Welcome to the mentor.

I'm Mark Boris.

Can I get some quick sort of quick hits from you?

So from our small business community listens to us a small business audience, maybe some tips as to what small business owners in terms of marketing should not do.

You know, what's something they shouldn't do?

And you've maybe you've seen this happen, but there's some tips says to what they should not do.

Yeah, I think most entrepreneurs are naturally reactive.

They're always switched on, They're always thinking.

They see something, it gives them idea, They text, they pivot, they change.

So that tenacity and I guess competitiveness and reactiveness is a good thing, but it can also get you in a knot.

So I think, as I said before, it's about having that fundamental strategy.

And if it's a one pager on who's my audience, how do they think?

How do they buy?

Here's our messages and you have that cheat sheet, put it on your bed, put it on your desk, put it in your actually just referencing that before you go and make that snap decision and go.

Does this comply with how people are thinking of what we're doing?

Yes?

Do it?

Because Otherwise you'll be waking up every single day and you'll see this social media trend or you'll see this, or you'll hear someone saying be on radio, or change this, or move your manufacturing to China, and you'll you'll try and do it all.

So I think have that north star.

And alignment piece and as your guideline, as your guideline.

So because entrepreneurs by usually by definition, tend to get distracted easily.

Yeah, and they hear something's gone really well, or should I be doing that?

Yeah, I mean you just have something you've experienced with people.

They're sort of bouncering a lot.

Absolutely, and I think it's actually quite interesting.

We started working with small businesses who have their own money, and now we've sort of worked our way up into large enterprise because when you are dealing with the customer and it's actually their money, the Yeah, it's far more I guess reactive, and there is there is pressure, so again you have to be far more reactive.

So yeah, naturally entrepreneurs are active, which is as a pro and a con.

That's your point too.

Before that you're making earlier too, because big organizations go strategic and they roll it out small owners, small smaller business owners spending their own money and they get influences you need buy something else and then become tactical and you forget about the strategy.

And I think one of the big takeaways from this discussion from a big organization looks after your organization, looks after big clients, is that no matter who you are, build a strategy yes day one, and try and stick to it at least as you say, it's your north star.

Try not to move way too much from it.

Is there something that you've seen You know, obviously you've seen some good smaller businesses, good entrepreneurs.

I mean it was a great example that they kicked off as a small business in Australia effectively now is a huge business.

Are there some things that you would tell small business owners our audience that have worked and turned small businesses into big businesses, apart from being strategic and sticking to the strategy, mean, are there are there some sort of guidelines you could sort of leave us with what's worked for some of your now bigger clients.

Who wants for small clients?

And by the way, everybody, everybody at some stage or other was a small business.

They all start off a small business.

General Electric was invented by Thomas Edison in eighteen fifty six and he invented a light bulb and he turned it into a company called General Electric.

Now it's one of the biggest companies of the world, but.

It started off as a small business.

Every business starts that way.

Whober included CBA, Commic Bank, Westpac, whoever you want to talk about.

What have you seen that makes that?

Is there a one or two consistent things that seems to be president of every small business that becomes a successful, bigger business.

For me, at the beginning, it's all about revenue.

How do you make that phone ring?

How do you make that till ring?

And that's where your focus should be.

We get very obsessed when we're business owners around our brand and our logo and our colors and making sure everything's perfect.

The focus should be on what makes the phone ring, ensuring I look after my people, and so for me, small business lead generation, sales generation, and those tactics need to be your fundamental that you get right and then work out the sexy stuff after that.

And are there any particular right now, Are there any particular platforms mediums that are working better than others, I mean other outstanding mediums.

Yeah, look at it.

Obviously depends on the business and where you need to be.

I think, let's say retail retail, I think or the issue that online digital retail you should be.

You know, your Google Search, Google Shop, and then obviously your performance platforms like Meta and TikTok in terms of performance ads and by performance ads.

I mean, what's that mean.

I don't know what that means.

Yeah, it's a good question.

So you've got your grid that you post on, which is for your community for you, however many thousand followers, and you go on there.

But then it's your dark ads, which run through a targeted platform where you can go and punch in who you want to find.

Let's say I was trying to sell the hyperbaric chambers.

I say high net worth, active blah blah blah blah blah, And I get an ad and I post up that single ad, and I say send it to those people.

So they're not necessarily a follower, but Facebook, Meta, Instagram knows who they are and it will put those ads in their feed.

