Latest / Sales Trajectory Podcast / “Driving Sales Excellence in NZ: Culture, Tech & Market Insights with Gavin Williamson (Placemakers)”

Transcript

“Driving Sales Excellence in NZ: Culture, Tech & Market Insights with Gavin Williamson (Placemakers)” · Sales Trajectory Podcast

• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the sales trajectory podcast, where innovation meets execution in sales.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Jason Harris, your host, a 35-year sales veteran and lifelong student of the game.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: This podcast is for leaders and sales professionals with a growth mindset.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: You'll hear real sales stories about new products, motivating teams to prospect, and boost productivity.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: We dive deep into sales process, cutting edge tech, and recruiting top sales performers.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: Let's get started.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: Great to see you, Gavin.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: How are you today?
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: I'm well, mate.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for thanks for having me.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: How are you?
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: Very well.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: We've known each other for a little while, so it was a good opportunity to to grab some time and just as we we spoke before, it's about trying to share stories across the ditch of uh yeah, what's happening in uh uh Australia and New Zealand.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: Gavin, if you don't mind, just give us a bit of an introduction on yourself and uh yeah what your role is with them placemakers.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, sure.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, once again, thanks, thanks, uh, thanks for your time.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: So my name's Gavin, as you just alluded to.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: My role currently is with uh placemakers, which is um leading merchant in the country over here.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: We're actually a division of Fletcher Building, which um some of your listeners may be familiar with over in over in Australia as well, but um quite a big business on this side of the ditch for sure.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: We sort of come under the New Zealand distribution banner, which um sits with MICO and some other distribution type companies.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh my role in the business is um national sales operations manager, sort of uh looking at um, you know, how how how do we make how do we give our salespeople the easiest pathway to sell something so they have a better day, really?
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: And then all of the things that sort of sit under that in terms of tools, processes, um, finger information at their fingertips so that they can um offer the best level of service in the industry.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's sort of what we're about.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: And what what size team have you got over there, Gabe?
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: I've uh I heard some pretty big numbers.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: So it says it's pretty the placemaker's just an on its own is a pretty big um merchant, so we have over 70 branches and manufacturing plants across the country.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um terms of the sales team, we have close to 240 people across the country, which includes um all of our sales reps, account managers, trade sales managers, and also um senior, more senior sales leaders across the country as well, as well as where I'm at in in uh national office across the board.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of lot of a lot of fingers uh and a lot of feet around trying to make it happen on the ground, mate.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: I have led sales teams, but nowhere near the size of that.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm sure it it definitely uh would be a very fast-moving piece of machinery to be able to lead that sort of team around.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: How how long have you been in this role for?
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll be in this role three years come this September, and um it's been a real fast-paced three years.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: I actually started straight after COVID, so you can imagine, yeah, it was an interesting time and just on the back of a news uh GM or sales coming into the business.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a lot of change at the time, a bit of uncertainty as you can imagine after COVID.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: But we were pretty clear on one thing is that we needed the right strategy for the right team to head uh you know head up um coming out of difficult times.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: So um, you know, if I look back now where we are at today, you know, it's been been a real pleasure and really exciting to see that we've sort of um you know laid a good foundation to be able to serve our customers.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: And what was your background before that, Gave?
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well, actually, I was still in placemakers three years before that role.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I was uh I came, I was actually a sales manager myself of two branches here in the Bay of Plenty and um Mount Monganui and Tokatani.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: Thus I had um yeah, sort of 12 sales recs and account managers under me.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: So prior to that I had never worked for a building merchant before, so it was a bit of a um uh sort of feet-in first, and we certainly didn't have a lot of the tools we had today for sales managers, but yeah, it was a great challenge.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: I got to learn a lot more about the industries.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, I was three years as a sales manager there.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um prior to that, I actually had my own building company uh as a partnership uh where we were involved in the Christchurch rebuild from the earthquakes down there where you guys might remember.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um we actually just had the 13th uh 13 year anniversary yesterday of that earthquake.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um time goes really fast for sure, but um, yeah, that was a big learning curve.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, had had uh I was in that business for quite a while, and in that business my roles were um uh more to do with business performance, kind of the same type of thing, building process, making sure we had all the right online tools to be able to do assessments real quick for earthquake uh from the earthquake recovery response response and the likes.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we had a team of um 40 people in our company at the time, ranging from managing complete rebuilds right down to um small earthquake repairs across across the Canterbury region.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: That certainly gives you a lot of experience right through that whole building process.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I mean, I'm sure um like most of us, I mean, we we learn something new every day.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, being part of placemakers must be uh you know a very interesting role to have.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: So what what's the culture at at Placemakers like?
