanting to do something. So it was our job to
[14:27] Speaker 2: keep doing that. And so we absolutely focus what is
[14:30] Speaker 2: our job here? We are shifting the way people experience life,
[14:34] Speaker 2: and to do that you stay really focused on the endgame.
[14:38] Speaker 2: We shift the way our experience supplies experience life. We
[14:45] Speaker 2: shift the way consumers or our B to B customers,
[14:50] Speaker 2: our corporate customers who use Red balloon for reward and recognition.
[14:54] Speaker 2: We that's our job.
[14:56] Speaker 1: And when you put out an APB toy or supplies
[15:01] Speaker 1: and or customers about during COVID period for example, and
[15:06] Speaker 1: you've got such a great response in terms of what
[15:08] Speaker 1: people could put in a box, what is Naomi Simpson
[15:12] Speaker 1: doing at that point? Is she's standing sitting back and
[15:16] Speaker 1: letting all her CEOs. Oh my gosh, no, what is
[15:19] Speaker 1: Naomi doing?
[15:20] Speaker 2: We were in a world of panic, Like you know,
[15:22] Speaker 2: I've worked for twenty years in this business and then
[15:25] Speaker 2: all of a sudden go So I've been through the
[15:27] Speaker 2: GFC and people buy experiences in tough times because it's
[15:31] Speaker 2: a little bit of lipstick. It makes them feel good.
[15:35] Speaker 2: So it's you know, not as expensive as taking somebody
[15:38] Speaker 2: to the Gold Coast. Let's have a day out, you know.
[15:42] Speaker 2: So we do find that, you know, we found that
[15:46] Speaker 2: even in the GFC that we were growing, but this
[15:50] Speaker 2: was different because nobody knew what was going to happen.
[15:54] Speaker 2: And so David, who is my business partner, who's the
[15:56] Speaker 2: group CEO of the overall Big Red Group, which includes
[16:00] Speaker 2: Balloon Adrenaline Experience, was everything new in New Zealand all
[16:05] Speaker 2: of the brands that we represent, He said, nomes need you.
[16:10] Speaker 2: And so I went back into the business and I
[16:12] Speaker 2: headed up our BE.
[16:13] Speaker 1: To B approach.
[16:14] Speaker 2: So all of our corporate went rolled up, my sleeves
[16:17] Speaker 2: got right stuck in and that gave me an opportunity
[16:21] Speaker 2: to speak to our corporate customers and find out what
[16:23] Speaker 2: was going on with them.
[16:24] Speaker 1: Were Sene care packages out that topic thing? Yeah, exactly
[16:29] Speaker 1: what you're talking about.
[16:30] Speaker 2: Well, I was just getting on the phone and finding
[16:32] Speaker 2: out what was going on. And what I did find
[16:35] Speaker 2: was a bigger the bigger end of town understood that
[16:40] Speaker 2: if small business disappears, they don't have any customers like
[16:45] Speaker 2: it's an ecosystem, and small business is the backbone of
[16:48] Speaker 2: this country. And so I found that many of our
[16:52] Speaker 2: corporate clients they got the link between you buy a
[16:56] Speaker 2: Red Balloon voucher, that's a customer for a small business.
[17:00] Speaker 2: So that in fact quite a tragic story. There was
[17:05] Speaker 2: so Toby, who's one of my colleagues. It was coming
[17:08] Speaker 2: up to the first year, and of course Victoria had
[17:10] Speaker 2: a hell of a time, and he made a corporate
[17:14] Speaker 2: salf for one of these experiences in a box, which
[17:16] Speaker 2: was an international chocolate tasting. Sounds pretty good to me anyway,
[17:22] Speaker 2: and he made this forty thousand dollars order and I said.
[17:24] Speaker 1: Oh with all of thety grand yeah, forty.
[17:26] Speaker 2: Grand worth of international chocolate tastings. And I said, oh,
[17:31] Speaker 2: you better call and make sure the logistics and all
[17:33] Speaker 2: of that sort of thing. Anyway, he called this woman
[17:35] Speaker 2: she's based in Victoria in Melbourne, and he picked up
[17:39] Speaker 2: the phone and goes, Hi, Toby from Re Balloon just
[17:41] Speaker 2: got this order, just want to check on the logistics.
[17:44] Speaker 2: And she burst into tears and she said, I've just
[17:46] Speaker 2: called the administrator. He goes, well, can you un call them?
[17:52] Speaker 2: Because I really wanted to deliver this. It literally saved
[17:54] Speaker 2: her business.
[17:55] Speaker 1: Wow.
[17:58] Speaker 2: That's what businesses need is customers.
[18:01] Speaker 1: And they need someone to connect them.
[18:02] Speaker 2: Yeah, because it's too expensive to find them on their own,
[18:06] Speaker 2: like the complexity of the channels and the mix and
[18:10] Speaker 2: the data.
[18:11] Speaker 1: It's hard.
[18:12] Speaker 2: So we do. We're their marketing company.
[18:15] Speaker 1: You're the drawpoint. You're sort of a war worse online
[18:18] Speaker 1: so to speak.
[18:19] Speaker 2: I don't know.
[18:21] Speaker 1: In terms of products. You're obviously offering services and products,
[18:25] Speaker 1: but you do the marketing and people come to your
[18:28] Speaker 1: shelves to see what it is like.
[18:30] Speaker 2: Them anything, we just take a clip of the ticket.
[18:33] Speaker 1: We're an agency, so that is veriable cost.