That is the quickest way to get straight to exactly who you need to and it's the most targeted, potent search criteria that there is out.

There that's interesting.

And you call it dark as I love that name.

We've never actually gone out looking for anybody on now because we're just a broadcaster.

But we don't have a product.

But what you're saying to me is that I can do whatever I want on my stories and I can put it every one on my grid on Instagram for argument's sake.

But if we had a product that we wanted to sell, then we'd be doing this so called.

We would profile the person.

Who I have now as a result of talking to have researched, and that's my buyer.

I would profile them off to whoever it is Instagram or something all meta, and then I'll pay fee and they'll find those people correct, and then they will send it.

Then will develop the message ye, and then or might come to you and you will develop the message for me, and then we'll hit them.

We'll hit them, and you can even go as far as putting your objective in there around do I want them to watch the video or do I want to send them to my website?

It just met it does.

Do the platforms ask you do they prompt.

You basically take you through a survey or a questionnaire where you say, who's the person, what do you want them to do?

It's very intuitive and I think, you know, most people can go through this platform themselves and build something out and.

I can't go.

I can't let you go without asking one quick question.

Should I using chat you to write mads for me as both to coming to you?

Ah, it's a funny one.

But you're not looking.

You don't laugh at that hard.

Yeah, yeah, it's interesting.

It's coming to talk to me about it?

How do you guys use it?

How will you use it?

It's funny because we actually say that, you know, chat GPT is amazing as a baseline and you can get a lot of ideas from it, but we also have a rule in our agency that we don't want to be spitting out things that everyone else has access to.

Which CHATJP do will do?

Which which it will do?

Is it tastes one common denominator?

It grab grabs everything.

It's like a mass internet search and or can put pull a lot together and spit out an answer.

So we say we run that process and say, well, we don't use anything that comes up on that list because it's too generic.

So for us in that sort of you know, top tier, we say, well that's our don't do list.

But I guess for smaller, medium sized business, it's the power of that thing is phenomenal in terms of and even that research we spoke about before, of understanding my audience, how do they think?

Where do they buy?

You could ask chat GPT those questions and it could be your strategist for you.

So because someone might have already published something about exactly that topic and chat GP you'll go and find it somewhere.

It'll go to the the dark depths and pull everything that's relevant together and give you a you know, a one page cheat sheet on.

What you should do.

It's not a bad starter.

It's a great starter.

It's funny, you know, because the US not that long ago, about any months I thought I'd try it, and I know I was making a speech and I asked, I had already written spear to be to write to miss speech said give me my coming.

How many words was this my audience has gone talking about blah blah, And it gave me It was not bad like it was as you said.

It was very generic.

It wasn't It wasn't what I wanted to deliver.

It didn't have enough personal stuff in there, my story stuff.

But it wouldn't have known about my story stuff because I not published my story stuff, so it's not going to pick up my stuff.

But it was actually not a bad yardstick meat for me to look at in terms of what other people have talked about.

It was about leadership or something like that, and it wasn't a bad yards to go on based on what you know, John F.

Kennedy might have said about leadership.

You know, it drags that sort of stuff in for you.

It gives you a few little nice markers and says to me, in relation to the speech i'd written, I'm on the right track.

It wasn't what I was going to say, but I'm on the right track.

It gives you a bit of confidence if you're you know, like not that I'm not someone who's sort of lacking in confidence, but other people are starting off business and they sort of go through the exosse your time talking about and you know, and they've done all the research and they've worked out the researching says this is what the message was saying.

Is perhaps the language the message should be put into and these are the platforms are going to go to.

You've done your work, Yeah, try it out, give it a crack and see if there's any variability between what you've come up with and what someone else has already probably said problems.

Chat to Journey goes to twenty twenty one.

It doesn't go beyond that, but doesn't matter.

You're going to get a bit of a guideline.

Yeah, correct, And I think you know there's a lot of I guess when it's starting business.

I guess you know blind spots.

You know I know how to make X, and you know I don't know how to do the financials or even the marketing.

I think it can give you a really nice I guess entry point into some of these worlds.

And yeah, writing ads and writing copy for social posts certainly in an area it can help you with.

For sure.

I say AI won't take your jobs, But the people who aren't prepared to lean into AI.

Are in trouble, which means what it means.

They're the ones that are going to know their jobs.

They need to they need to upscale, they need to at least get their head around what's going on at the moment.

Interesting you talk about healthcare.