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's a great question, Jason.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, it's one of a story that's kind of evolved.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if I think about when I started five, six years ago, certainly some good people, like a lot of a lot of good buggers, as we would say, over here.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but um, you know, the culture was particularly in the sales team, and it you know what it's like in sales teams, you you deal with a lot of characters and different egos, and you know, there's a great competitive spirit, which is great.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: We know egos, mate, it must be just New Zealand, I think.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, uh as a sales manager, you're standing back looking at your team going, wow, this is diverse.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: So sometimes that's great.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: And at the time, I think some of the weaknesses of that was that it was driving a bit of a culture between them and us mentality.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: Kind of where I think about where we're at now, being more in a corporate office environment, trying to bridge that gap.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: I think culture comes from the top or leading culture comes from the top.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: And certainly what we're trying to do as a leadership team with our sales leaders is is that it's leader-led.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: We can't expect our people to change if we're not changing ourselves or we're not in a good ahead space.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I think a bit of a dot of that way of thinking, you know, I I'm happy and pleased to say hand on heart that that we actually not only do have book buggers, that that everyone's got each other's back, which has actually created a really nice cultural.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's excellent.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: And and the the importance of building a a high performance sales team is is something you and I've spoken about.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: And it to get that that culture of wanting to grow the businesses is obviously, yeah, for for a lot of businesses very difficult.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: Because as you know, I mean we're all different as far as how we're motivated and and and traditionally how we sell as well.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: So what I'm seeing is definitely a big change in companies at the moment where it's like, as you said, we've been through COVID and and our industry boomed.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: It was more about counseling people as to why they couldn't get their orders on time or whether why we couldn't accept their orders.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: In some cases as well, there was a lot of uncomfortable conversations by salespeople going on, and I and I, you know, I it w I I know what it's like because when I worked with Hein, I mean, Timber in Australia, I mean, we always had to, you know, when the market tightened, everyone but went back onto like an allocation sort of system.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, okay, well, you've you've supported the business, you know, for a long time, and now you're in the you're in the list, you know what I mean.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: But unfortunately, companies that didn't sort of purchase regularly or support the business were sort of left out on a bit of a wing.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: So you could sort of, yeah, the changes in dynamics for salespeople was huge.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: How did your team sort of handle that period?
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: It must have been tough.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: It was tough, mate.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh gosh, I remember.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I actually started the sales ops role just as we were coming into supply issues.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: The first thing off the rack was we could not get jib board, we could not get plastic board, and we actually own Jib.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: Jib at Winstone Woolboards is is is a company of Fletcher Building.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: So you can imagine what was going around in the media at the time.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and so, you know, that just exacerbated by the fact that we, you know, things like insulation, we also own Pink Pats as a Fletcher Building company, and we couldn't even get bats ourselves.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, wow, that's tough, isn't it?
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so uh mate, I could talk for hours about it, but basically we had the same struggles as everyone else.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: We had to do exactly the same thing, and I was I was actually seconded to to build some of those allocation models based on historic data and and all of the sort of data that kind of said to us who's important and not important, and you're kind of sitting back as as a sort of both um a data person and then someone who's knows the families of some of these builders who were trying to say no to because Absolutely.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: They don't spend as much with us, so who are we going to prioritize?
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: It was a it's a very tricky situation.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um and whilst we we navigated through it the best we could, our salespeople were really, really stress man.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like they they had to have those conversations that you were talking about before, really tough conversations where we had builders not being able to get to milestones and pay their bills because they didn't have the product to be able to and quite often we were the outlet, our salespeople were the outlet.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: Where's my stuff?
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: I don't care what your excuse is, I need it now.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: And these guys, our our salespeople going at home that night stressed out of their brains and probably locking the door, mate, because they're worried about it.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: I mean it's uh throwing a phone out.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: Oh I mean, I remember myself, I mean, yeah, back in it's it's sort of and yeah, from a salesperson's mindset and and a lot of work I do is we do is with mindset, and I suppose now trying to turn the sales guys back around, it's like, hey, you know, you need to go and have conversations again with some of these people.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: What what do you sort of see as far as the opportunities at the moment in in the marketplace for you for your team?
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's a really great question.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, when I look at to answer that question, you know, when I look at the cycle of what happened after supply issues, one of the reasons we have supply issues is because demand went through the roof as well.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: So it was just exacerbated by the fact that we we couldn't kick start factories after shutdowns from COVID.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: So you could pretty much sell anything you wanted for whatever price.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: So it was the way you know, it was the way how do you influence a customer to buy from you now?
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um and that influence completely was turned on its head from you influence me by having it and now you influence me by the right price.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: Where that evolution has taken over for us a little bit and we've had to drive that is actually how do we balance price out to value proposition?