[18:35] Speaker 2: Yeah, so if they don't sell anything, it doesn't cost
[18:37] Speaker 2: them anything. But their job is to make sure the
[18:40] Speaker 2: experience is excellent. And because we have such buying power,
[18:44] Speaker 2: we get additional stuff for our customers, you know, value
[18:48] Speaker 2: adds and exclusives and everything on the way through. So
[18:51] Speaker 2: there's a benefit from buying for Red Balloon. You're going
[18:54] Speaker 2: to pay the same as if you went direct, but
[18:56] Speaker 2: there is a benefit and that's because we send them
[18:58] Speaker 2: so much business. We say, you look after the experience
[19:02] Speaker 2: and we'll deliver you. Customers and It's also why in
[19:05] Speaker 2: the review process it's really important to us because we're
[19:09] Speaker 2: not there on the day, so we read them, we
[19:11] Speaker 2: look at them, and if somebody's getting, you know, not
[19:16] Speaker 2: good reviews, they're going to get unpublished pretty quickly.
[19:19] Speaker 1: Would you just taken off?
[19:20] Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, And then we work with them and
[19:23] Speaker 2: say what's going on. It's actually a funny story. Don't
[19:26] Speaker 2: know if I should tell you this. This is in
[19:27] Speaker 2: the public domain, but there was an experienced supply who
[19:31] Speaker 2: also an amazing, very unique experience that also provided lunch,
[19:37] Speaker 2: and repeatedly we were getting feedback amazing experience, lunch disgusting,
[19:42] Speaker 2: wouldn't feed it to my dogs, you know, blah blah blah.
[19:45] Speaker 2: And we're like, oh, right, what's going on here? They
[19:47] Speaker 2: get unpublished and the team goes out and talks to
[19:52] Speaker 2: them and says, no, what's going on. They said, oh,
[19:55] Speaker 2: so there's a problem with the food. And he goes,
[19:57] Speaker 2: I know, there's a problem with the food. He goes,
[19:59] Speaker 2: my brother in law, So you're telling me I have
[20:01] Speaker 2: to fire him, and we go, yes, you have to
[20:02] Speaker 2: fire him. He goes great.
[20:04] Speaker 3: So, you know, so actually having that loop, you know,
[20:08] Speaker 3: helped him make a decision in his own business and
[20:12] Speaker 3: it was bad.
[20:13] Speaker 1: So you actually go up there and then helped the vendor.
[20:17] Speaker 1: The merchants, let's call the merchants.
[20:18] Speaker 2: Because we know what's going on, Like, we've got all
[20:20] Speaker 2: the trend data we like, we've literally invented experiences where
[20:24] Speaker 2: we know something is selling really well in one state,
[20:27] Speaker 2: well can you open it in another state? Can you
[20:31] Speaker 2: open it in another location? Yeah? Absolutely, we are absolutely
[20:34] Speaker 2: driving growth and we're driving employment growth.
[20:36] Speaker 1: How many small businesses would you have on I mean
[20:41] Speaker 1: I was going to ask you how many of you
[20:42] Speaker 1: had since you started this off in the twenty five years.
[20:45] Speaker 2: Ago, but I wouldn't know how many would you have
[20:47] Speaker 2: there at anyone right now, there's probably across all of
[20:50] Speaker 2: our platforms at least four and a half thousand small.
[20:53] Speaker 1: Businesses that we across Australia in New Zealand Australian Museum.
[20:57] Speaker 1: And when you think about it, when I think about it,
[21:02] Speaker 1: you would be a very good proxy to find out
[21:04] Speaker 1: how small businesses are going I know any one time.
[21:07] Speaker 2: Absolutely, absolutely we are a conduit directly to small businesses.
[21:14] Speaker 2: In fact, that's what I write about all the time
[21:18] Speaker 2: and I blog about is because we are in such
[21:21] Speaker 2: a journey of change right now. I've never seen more
[21:25] Speaker 2: change my whole life. I'm just back from a marketing
[21:27] Speaker 2: AI summit in San Francisco, and marketing has never changed
[21:32] Speaker 2: more than it has in the last eighteen months.
[21:34] Speaker 1: Could you explain that?
[21:36] Speaker 2: So the speed of change and our ability to execute,
[21:41] Speaker 2: and it's like it's cyclical. So we used to come
[21:44] Speaker 2: up with an idea, we'd execute a campaign maybe over
[21:48] Speaker 2: a particular period, but that would take three or four
[21:55] Speaker 2: weeks to execute. So what happened back in the day,
[21:58] Speaker 2: we were all generalists when it came to marketing, So
[22:01] Speaker 2: we would run full campaigns. We'd be brand managers and
[22:04] Speaker 2: we'd run all the campaigns and we'd have different sorts
[22:07] Speaker 2: of elements. Then what happened in business is they all
[22:09] Speaker 2: became specialists. In our organization, they're all specialists. So you've
[22:13] Speaker 2: got a performance marketing, you've got a search marketing, you've
[22:19] Speaker 2: got your CRM, you've got your merchandising, you've got so
[22:22] Speaker 2: if you want to run an end to end campaign,
[22:25] Speaker 2: you've got to get all those ducks in a line,
[22:27] Speaker 2: and it's slow. So the whole point about the AI
[22:32] Speaker 2: revolution when it comes to marketing is that the data
[22:36] Speaker 2: is feeding the execution and you've gone from having these
[22:40] Speaker 2: generalists to regaining the confidence over full campaign execution from
[22:47] Speaker 2: top to bottom. That's one of the changes going on
[22:50] Speaker 2: in marketing.
[22:50] Speaker 1: And how that affects, say, your business. Now, how are
[22:53] Speaker 1: you employed that into your business? What you learned you with.