I was just saying to Sammy before I came in that it launched a couple of years ago, but it went actually live last week in China.

There's now an AI hospital can treat ten thousand patients a day.

Wow, was developed by one of the universities over there, and it is all AI driven AI doctors, AI nurses, AI ad men, ten thousand patients a day.

Yeah, it's funny you should say, because I was only thinking a few days ago and actually again this morning about mortgage breaking industry, which I mean, I'm a big mortge business, and I can see it sort of being AI driven at some stage and then AI you know, you might want a mortgage.

You might be buying the house you just sold and they need to borrow some money, and you could go into whatever the protocol ischalrod AI and that's your marks broker.

I'm already working with a few brokers to do something similar agents because they've we've identified that different segments within the market may not necessarily want yeah exactly, or they want to get to a certain point before they go okay, well, now I want to engage mark and have a proper conversation.

But maybe they're shift workers, maybe they're you know, for whatever reason, they want to do their due diligence unto a point.

So we've been developing protocols for these people where yeah, you can just jump on and have a chat, but not just a type chat, like you can have a virtual conversation.

So we're developing video AI like video avatars and voice avatars that are multi.

Lingual, you know.

So it gets over that that.

Issue of that's not hard TRAI to do that.

It's really easy exactly.

It just comes down to and this is what I say to people now, like it's only limited by your imagination.

So if you are concerned that AI could take your job, do something about it, Like start to look into Okay, well what don't I like about the job that I do?

Now that I can outsource to AI, that's going to allow my skill set that I am really good at to be of more value to the organization or to my clients.

That's very interesting.

What are the things would you, apart from buying a book, would you offer as tips to business owners in relation to where artificial intelligence belongs in their business?

For example, at the coffee shop next door.

You've just got to start having a play.

So really, if you know, just open AI Chat, GPT, Microsoft co Pilot, whatever your choice is.

Just start having a play.

And often it's about playing it's something in your personal life as opposed to a business.

So as an example, a couple of grand babies.

So we write them Christmas book every year.

So we just kind of put in the stuff that they've done through the year, and we let the system write a Christmas book and we put some photos to it.

So you instructed.

So THEO and Charlie, they're this age, they do this.

They like going here, they hang out with mom and dad, you know, all that.

Kind of stuff.

It writes a book, we put some pictures to it, and you get a printed create.

Yeah, we create a scavenger hunt.

You know, we write the Christmas menu.

So write grandma her a poem for her birthday.

So just start having.

A play with it in a way that is non threatening or feels like it's not going to have an impact if it goes wrong.

Right, And often people, particularly if their business owners, go oh, I can't do this yet, because what if it goes pair shaped?

Okay, we'll play with something in your personal life that is non threat and then once you go, oh, okay, it's actually pretty good at that, Well, then what could that look like if you started using that in your business.

It's interesting because I do that.

That's sort of where I started to and I started asking questions about I talked about politics at one stage because it was we just had some election.

I started talking about health, and then then I started to open up a little bit and like just gradually doing things to try and try and beat the system sort of thing, if you know what I mean.

Just I want to see how people see how can I sort of get under its skin or can I do?

I know more about the topic than it knows.

It's funny, you know.

I asked one question about I said, well, well you just the answer you just gave me.

Is there any.

Scholarly articles on this?

And I knew two scholarly articles on it, and they only gave me one of them.

And I then went said, what about Is there a schol another scholar the article on this, like like more of an abstract, like a PhD s type thing.

And I said no, but I knew there was because I've got it.

I've seen it, I've read it.

And is that an example of hallucination.

Yeah, or it may not have picked up that information yet, depending on how how recent.

That abstract result you had.

Okay, then it's five years old.

Yeah, then it's it's just trying to pull one over you.

It does happen to get lazy.

You mean again, I think when it's doing the update for the new system, like I've had to.

And it's interesting that we noticed this.

But if you type in all.

Caps, if you when you're putting in so.

If you type in all caps, that's considered yelling, right, not really, Yeah, So if you send it someone a text message in all caps or an email in all caps, that's considered that you're yelling at aggressive.

So if you type in.

All caps, I thinks you're being aggressive, and it will give you a better response.

Really, Now, do it over and over again, and it will start to get pete off with you and it will go the other way.

No, no, no, and they.

So that's great, justn emotion.

But the thing that concerns me is the architects behind these systems don't know why it does that.