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: Because whilst we have competitors who will, for lack of a better word, term maybe buy the work, that's not our intent.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: We've always been straight up and go, no, we're not gonna we're not gonna drive the market into the ground.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: But what we what we will do is we'll support you to grow your business so that you can see the value proposition that we're trying to give you in terms of service.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: And once those two things start to kind of align, we find that that starts creating loyalty with the customers that we that we want to work with and that they want to work with us as well.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: I think I think that's probably a good way to explain kind of where we see things at the moment, and we're continuing to drive that thought process both in the training and the outputs of our sales team.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, that's a that's a good point.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: So what about from um tech?
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: So you're talking about investing in your salespeople, which is fantastic, because I yeah, some of the conversations I have every day is that our industry really hasn't invested in sales development and sales people.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it it's it's quite and I know when I was in a leadership role, it's you know, someone would pop up and you'd send, you know, they'd off they'd go to a course on a particular topic, but it it's sort of proof in the pudding that unless the training is entrenched into something, some sort of technology or some system that they're going to use again after that day of training, about 90% of it's actually lost.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: And and I think that's the important of having the sales technology and actually incorporating sales systems and processes into that so that yeah, the sales people can actually see a pathway and a journey on a, you know, I've got someone here I want to work with, and how do I then bring them into an opportunity and a process that actually helps them sort of move through?
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I always sort of say it's like when you're a kid and you used to go ten-pin bowling, you could put the barriers up on the side so the ball didn't hit the gutter.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: And in theory, with sales, it's it's actually quite similar because I mean a lot of salespeople will sort of jump from hello, I want the order, you know what I mean?
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: Where it's no, well, there's more steps and milestones that you need to do, obviously, to keep the ball sort of going down the uh the alley to to to strike out.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: Because I mean a lot of as you know, the bowling ball goes down the end of the gutter, it's it's pretty well all over.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: So how what have you guys been doing with your technology recently?
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, great, great question, mate.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um again, I this is really an exciting wheelhouse for me.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's the entire reason my role in the sales enablement role actually exists in the company.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um but I'll I'll answer your question directly in terms of the technology.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: We've certainly had a journey after COVID.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: We probably made a few mistakes, to be honest.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: But one of them was we invested heavily in well, well during COVID, we actually operated to a certain degree, but it had to be in an environment where it was contactless, which you would remember from those days.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: So we actually advanced all of our digital tools and put them in the hand of our customers.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: Here's a placemakers trade app where you can go into your account, you can order material, have it like a click and collect sort of scenario, just like you get your groceries, and you park there, all loaded on.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: There's a barcode that gets signed off and then on your way.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: But it didn't really help our salespeople because they weren't on the ground at the time.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: So when everyone came back to work, we had all these great tools for our customers, and our salespeople were still scratching their head trying to find information and data, pulling information from different disparate systems.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: So one of the things we did is go, okay, well, whilst that was a need, we need to turn this on its head.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: How do we make how do we put the right tech in the hands of our salespeople so they have the right information at the right time?
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: They have a one-stop shop place to see exactly what their customers' behaviors are and their buy-and-behaviors to be able to then pinpoint the right conversations from an agenda point of view.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: So we went through an evolution of creating dashboards to um in live environments with a like split and some other Power BI type stuff.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: We went down an automation route um uh through the Microsoft Suite.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: And we eventually ended up at a um at a CRM place where we actually let's take all of that stuff and put it into a CRM so that not only do we have given our salespeople the information they need, but we've also given them the ability to be able to act on that and follow that up.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so so we sort of in a journey there now, um you know, which I've talked to you about a little bit, where we're we're rolling that all into one place.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um and of course what comes to the with that as well, we've we had to get the right devices out.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um so there's all these things that sort of had to align.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: One thing having the technology, but if you can't actually use it on the fly, you know, you you know it doesn't really work.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: So that that's sort of where we're at, and there's continuing evolution in that.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, it's part of our aspiration to develop the single best team in the industry.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: We've got to give them the tools.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: Look, I I like that, and I think um congratulations for doing what you're doing, because I I think a lot of people sort of when you say CRM, they get a bit scared, but it's it's not a CRM is a small part of the whole package, you know what I mean?
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: And we work with on sales enablement as well, because what you want to do, you don't want it to just be like a data library, you want it to be a a tool that the salespeople actually love using.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: And what I always do is when I'm working with a client is I say to the salespeople, okay, what are the barriers holding you back?
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: They're like, oh, it takes too much time, I can't do the reporting.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, well, what if it was a mobile app?