[22:55] Speaker 2: Well, for instance, let's say there's three inbound and tourists
[23:01] Speaker 2: who are interested in skydiving.
[23:03] Speaker 1: If I've got an so three inquiries.
[23:05] Speaker 2: No, there's just three people out there in the wilderness
[23:08] Speaker 2: out there you haven't got are interested in this particular experience.
[23:11] Speaker 1: That you don't know, You don't, I don't know.
[23:14] Speaker 2: But if I have access to that data of their intention,
[23:19] Speaker 2: then I can serve them something about skydiving in Australia.
[23:25] Speaker 2: But I don't want to serve one hundred thousand people
[23:27] Speaker 2: something about skydiving in Australia because it's a very specific experience.
[23:32] Speaker 2: So that's also so it's like this marketing economist, it's
[23:36] Speaker 2: this cycle and it's the data is informing informing their
[23:41] Speaker 2: execution of any given campaign.
[23:43] Speaker 1: So do you get you have to somehow you're going
[23:45] Speaker 1: to scrape something to find out who those three people
[23:48] Speaker 1: are yes, Yeah, using AI I love that word scrape.
[23:52] Speaker 2: No, it's intention data. You know, we've got to figure
[23:55] Speaker 2: that's but that's that is what is now possible, and
[23:59] Speaker 2: also to have a visual and produce that customized conversation so.
[24:04] Speaker 1: Your supplies and or dash vendors you can sort of
[24:08] Speaker 1: your role is to sell that information to then get
[24:10] Speaker 1: more of those supplies onto your website, so you can
[24:12] Speaker 1: actually broaden out the experience of those three customers too.
[24:15] Speaker 2: Well, it depends which website we're talking about, because Red
[24:17] Speaker 2: Balloon we really look at who's the best in the market,
[24:21] Speaker 2: the exclusive nature of what we do for them because
[24:23] Speaker 2: we want to make sure that they're very success.
[24:25] Speaker 1: So you're going to curate that.
[24:27] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[24:28] Speaker 2: Absolutely, That's why people come to us. Okay, not anybody's
[24:31] Speaker 2: on just eleven point checklist on the quality approval and
[24:36] Speaker 2: we've got our staff picks and we've got our.
[24:40] Speaker 1: Yeah absolutely and reviews, et cetera. All of that.
[24:42] Speaker 2: That's why they come to us because we know what
[24:44] Speaker 2: we're doing. We've been doing it for a long time.
[24:46] Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, So you're going to Revluence curates this for
[24:50] Speaker 1: its for its consumer customer at the end of the day. Yeah,
[24:54] Speaker 1: so what is AI game to do in terms of efficiency?
[24:58] Speaker 1: Apart from that example we just gave me, what are
[25:00] Speaker 1: they saying in the United States? That which is that's
[25:04] Speaker 1: the center of all this, that's for all the new innovation,
[25:06] Speaker 1: is what are they saying in terms of efficiency and productivity?
[25:09] Speaker 1: Because we have this big productivity problem here in Australia
[25:13] Speaker 1: and US is way ahead of us in terms of
[25:15] Speaker 1: productivity growth. When I look at the numbers that get
[25:19] Speaker 1: published relative to our productivity numbers, what are they saying
[25:23] Speaker 1: over their relative to what AI is going to do
[25:25] Speaker 1: for their productivity environments?
[25:28] Speaker 2: So when we think about AI, first of all, it's
[25:31] Speaker 2: not a tech application. It is a fundamental shift in
[25:39] Speaker 2: in how we behave And so at the moment, one
[25:43] Speaker 2: of the things I'm writing about a lot is the
[25:45] Speaker 2: humanness of AI. So intelligence implies that there's some level
[25:52] Speaker 2: of cognition. There's not, so so we need to add
[25:57] Speaker 2: that cognition and that is the human element element. So
[26:01] Speaker 2: at the moment, this is kind of their genera And
[26:03] Speaker 2: I literally just publish a blog this morning on it.
[26:06] Speaker 2: This is kind of how it goes. People are like, oh,
[26:08] Speaker 2: I can do this so much faster, I can write
[26:10] Speaker 2: one whole article and I can get this done. They're
[26:14] Speaker 2: calling that slop. So shlop is that you're just producing
[26:17] Speaker 2: volumes of content without any real human or uniqueness to it.
[26:24] Speaker 1: Slop.
[26:25] Speaker 2: So I can do a lot of things faster, whatever
[26:28] Speaker 2: it is. I can do my expense return finally without
[26:31] Speaker 2: scraping through every single spreadsheet. But in business you might
[26:36] Speaker 2: just be speeding up bad processes. You have always done
[26:40] Speaker 2: those spreadsheets, so you're just doing them faster, and then
[26:42] Speaker 2: you put an agent over the top of it, and
[26:44] Speaker 2: now it's automated a bad process. So really, as business leaders,
[26:48] Speaker 2: we have to look at what is our overall strategy,
[26:50] Speaker 2: what did we say we needed to get done, and
[26:53] Speaker 2: then apply an AI thinking program to that. And the
[26:58] Speaker 2: best way to do that is to understand what people
[27:01] Speaker 2: love about their jobs and what they loathe about their jobs.
[27:04] Speaker 2: And it's a really interesting case study in the US
[27:08] Speaker 2: that I've been talking about, which is a bank and
[27:11] Speaker 2: they know that one of their pillars was growth, one
[27:14] Speaker 2: of their pillars was customer another one people, but how
[27:18] Speaker 2: we get most growth from our existing customers. Who has
[27:24] Speaker 2: the most contact with our customers? It's our contact centers.