So it's one thing to kind of go, oh, that's kind of cool, like the other one we know, on average, and this is a rough average, if you say please and thank you when you interact and you're polite, you will get on average about a forty percent better result.

No, but they don't know why.

That's freaking me out right.

So they're the things that I kind of go, hey, that's really cool.

But the thing that freaks me out is but they don't know why.

They can't kind of go oh, it's because it is learning emotion or it is doing that.

They don't know.

That's the bit that I kind of go.

So always, so please and thank you, Mark, because if the terminator does arrive, at least it will look at you and go, oh, he was one of the nice ones.

At least I may not believe or disbelieve, but at least I say a prayer and just in case there really is a guy up there waiting for me when I or a girl waiting for me.

Up for me up there when I do.

Kick the bucket.

Just like an insurance policy exactly you're saying.

You're saying, insure yourself, and so we ensure ourselves anyway.

That's a normal thing in business and in life.

We take out insurances all the time.

And that makes sense.

And as long as there's all sorts of stories, Now where's it going to end up?

Yeah?

Exactly so on insurances that and this is another one of this is just my belief at the moment, I have no again data to back this up.

I can't see that we will have professional indemnity insurance in the next two years.

Why, well, think about it.

How it proved to me that that advice you gave me was from market in chat chipp So that's why would I ensure you for professional indemnity you insurer?

Yeah, because you're not sure proof to me.

That that was that was the human and not a chatbot that's gone off.

And given that piece of advice.

How popular now?

Like because right now, right now, how popular like in terms of popularity in terms of growth is the AI protocols like you know, chatchip, etcetera.

How popular have they become?

Oh?

Crazy?

So when chat gipt released, man, any any person that owns a business would have loved their their word of mouth because they were the fastest growing organization.

So they hit the million within a couple of days or a couple of hours, twelve hours or something.

But now there's like ten twenty million uses an hour an hour.

Yeah, so it's crazy, crazy numbers.

So the issue that we have currently, and you mentioned video earlier, it's the compute power again, right, that's the problem now, is that to make the next leap to AGI or this very specific general intelligence where we move towards the singularity and the ray curves wall stuff which probably needs wine or you know, a bigger conversation to move towards that, we need more computing power than we have currently.

Right.

But again I was saying to Sammy when we came in.

I was just talking to the guys that I was with this morning and showing them a video.

There's a company in Melbourne that are developing silicon based computing so off brain cells and skin cells.

They're figuring out now that they can you can grow a uptop and compute wise far less energy to run them, but exponential growth in a very very small space.

So that I think is the leap that needs to happen before we can make the next really big tech leaves.

I was never one of these people who thought that crypto was going to entirely debase a currency or entirely take away from the financial system.

But I thought it would enhance it.

So for me, I could just see crypto could enhance the existing financial system.

Very excited to bitcoin.

I think it's, you know, the new digital goal for a whole number of reasons.

So, yeah, I was on the journey.

I'd set up as well with my son.

He was a teenager and getting into tech himself, and we set up a mining rig to mine bitcoin.

So I was starting to get the bug.

If you set up to mine the bitcoin that you did, definitely have the bug.

It's interesting you when we talk about crypto, then we talk about bitcoin they're sort of interchangeable, and then sometimes we talk about the way that cryptocurrencies, as you said, there's stacks of them, different types, but how they operate in terms of the programming and the software and the coding they sit on, which is sort of a distributed system.

And I don't know whether most of our listeners would really understand the difference between the two, and maybe this would be a good opportunity to talk to someone about We're just leaving the exchange aside for a moment, just in terms of crypto, what is the attraction Because you mentioned traditional banking sometimes referred to as fiat fiat.

But what's the difference between the way the traditional banking system works in terms of systems electronic system to talk about compared to say, the way for example, bitcoin works.

Look, I've got a good example there mark that I could use it.

I think most people would have experienced.

And you talk about the Swift network, which is that global network that's been around for thirty to forty years of transferring money between countries between companies.

There's about twelve different steps involved to transfer money bit one thousand dollars overseas or to another company or be it ten million dollars, So about twelve steps, and it will take between two to four days for that money to go through the banking system.

So there's twelve different intermediary steps and into.

Ceberties ten million bucks in the bank, and I want to send it to my grandmar in India to buy a block of lats, there's twelve steps, twelve steps.

Along the way take them to the aradditional banking.

It'll take three to four days and that will probably cost you close to one thousand or fifteen hundred dollars to do it right.