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: What if it's got you know voice to text, you don't have to type.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, it it there's a lot of different and you think about it too.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, a lot of emails we write, you think you've got 220 salespeople and you've got everyone's writing different emails and sending different messages and spending so much time with that inputs.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: Well, how about we have the templates that are written the way we want to speak to our clients and and in the format that you can just press a button and it sends it and you can look at all the analytics of who's opening and who's clicking and who's interested.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, I mean it's it's really exciting, and now you've obviously got AI as well.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: So, I mean it's um there's the there's certainly a lot going on.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I think it's really impressive that you're investing that time in giving the team the best tools and to do their job because we want to make it easier for salespeople, not more difficult.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's the goal, mate.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: And it's yeah, it's it's just critical that we go down this path.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: And like we said, we're you know, there's always nothing's ever perfect.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um we're always straight up about that.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: But I think one thing that's been really positive is that we've actually included the sales team in the development of this.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: We haven't sat back and actually said, right, we think it should be this way, and so this is how you're gonna use it.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: The pilots and the key guys on the coal face riding shoulder to shoulder are the ones who've actually developed this tool that's awesome.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: The roadblocks, and we can try and solve that problem.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: So it's been a very exciting journey, mate.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's worth the time, and I think that's the thing.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of um, you know, a lot of business leaders are juggling so many hats, but sometimes, yeah, just sitting back and going, no, the more we do on this now, it's gonna create so much more benefits of effectiveness and time management and and not only that too, but I mean, as you know, as a sales manager as well, you want to be out if you're gonna be able to coach a team, well it's got it's gotta be within a platform that you can actually help them coach because there's no use getting a report at the end of the month and then going, well, what happened?
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, no, this is this is live, uh, it's in application.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I think it kind of just rolls into one of the sayings we use is um winning through disruption.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: How do we get the right processes and tools through a disruptive thread like COVID or the market being bad like it is right now?
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: How do we take the mindset and go, you know, let's not throw up our hands, let's actually look at how we win through that.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: And if we can do that through some of the tech that we're doing, rolling out and implementing, getting good adoption, going shoulder to shoulder with the guys, then we know we're gonna be in a good position when the tables turn.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: No, that's excellent.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: So just in a quick summary, what's your opinion on the New Zealand market leading through to Christmas?
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: What do you think is going to happen?
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's a good, good, good uh question.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's something we keep an eye on very closely, as you can imagine, rather than going back in time and explaining what's happened, because to be honest, uh anyone on this side of the Tasman knows that the market's pretty uh pretty bad.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: We think about interest rates and think about um the Reserve Bank uh tightening up L VR ratios and what that means for our customers.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's um certainly had a real cooling effect on the market.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: What we do know is that um when I say what we do know, we don't really know what's going to happen, but uh what what we are predicting will happen is that that that season will start to turn.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: And we've already seen that with an an an increase in inquiries with our major volume builders across the country.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: The realization of those inquiries by the time they actually get displayed in the ground is another thing.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: So we do think that whilst we know that the market's back anywhere between 8 to 12 percent over here, obviously Auckland is sort of the bigger driver of that across the country with with just um the weighted amount of population there.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: We we are seeing pockets starting to turn a little bit.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: So uh, you know, those inquiries as we talk to builders on the ground, they're starting to get a little bit more confidence.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: We know that interest rates are possible going to be halting for a while with coming down after the financial year in July, which we we we think is gonna stimulate more activity in the market.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: But it's still a it's still a wait and see.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: What we what we do know is like I said before, we try and position ourselves the best place we can and then uh capitalise on that when that happens.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: But before Christmas, we we certainly hope to see things come back by at least half of that.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: So if we're if the market's only back five percent by this time in Christmas year on year, I think that would be a positive place to be.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: It must be tricky though, too, because it's the same here in Australia at the moment.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, a lot of the pricing is starting to level back out.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, some of the products went up so much.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, not only have we got less inquiries, but it's also the the selling value is uh is less as well.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: Different drivers, as you say, and and certainly that windfall from um COVID where prices changed so much to leveling out.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um and that's why I mentioned earlier, you know, we we need to be thinking about the value proposition when it comes to selling because you know, commodities and the likes, we you know, our our our sell price is not something we can influence too much.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: So we need to be smart about how we sell.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: All right, Gavin.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: Look, I do really appreciate your time today.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's been great to catch up with you, and uh yeah, no doubt we'll we'll keep in contact and and see how the year unfolds for you.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: No, thank you, Jason.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: Great, great chat, and um, yeah, as always, good good to uh have a chat and get your insight too.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: Got a product that's struggling or launching something new?
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: Reach out.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: We're inviting guests who want to make a real impact.