[27:27] Speaker 2: Contact center won't touch AI. They'll do anything not to
[27:30] Speaker 2: touch it because they're fearful they're going to lose their
[27:32] Speaker 2: jobs fair enough. So they start this program and they're going, well,
[27:37] Speaker 2: what do you hate? What do you love? And if
[27:39] Speaker 2: we could get rid of the hate?
[27:41] Speaker 1: What do you hate?
[27:41] Speaker 2: Well, hate filling in a ticket, hate having you fill
[27:44] Speaker 2: up the form, hate having to do this.
[27:45] Speaker 1: What do you love?
[27:46] Speaker 2: I love chatting to customers online. So when they looked
[27:50] Speaker 2: at that and then developed the platform to support what
[27:55] Speaker 2: is it that humans do? Beautifully, judgment, design, creativity, That's
[28:00] Speaker 2: what we do. We do emotional connection, we do relationships.
[28:05] Speaker 2: A computer doesn't do that. Technology doesn't do that. So
[28:08] Speaker 2: it enables those people to do what they're absolutely best at.
[28:12] Speaker 2: Since they've launched that, they haven't had one team member leave.
[28:16] Speaker 2: So the people pillar also got an outcome, and they've
[28:19] Speaker 2: also increased their sales because they're real people talking to
[28:24] Speaker 2: real people.
[28:24] Speaker 1: They're spending more time doing what they love.
[28:26] Speaker 2: They're doing what they love, but they're also sufficient that
[28:30] Speaker 2: is efficient. So the execution, everybody's just at the moment
[28:38] Speaker 2: flapping around and so excited, but it will settle down
[28:41] Speaker 2: and I truly believe we're actually going to create more
[28:43] Speaker 2: jobs and more opportunity. Every wave is but we're in
[28:47] Speaker 2: an absolute time of flux right now as everybody works
[28:52] Speaker 2: out what does this mean? What does this mean for
[28:54] Speaker 2: my business model? Why am I still relevant? How am
[28:57] Speaker 2: I going to find customers? We're in a time of flux,
[29:02] Speaker 2: and it'll take a while to come out of it.
[29:05] Speaker 1: And it's going to take a while to sort of
[29:07] Speaker 1: a lay the fears that people think that their job
[29:10] Speaker 1: is going to be gone and.
[29:12] Speaker 2: To just reskill people. So you know, I was talking
[29:14] Speaker 2: about the marketing example before, and you know, now we
[29:17] Speaker 2: need to bring people on this journey. They're still smart
[29:21] Speaker 2: people who understand consumer experience, and it's just a matter
[29:27] Speaker 2: of having them realize that they can now take one
[29:30] Speaker 2: hundred percent accountability for a full campaign.
[29:33] Speaker 1: So where are your blogs now?
[29:34] Speaker 3: Me?
[29:35] Speaker 1: So people might want to watch that and read listen
[29:36] Speaker 1: to those. So they listen or read or listen, read
[29:40] Speaker 1: or watch.
[29:41] Speaker 2: Well, I've got Naomi Simpson dot com No p of
[29:45] Speaker 2: course in Simpson, which is where all my blogs are.
[29:47] Speaker 2: But they can also just follow me on LinkedIn because
[29:51] Speaker 2: I always announced when I've got a new blog there.
[29:53] Speaker 2: My newsletters on LinkedIn and I've got.
[29:56] Speaker 1: A podcast, have you now? And what's it called? Handpicked?
[30:00] Speaker 2: And that's where I talk about these particular issues that
[30:03] Speaker 2: I'm just trying to solve for and that I share
[30:05] Speaker 2: it with everybody.
[30:05] Speaker 1: Awesome. Yeah, it's funny how people like you and I
[30:09] Speaker 1: we get this sense that, isn't it great? We find
[30:13] Speaker 1: stuff out and we want to share it with everybody.
[30:15] Speaker 1: Have an opportunity to share what we find out, because
[30:18] Speaker 1: most people don't get the opportunity to do well.
[30:20] Speaker 2: There is so much stuff. And so I had stopped
[30:23] Speaker 2: writing and then about May last year, so you know,
[30:27] Speaker 2: good year ago. As somebody said, names if you stop writing,
[30:32] Speaker 2: who are we going to trust perform? But no, they
[30:35] Speaker 2: need trusted voices. They need somebody who's done the deep
[30:39] Speaker 2: thinking to look at the implications. And so that's why
[30:45] Speaker 2: I started writing again, started speaking again, started doing my
[30:49] Speaker 2: podcast again because I kind of gone into this non
[30:52] Speaker 2: executive career of being a board director, whereas actually I
[30:57] Speaker 2: think people need trusted voices. They need us.
[31:00] Speaker 1: So Naomi Nao and Ao m I Simpson without a
[31:05] Speaker 1: p dot com dot org just dot com dot com
[31:08] Speaker 1: and the other. The podcast is called again Handpicked, Handpicked
[31:12] Speaker 1: and where's that on Spotify?
[31:14] Speaker 2: All the usual things, Mammy Simpson.
[31:16] Speaker 1: Yeah, can I just I can't waste an opportunity to
[31:20] Speaker 1: talk to you about the budget if you don't mind,
[31:23] Speaker 1: and we're neither one of us are being political. But
[31:26] Speaker 1: let's just reflect on the federal budget that's just come out.
[31:30] Speaker 1: I'm not sure when this show will be published, but
[31:32] Speaker 1: you know it'll be still relevant even if it's publishing
[31:35] Speaker 1: a week from today. What do you think about the
[31:39] Speaker 1: federal budget? Let's talk about for a start, discretionary trust.