Crypto the rails the blockchain that it operates on, and it doesn't matter if it's bitcoin or if it's a theoryum or XRP.

So we all sitting on block they're all sitting on a blockchain that is more peer to peer means from one from you to your grandma directly cuts out those twelve steps.

It's two steps one to two steps instead of twelve.

So you can imagine there's a lot of people and processes that are a lot of money that gets cut out along the way and done within seconds and done for a fraction.

Of a dollar.

That is really one of the biggest use cases of crypto.

Lots of others out there.

But if I was to try and explain to somebody, why would you be wanting to look at the importance of blockchain and crypto, I would say, just have a look at the way we're sending money traditionally, and look at what is being done now.

Stable coins, which are a form of crypto which are backed on a stable asset, the US dollar, the Australian dollar, New Zealand dollar.

Last year, the total global volume of that or sorry value not volume, was greater than the total value of transactions on MasterCard and Visa.

Card put together.

Wow, So it's here, it's here to stay, and in fact, it's actually starting to really infiltrate the finance system.

All the big banks are using it in their trading desks.

They might be out there publicly saying, you know, retail, we're not sure about this crypto.

We want to try and block things with crypto, but their own trading desks are using it.

And as I said, there's no hiding the fact that the value of cryptocurrency transactions last year was bigger than master.

Card and block chain.

You're talk about globally now globally yes, no, no, not in Australia.

I'm talking on the global rails.

So just in terms of blockchain, maybe it just give us a minute or two explanation of what blockchain does that the normal electronic systems in a normal banking system don't do.

The easiest way to look at blockchains is literally as a physical block and each transaction is building on the former one, so it's so distributed.

So I think you talked about it before.

Traditional banking system is centralized and the blockchain in the crypto is essentially decentralized, so those transactions are recorded on many computers around the world.

That's the blockchain.

On the blockchain, so very very hard for those transactions to be raised, deleted, interfered with.

So that's number one, a much more secure system.

It can happen much faster because it's not just using a few computers, it's using many computers.

So that's the essence of it.

And then there's the visibility and the traceability of it.

I don't know if you or of any of your listeners have ever had to try and trace some of that money that was transfers virtuin possible on the blockchain.

It is highly traceable.

Following Uber, you can see where it is.

That's another great example, and I mean I think that's the new technologies that we've seen in business models Uber, AIRB and B.

They're very visible transparency, big deal for those things.

It is and you can see it and trust.

Transparency and trust when you're talking financial assets, probably a little bit hardh to sometimes see exactly what's happening and for us to understand.

It in the traditional system, Yes, in the traditional and we just trust the bank to do it for us.

We do, and look, it kind of works.

There's no doubt about it that the banking system works, but it's clunky and it's unnecessarily expensive.

What crypto and the blockchain offers is a new way, a much more secure way, a much quicker way, and a much cheaper.

Way, and more transparent and more transparent.

You watch it, you absolutely can see that happen.

You can see it.

And the exciting thing is going to be for global trade as well, and that's what I talked about the stable coins and things like that.

It's going to give the big mining companies, agricultural companies, and in fact the small trade is as well that are in regional, regional Australia and regional countries that ability to deal directly with supplies and see their money going through and get money, will get their goods put on ships put on planes much quicker.

So crypto has had a real growth and talked about a lot of retail investors and speculating on it, and that's where it started.

The interesting thing is that the traditional financial system bonds and that which started in the eighties and the nineties, started at an institutional level and moved down and was eventually offered to retailers.

Crypto's exact reverse not necessarily sure why in some reasons.

But so cryptos started at retail, but it's now very much moving into the institutional space and starting to mature, and you're seeing that, and we're starting to see countries around the world regulate in this space as well.

Well.

I'm here in South Australia for a special edition of the Mentors series and I'm in a little I guess you call it a suburbs to me, more like a village called Ordinger, and I am speaking with Tren and Mike from the little ritual.

Welcome guys, thank you, How are you going good?

It's a pretty cool spite.

Yeah.

Can you just see maybe explain this joint to me a little bit, because I mean, it's all it looks like is three hundred years ago, but can't be right because as as.

Myself that long.

No, it's pretty old, well for South Australia.

So originally this was the Blacksmith back in the day.

Wow, So it's actually technically the Blacksmith, coach builder and coffin maker in Aldinger.

So you have an original wall just behind us here and then this a little bit here so where we're sitting now was it has all fallen over?