[31:46] Speaker 1: Just structuously.
[31:47] Speaker 2: Let me roll it back a bit first. Okay, I'm
[31:49] Speaker 2: really clear about my opinion of what's going on in
[31:52] Speaker 2: the budget, and I'm happy to share that with you
[31:55] Speaker 2: if you get here that I am all set to
[31:58] Speaker 2: rock and roll on this.
[32:00] Speaker 1: Look.
[32:00] Speaker 2: I studied economics, so I get some understanding of how
[32:03] Speaker 2: the levers work. What I see in this budget is
[32:09] Speaker 2: they're trying to do too much too quickly, and pulling
[32:14] Speaker 2: all the leavers at once means we won't know what's
[32:17] Speaker 2: working and it will put the economy into a state
[32:20] Speaker 2: of fear. We do not want our businesses in a
[32:24] Speaker 2: state of fear when they're going through so much tea
[32:28] Speaker 2: already change right, they're already going, oh my gosh, what
[32:32] Speaker 2: does this mean for my business? And now on the
[32:33] Speaker 2: other side, am I going to make any money? So
[32:36] Speaker 2: too much too quickly? So so having a you know,
[32:39] Speaker 2: CGT negative gearing testamentary trust, all of those sorts of things.
[32:44] Speaker 2: It's too much. Just why the hurry. They've been given
[32:48] Speaker 2: a runway and yet they're trying to do it all
[32:50] Speaker 2: in one budget. I think that is very unwise for
[32:53] Speaker 2: the Australian people. That is not a political state.
[32:57] Speaker 1: Were you're saying that for I could just be clear
[32:59] Speaker 1: on that. You're saying that too much too fast. But
[33:02] Speaker 1: more importantly, the net effect on small business community, at
[33:06] Speaker 1: least the ones that you're talking to, is that they're
[33:09] Speaker 1: completely confused and now flowming.
[33:11] Speaker 2: It's completely overwhelmed, completely overwhelmed, overwhelmed, completely like are you
[33:16] Speaker 2: telling me I've worked my whole life and blah blah blah. Anyway,
[33:19] Speaker 2: so let's just roll it back. And they said, this
[33:21] Speaker 2: is for housing. We need to get young people into housing.
[33:25] Speaker 2: If you dip deep into that budget, actually there's thirty
[33:28] Speaker 2: five thousand less houses going to be built this year
[33:31] Speaker 2: than last year. Why is this so so if you're
[33:34] Speaker 2: not fixing the structural issues of what is wrong with
[33:39] Speaker 2: the construction industry. So in Victoria it costs you more
[33:43] Speaker 2: to build an apartment than you can sell it for
[33:45] Speaker 2: and that is because it costs eighteen percent more this
[33:50] Speaker 2: year than last year to build one.
[33:52] Speaker 1: Wow, why is this?
[33:53] Speaker 2: So have you looked at the regulations like just getting
[33:58] Speaker 2: an approval if you're holding costs of probably five years.
[34:03] Speaker 2: So they've got to look at the structural things. The
[34:06] Speaker 2: other thing is that Airbnb has had a huge impact
[34:12] Speaker 2: on entry level properties. So people if my generation, we
[34:16] Speaker 2: bought a little flat that was our first thing, and
[34:19] Speaker 2: then as soon as we either partnered with somebody, or
[34:23] Speaker 2: we got married or we had a baby, we moved
[34:26] Speaker 2: to the next one and we sold that one, put
[34:28] Speaker 2: the equity from that in the new one. Now they
[34:33] Speaker 2: keep it and they put it on Airbnb, and so
[34:36] Speaker 2: it's taken out of our community. It's not rented to
[34:39] Speaker 2: our community, nor is it providing you know, a first
[34:44] Speaker 2: home for somebody else. So there's some really structural things
[34:48] Speaker 2: that I think if they don't look at the structural stuff,
[34:50] Speaker 2: all it's going to do is be an impost on
[34:54] Speaker 2: people look I could get really quite wound up about this.
[34:58] Speaker 2: Let me to save a few others things as.
[35:01] Speaker 1: Let's get wound up, because I want to get wound up.
[35:03] Speaker 1: I am wound up, but it's not political.
[35:05] Speaker 2: I'm just thinking about the structural stuff. So first of
[35:08] Speaker 2: another thing on the CGT, for instance, to tax investment
[35:14] Speaker 2: over consumption is to be a disincentive for investment. So
[35:22] Speaker 2: every Western country with CGT always has the tax rate
[35:28] Speaker 2: at a less rate because they've already paid the consumption
[35:33] Speaker 2: tax the income the way in on the way in,
[35:36] Speaker 2: so you're double taxing, which is an absolute disincentive for
[35:42] Speaker 2: people to invest, which means they may as well consume.
[35:47] Speaker 2: We have four offspring. One of them thinks he's just
[35:49] Speaker 2: going to spend everything, and I'm like, you're never going
[35:52] Speaker 2: to own a home, and it goes don't see why,
[35:55] Speaker 2: So he's just consuming, which of course is dry during
[36:00] Speaker 2: inflation because there's no incentive. The other thing is many
[36:04] Speaker 2: young people, because that can't get into the home market,
[36:07] Speaker 2: are investing in bitcoin or stock market, or they've got
[36:11] Speaker 2: their small investment portfolios small business, which is now a
[36:16] Speaker 2: disincentive for them to do that. So I again, I
[36:21] Speaker 2: just don't think doing all of these things at the
[36:24] Speaker 2: same time is wise. You know, if we think about
[36:29] Speaker 2: how the Japanese think or the Chinese think, they have
[36:32] Speaker 2: a hundred year strategy. If we want to move to
[36:35] Speaker 2: a different sort of tax system, don't do it all
[36:39] Speaker 2: at once. Just give us time to catch up with you,
[36:42] Speaker 2: what do you.
[36:43] Speaker 1: Think about the narrative that we're doing all these things
[36:46] Speaker 1: because we want to fix this intergenerational inequity. In other words,
[36:53] Speaker 1: Naomi's got all the assets and her kids probably not
[36:58] Speaker 1: your kids, but kids between twenty and thirty not going
[37:03] Speaker 1: to have any of assets. Therefore, there is a generational inequity.
[37:06] Speaker 1: You've got too much, they're not good enough.
[37:08] Speaker 2: Yeah, but Mark, I came from nothing.
[37:10] Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, what do you think about that narrative?
[37:12] Speaker 2: Well, well, the reason why I have what I have
[37:16] Speaker 2: now is because I worked really hard for a long time.
[37:20] Speaker 2: I invested in myself in my education. And back in
[37:24] Speaker 2: the day when I was at university, thank you GoF Whitlam,
[37:28] Speaker 2: I got a free education and I never would have
[37:31] Speaker 2: gone to university without that. So I believe in investing
[37:35] Speaker 2: in education because that's what drives growth in an economy.
[37:40] Speaker 2: And so education is going through unbelievable change. So just
[37:45] Speaker 2: keeping putting impults on universities and tertiary institutions also is
[37:49] Speaker 2: not the right thing to do. So the reason why
[37:54] Speaker 2: I could get ahead was I had aspiration that has
[37:58] Speaker 2: been taken away. I had an incentive to do so,
[38:03] Speaker 2: so yes, if you invest. And the other thing is
[38:06] Speaker 2: the sweat equity. I didn't pay myself for the first
[38:09] Speaker 2: ten years. I'm not sure I still pay myself, you
[38:12] Speaker 2: know it Like if I had got a job, I
[38:15] Speaker 2: probably would have been better off and said, you know
[38:18] Speaker 2: you don't They don't pick that up anywhere. That was
[38:22] Speaker 2: an input to the growth of the businesses. I think
[38:25] Speaker 2: I'm ranting now, Mark.
[38:26] Speaker 1: No you're not because because and I think you're a
[38:30] Speaker 1: perfect example of what we won't get no for the future,
[38:35] Speaker 1: and we won't have red balloons. No, look so ty businesses. No.
[38:40] Speaker 2: Because I was on a university board University in Melbourne
[38:43] Speaker 2: business and Economics faculty for ten years. And the reason
[38:47] Speaker 2: why I was on it was because seventy percent of
[38:50] Speaker 2: undergraduates wanted to own their own business and they see
[38:54] Speaker 2: me as a role model. Well, if she can do it,
[38:57] Speaker 2: how do I get that done? She could tell us
[38:59] Speaker 2: that to get that done. And so now it's like,
[39:04] Speaker 2: you know what, it's pretty risky starting your own business.
[39:08] Speaker 2: And you know what else this has shown this is
[39:09] Speaker 2: they can just change the rules anytime they like. So
[39:12] Speaker 2: you know what, I might just go and get myself
[39:14] Speaker 2: a job or so where does innovation come from? Where
[39:18] Speaker 2: does the investment come? You want us to build factories
[39:22] Speaker 2: and manufacturing? Why how could we what with you know that?
[39:28] Speaker 2: So they're asking us to onshore in this de globalization
[39:33] Speaker 2: key infrastructure we're going but how like And the other
[39:39] Speaker 2: thing is that Australia doesn't operate in isolation and people
[39:43] Speaker 2: have a choice, and we are going to get a
[39:45] Speaker 2: brain drain. You want to start a business, Maybe I'll
[39:49] Speaker 2: go and find another jurisdiction.
[39:52] Speaker 1: Apparently no coal gas takes Yeah, not bad place. Or Singapore,
[39:55] Speaker 1: go Singpool much lower rate. We'll go to the US
[39:58] Speaker 1: fifteen percent like and which, by the way, everybody's doing well.
[40:03] Speaker 1: Could I just drag it a little bit into the politics?
[40:05] Speaker 1: I mean just a little bit, just a little bit, okay,
[40:08] Speaker 1: and you can push back if you want. But do
[40:11] Speaker 1: you think when young kids put up a meme showing
[40:17] Speaker 1: alban EASi and they do it in a sort of
[40:19] Speaker 1: semi respectful funny way of them having to share the
[40:23] Speaker 1: proceeds of the start of the business with the government.
[40:26] Speaker 1: They put Alban his photo up there, but it's a
[40:29] Speaker 1: character zure of him or it's not real funny gets
[40:32] Speaker 1: a play play around with them. And the response that
[40:35] Speaker 1: the Prime Minister says is, look, I just want to
[40:37] Speaker 1: thank you very much for picking a good photograph of me.
[40:41] Speaker 1: You know, young people, and that's your business. Do you
[40:44] Speaker 1: think they but they think you just dismissed my objection.
[40:50] Speaker 1: It's patronizing, patronizing me. Yeah, yeah, because they're.
[40:53] Speaker 2: Giving him real valid feedback on how this occurs.
[40:57] Speaker 1: But they're fairly respectful. They're not sort of doing finger
[41:00] Speaker 1: to them. They're actually playing being playful. Yeah, but at
[41:03] Speaker 1: the same time, there's there's a real problem there. There
[41:05] Speaker 1: really are.