You can actually see a little bit of an old wall just behind me here, but it was a coach builder next door which is now a coffee shop, and then they made coffins and were the blacksmith just behind the coffins coffins.

So back in the day in Ordinger, if someone died, they didn't go to the mall.

They just kept the body at the house.

And if there was a light on down just behind us, that meant that they were quickly trying to build up a box to put the person in.

And then there's another little spot down the back here where the hearst used to be, so they used to pick up and go down pick up the de ceased person.

And the cemetery is just up the road.

So it was that for a long time and then it turned into a mechanic.

So if you were here forty fifty years ago, there would have been this would have been the mechanic.

If you go in next door to the to the coffee shop.

Again, there's actually the old pit still in the ground, but it was rubble for about twenty thirty years, I think, and then someone did it up enough and now it's two businesses in it.

We take a decent chunk of it, and we got a little cofee shop next door, and then.

So that's your coffee shop.

No, no, some some really nice people do a little I've got a nice little business next door that we just share.

We share a little courtyard with them, and the toilets and a few other spots.

So you've males.

We explain what this restaurant does, like, what's the deal?

Like I Min, it's obviously food, but what top of food we all made here?

Well, I don't think I would describe it as Vietnamese food, more of a not anymore.

Maybe a few years ago it hasn't yet name.

No, yeah, but we would probably look to play on steak on chips that exactly.

It has a Vietnamese soul, but the food at the end of the day, it's nourishing.

And what we like to do because we describe it as it is modern Asian, we like to embrace all the cultures that come through the kitchen.

The first year we were straight up Vie and that was great because mar and Tren it made sense.

And then year two I would think that we were a little bit more pushed the boundaries a bit further into my modern Vie potentially What happened though, was there was a little bit of a shift.

There's only so much that Trin could do with Ma as her cooking partner.

What happened is we were able to sort of break through that and when we started to get staff and get some more interest.

Is that it allowed Trin to go from doing vat, which I think I can safely say loves, but it wasn't her wheelhouse.

What was nice is that in years three and four, let's say we started to push into modern Southeast Asian.

So maybe there's some v in there, yeah, but there was a much more of a modern take on a bit of everything else, I mean.

Japanese.

Yeah.

And so then I think in the last couple of years you really have got this.

If you sort of want to describe what our food is, it's trends, background and her family at the core.

But we've had chefs.

We've had a number of chefs come through and we have a number with us now.

So we've had chefs from Thailand, South Korea, Hong Kong.

We've had obviously born and bred here.

We've had guys from the pool.

If we stayed VIE, I don't think Trim would then be handstrung to only do a modern version of that.

What's nice is that we can take food from anywhere in Asia and sort of mix and match and sort of have more of an ethos of it has to be punchy, flavorful and sort of be our kind of food.

When the government's you know, sort of saying things are pretty good, you know, blah blah blah, well you must get really frustrated.

You must be thingue to what are you talking about?

I mean, because do you think it's a smoke screen?

Do you think it's I don't know, a whole lot of bullshit.

And the people are doing this on purpose to pretend that things are better than they really are, or I do, or we us three here missing something because I'm experiencing the same thing as you're experiencing.

I feel as though we've dropped the ball.

I think our hospitality in this country.

Look, there are a great hospitality place, but there's not enough.

The hours are not long enough, the restrictions are too ridiculous.

You've got to go hunt around to find somewhere to go to travel in this country.

Interstate is I mean, I'm like you, I do it for business, but if you're doing it for pleasure, you think you maybe I should drive it's better.

Also, I think why we don't like people in this country.

We have customers that come up from Melbourne, come from South Australia, et cetera, but not frequently because they read rather go, oh, I'm going to go to Bali actually for ten days you know, because you know, yeah, so it.

I do think there's a lot of bullshits the way, for sure, like absolutely, But who's responsible for it?

I mean, I don't mean who's responsible for us losing our way?

But who has to fix it?

Like I mean, is it and the government?

Same private enterproceeds to do it.

But my feeling is it's the government.

It starts with the government.

It starts with the government.

But what's something I feedback I got from that reel that we posted, which I was not expecting would do this, to be honest, is that all of us are feeling the same thing, and that all of us think it comes from a government level.

But that a lot of people again, hundreds of dms thanking me for bringing light to it and showcasing it in such a kind of I guess, brutal fashion, just saying it for what it is, and a lot of small business is saying, now, I want to start talking about it more.