[41:06] Speaker 2: They're not real problem. And also I just am fearful
[41:12] Speaker 2: any government who actually doesn't understand how commerce works, just
[41:16] Speaker 2: how business works. I don't know, you know, I came
[41:20] Speaker 2: from nothing, like literally nothing, and I would be fearful
[41:29] Speaker 2: if people didn't think that that was worth having a
[41:32] Speaker 2: crack anymore. That's what it was to be Australian give
[41:36] Speaker 2: it a crack. You know, we had totally vented the hills,
[41:39] Speaker 2: Hoist and Google.
[41:40] Speaker 1: Maps, Wi Fi.
[41:41] Speaker 2: Yeah, we invented them all. Where are a country of innovations?
[41:44] Speaker 2: We had to be a country of innovation because we're
[41:47] Speaker 2: so far from anywhere. And now they're saying, oh, don't bother.
[41:50] Speaker 2: That's how it occurs to us. And you know, when
[41:54] Speaker 2: we look at economies that have done well in attracting innovation,
[41:58] Speaker 2: israeland so many of the countries that have just all
[42:04] Speaker 2: they've done is they haven't the government hasn't invested in
[42:07] Speaker 2: those businesses. But all they've done is give them tax breaks.
[42:10] Speaker 2: So but they're paying tax and payroll tax, they're employing people.
[42:14] Speaker 2: There's plenty of tax they're still paying. So I just
[42:19] Speaker 2: we're operating in this myopic view that we're operating in isolation,
[42:25] Speaker 2: and we're not. And so people will have a choice.
[42:28] Speaker 2: And I do think that what allowed me to get
[42:32] Speaker 2: ahead has been taken away from my kids generation.
[42:36] Speaker 1: If I go back twenty five years or twenty six
[42:38] Speaker 1: years and said to you in today's environment, if you
[42:43] Speaker 1: were you know, you're much younger self, and but you
[42:48] Speaker 1: know you're going to get the tax the hell out
[42:50] Speaker 1: of it. Do you reckon you would have you might
[42:54] Speaker 1: have said, look, I'm not going to do this. I
[42:56] Speaker 1: don't know, but one of my so I think that's
[42:58] Speaker 1: what they're saying. No, if they're saying, but you'll copet sweet,
[43:01] Speaker 1: your name, the names of the world in the Marc Wors,
[43:05] Speaker 1: just do it. They'll do it anyway, because they're always
[43:06] Speaker 1: going to do it.
[43:07] Speaker 2: But I don't think so.
[43:08] Speaker 3: I don't know whether Denmark in the eighties, it's a
[43:12] Speaker 3: very long time ago, and their tax rate was seventy percent,
[43:17] Speaker 3: you know, in their top income tax rate and whatever,
[43:21] Speaker 3: and I didn't understand the whole of their tax system,
[43:23] Speaker 3: but I didn't know that was a disincentive.
[43:25] Speaker 2: It's working hard. And I also know that the you know,
[43:29] Speaker 2: the luxury car tax was like two hundred percent or something,
[43:32] Speaker 2: and I remember thinking, you won't want to drive a
[43:34] Speaker 2: luxury car here, and and so I do think it's
[43:39] Speaker 2: a disincentive. And I think that given the world doesn't
[43:44] Speaker 2: so much change anyway, putting yourself out on a limb,
[43:50] Speaker 2: I just I think people will make choices.
[43:54] Speaker 1: Do you think that the gunman's brain dead or I just.
[43:57] Speaker 2: Don't think they have commercial experience, Come and sit in
[44:00] Speaker 2: our office for a couple of days. See how hard
[44:03] Speaker 2: it is to make a sale. See what we fight
[44:06] Speaker 2: against every day, which is the faceless algorithm. That's what
[44:11] Speaker 2: we fight every day. We cannot even see our foe
[44:14] Speaker 2: and understand the fear in which it is to be
[44:18] Speaker 2: a business owner. People look to us for safety and security,
[44:23] Speaker 2: and it is very hard. And because of the work
[44:27] Speaker 2: we've done for such a long time, we have created
[44:30] Speaker 2: incredible employment, not just in our own business, but through
[44:34] Speaker 2: our ecosystem.
[44:36] Speaker 1: And they all pay payroll tax, they all pay they
[44:38] Speaker 1: collected the income tax, they pay.
[44:40] Speaker 2: That and guess what they pay GST collect it and
[44:44] Speaker 2: cossumption tax. We don't want tax. We want to encourage
[44:48] Speaker 2: people to invest in our nation, invest in growth, to
[44:53] Speaker 2: create more jobs that right now we're in a state
[44:56] Speaker 2: of flux.
[44:57] Speaker 1: I hope Jim Chalmers can or the camera pick for
[45:00] Speaker 1: Jim Chalmers those piercing blue eyes as you were saying that,
[45:03] Speaker 1: because you're very convincing. But I'm serious, Jim, you have
[45:07] Speaker 1: to have a look at this. No, but that's the point.
[45:09] Speaker 1: They're not consulting with pop like you or me or anybody.
[45:14] Speaker 2: Look sit and watch what it is like to find
[45:18] Speaker 2: a customer, keep a customer, serve a customer, have them
[45:21] Speaker 2: come back.
[45:22] Speaker 1: You're still doing it, like me, We're still doing it.
[45:24] Speaker 1: But what do you feel? Because I get quite annoyed
[45:27] Speaker 1: then when I see Paul Keating come up and say
[45:29] Speaker 1: the people like you and me who are saying these things,
[45:32] Speaker 1: or where the typical rich, older people who have a
[45:35] Speaker 1: coming with his words but basically being and gorging ourselves
[45:40] Speaker 1: on the luxury of all these various capital gains, tax discounts,
[45:43] Speaker 1: et cetera. Like you come from nothing, and I've battled
[45:48] Speaker 1: every minute of every day and I'm still doing it
[45:51] Speaker 1: in my businesses. I mean, I've got thousands of people
[45:53] Speaker 1: work for me, and I feel responsible for every one
[45:55] Speaker 1: of them, every one of them.