I've been sort of holding my tongue because I'm afraid.

I don't want to get too much.

Everyone's scared.

I feel like we are a.

Bit afraid in Australia, Like in Europe, people are marching streets and saying.

March every week.

Yeah, every day.

Sometimes looks sometimes just after lunch, yeah, serious after lunch.

Sometimes they don't.

Well most of the time it doesn't do anything, but it shows the government.

Okay, you know whereas we like nobody, what is that with us?

We're just cut too compliant.

Honestly, we are complying.

I think so like we're a nanny country and nanny state where we comply and we just go and we also look that the tax department, the government, the police force, all of it.

It functions because people are whipped into line.

Even Simono said that when he first arrived, and he's like, my god, it really works here in Italy.

No, everyone's like, no, I'm going to just drive and do what.

Yeah, but.

We are we're all too afraid that if we just step a little bit out of line, that something's going to happen, something bad will happen, which you see it.

Can for some people.

But if you're not breaking the law by just speaking up and saying things have got.

To change, So maybe you've created a movement.

Maybe Australian business owners should stand together and start to speak up and be part of the movement.

I absolutely believe.

Yeah, And I said to Simon it, I mainly did this because we already decided we're going to close in January.

Right.

It's not like we did this to get some publicity so we could maybe stay open.

It's like, this is it.

For us, right with us?

Yeah, And the closure feels like a breath.

You know, you can take a breath when you make a decision.

But I said, look, if this does anything, you know, because the next morning after i'd posted it, it was like going crazy and I thought, oh, I didn't realize it was going to do this.

And now I've realized that it's more important to try to create that conversation in the small and medium business and that's what I hope this is going to do.

And I'd be more than happy to do whatever it takes to keep that going because I don't want to leave Australia and not come back and see it thriving.

You know this.

I actually had.

A bit of a teary to some on it the other day because I said, I've I used to be in the entertainment industry as well.

I was a singer, singer, and so I would sing in every venue around Sydney seven nights a week at one point, you know, and there was things to do, places to go.

Then, you know, with the lockout laws, that's when it kind of started.

But it's just slowly gotten worse and worse and worse.

And it almost feels like now people are really starting to realize.

But it's been a ten year slow decline.

I think COVID helped them, and COVID home, Yeah, it had helped them.

And because that's my feeling too, I feel like I live in a constraint environment that I can't do this.

I can't drive here, I can't park there, I can't eat there, I can't stay there a certain time, you know.

I feel like that my world is full of rules, is absolutely.

And I'm a boy who grew up in the grew up and I was in my twenties in the eighties.

Yeah, By my god, there's no rules.

You did what you want and it was unbelievable.

I'm so lucky to have lived in the eighties because today, in the twenty twenties, it's the rules and the regulations.

We must be one of the most regulated countries out the world, for sure.

Absolutely.

And you go to Europe, it's Italy, a Greece, Spain, port your girl, free what you want.

I mean, so you feel their freedom of society, you know what I mean?

Like you know, so the same and social life for you.

You finish a nineteen thirty to work, then to work, you want to see your friends, have like a gloss online and talk till midnight.

Have a break.

Yeah you can't.

There's nowhere to go.

No, there's no place to go.

No.

Yeah, well that's it.

I mean, unfortunately, this is this conversation.

It needs to be had.

It's a bit of a down yeah, And I'm sorry that it's affected you guys the way it has.

But I'm actually glad, on the other hand, that you've raised it and that you've actually had the gumption and the courage to actually come out publicly and say it.

And what's interesting, as you say, it's gone viral certainly got drawn to my attention by a number of people, which is why we invited you on, and because I think.

We do need to speak up.

Absolutely, small business owners in Australia need to speak up.

We are the backbone of this country.

See government saying it when they do nothing about it, literally nothing, But we probably have to take control of it ourselves.

That's that's it.

So if that's what he's referring to, well, sure we should take control of ourselves, but I don't think we need to be contributing more.

I feel like we pay the majority of our taxes in this country, the majority of everything in this country, you know, but without us, like, there's going to be nothing to attract people here, let alone ourselves who are born and bred here.

You know.

I don't want someone like someone going by Didalian saying oh yeah, well you know, not him, but not just saying like him saying, you know, should I go to Australia for holidays?

Well yeah, but there's not much to do.

Yes, that would be the worst thing ever.

Yes,