[45:57] Speaker 2: There's also no set and forget ever business.
[46:00] Speaker 3: Now.
[46:01] Speaker 2: You wake up one day, you thought you were going
[46:03] Speaker 2: to know what your day was going to look like.
[46:04] Speaker 2: Didn't look like that.
[46:05] Speaker 1: That's not what it's like.
[46:07] Speaker 2: And something can come from left field anywhere. I really
[46:13] Speaker 2: believe that if people could work in a small business,
[46:18] Speaker 2: I've one of my first jobs was in a dry cleaner.
[46:21] Speaker 2: It was Dennis Dry Cleaner and Campbellwell, Victoria, and they
[46:26] Speaker 2: it was a fifty year old business. And you know,
[46:29] Speaker 2: if you want to understand, like I got such a
[46:32] Speaker 2: lesson in life about just cleaning people's clothes, you know,
[46:37] Speaker 2: And I think that that fundamental of just seeing how
[46:42] Speaker 2: the dollar transfers through an enterprise and a.
[46:46] Speaker 1: Little that is left.
[46:48] Speaker 2: So I just sit in our shoes from it, I
[46:52] Speaker 2: mean really sit in our shoes.
[46:54] Speaker 1: Yeah, we don't actually have a meeting with us as
[46:55] Speaker 1: should come out. That's the problem. The problem is that
[46:58] Speaker 1: politicians who are formulating all these sort of policies which
[47:01] Speaker 1: they probably think are really important ideologically, but they're making
[47:07] Speaker 1: decisions based on ideology which doesn't have any contact or
[47:11] Speaker 1: any relevance to actually the reality. Reality is important. Party.
[47:16] Speaker 2: Well look, let me let me say they do it,
[47:21] Speaker 2: I believe with the best interests at heart, but I
[47:25] Speaker 2: don't think that they're fully informed. And back to my
[47:28] Speaker 2: first point, they're just doing too much too quickly. What
[47:31] Speaker 2: about change changing by a few percent instead of being
[47:35] Speaker 2: so dramatic about it.
[47:37] Speaker 1: Maybe that's got something to do with the fact that
[47:38] Speaker 1: they don't want to go an election and do anything
[47:41] Speaker 1: else down the track was so they're going to get
[47:42] Speaker 1: asked about these things, and maybe they're thinking there's enough
[47:44] Speaker 1: time between here and the date of the next election
[47:47] Speaker 1: that these things might get forgotten about it, and that
[47:49] Speaker 1: we and it could be a miscalculation, but that we
[47:53] Speaker 1: will forget about it. And I don't think it's got
[47:55] Speaker 1: that old mate me either. I got one final question
[47:58] Speaker 1: just slightly lighter. Slightly lighter, but you know, equally inspirational
[48:03] Speaker 1: and motivational for people who are listening. If you look
[48:06] Speaker 1: back at your career, what do you think, and it's
[48:09] Speaker 1: probably hard to do. What is one of the greatest
[48:11] Speaker 1: milestones that you have ever encountered. So there are things
[48:17] Speaker 1: in life that just keep delivering. The more time goes on,
[48:21] Speaker 1: the more you appreciate them. Seventy five years of pen
[48:24] Speaker 1: files range, once tasted, never forgotten. Let's keep going.
[48:29] Speaker 2: Red Balloon early days, the millionth customer, Oh wow, just
[48:36] Speaker 2: you know, now we serve millions of customers a year.
[48:39] Speaker 2: But when we got to that million milestone and people
[48:43] Speaker 2: had heard of Red Balloon more than they hadn't, that
[48:46] Speaker 2: was amazing, like really amazing.
[48:49] Speaker 1: Just that first million, Yeah, that would have been extremely satisfying.
[48:56] Speaker 2: It took ten years, ten years and now we do
[48:58] Speaker 2: that in like not months. But yeah, now the velocity
[49:03] Speaker 2: is so wonderful and building that, but that was just
[49:08] Speaker 2: a milestone of my gosh, I think we're going to
[49:11] Speaker 2: make it. And I guess that's one of the things
[49:15] Speaker 2: we never really have. If you start your own show,
[49:18] Speaker 2: you remember your first customer. You remember when there was
[49:20] Speaker 2: none custom no customers, and at any point somebody could
[49:24] Speaker 2: take the whole thing away, and we are always in
[49:26] Speaker 2: that fear.
[49:27] Speaker 1: Jerry Harvey Tom exactly the same thing. One day he
[49:31] Speaker 1: said to me that what he fears most is something
[49:34] Speaker 1: what's going to happen that he doesn't even know what's
[49:36] Speaker 1: going to happen. It could just take everything away, and
[49:39] Speaker 1: someone as successful as he's been. And by the way,
[49:42] Speaker 1: I think the same way, because when you've come from nothing,
[49:44] Speaker 1: you always think something's going to happen, something's going to
[49:46] Speaker 1: come and take it all away. Wenami Simpson thinks you're
[49:50] Speaker 1: in the you're own the experiences business. But importantly, thanks
[49:54] Speaker 1: for sharing your personal experience without audience. It's been really good,
[49:59] Speaker 1: really great to catch up.
[50:00] Speaker 2: Great to see Thanks for having me. Mark

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