Latest / The MADness Podcast / The Great Escape ft. Rickert Marais
Transcript
- James: welcome to the Madness Podcast, your indispensable guide to all things related to the world of school marketing and admissions. Today we're joined by Rickert Marais who is the Marketing and Admissions Director at Stamford American School, Hong Kong. Now, Stamford American School is a K-12 international school offering an American standards-based curriculum alongside the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme. Part of the Global Cognita Schools Group. Stamford operates across two campuses in Ho Mantin and West Kowloon and serves a diverse community of families from Hong Kong and around the world. The school's grown significantly in recent years, reaching full enrolment and expanding to that second campus as demand has increased. And we're really proud to have Rickert in the studio. Because Rickert, I'm guessing you're taking a tiny bit of credit for this burgeoning, growing, seemingly nonstop. influx of families and students into the school. So great to have you with us. How are you and how is life in Hong Kong right now? Rickert Marais: Hi James, thank you very much for having me on the podcast. it's a real pleasure to share today. yes, I probably am taking the credit, but I can also say that there's a lot of people behind the scenes that are involved in the success of our school. And it you know, it's from literally the parent experience that's been created with our admissions team right through to the comms team, the all the the the after behind the scenes with teachers and all the experiences that they create. there's both aspects of retention and new joiners that come in that really builds the school over the years. So I would say in Hong Kong we are pretty well Stamford is very well positioned. we're based in West Kowloon, in general, center I would probably say center Kowloon rather than West Kowloon because that's where our other campus is. But I would say yes, we're in a very, very good position. James: let's get straight into the the the nuts and bolts of this, in a hyper competitive market, possibly what the most, if not or certainly one of the most competitive markets in the world, how is the school successfully positioning itself? And how are you driving enrolments at the pace that you are? Rickert Marais: Hmm. I would say if you look at a global perspective and you look at where we are positioned, I would say Hong Kong is is a growth market. And so where we're positioned as a school is we've taken the opportunity where as a registered private school, we don't have those you know those nationality caps that impact our other schools in Hong Kong. but we do have an opportunity where we've harnessed the the the chance to look at how we can maximize involvement by allowing multiple different nationalities to enter the school. And we looked at creating that unique process whereby families from different backgrounds are considered for the application process and the entrance process. And so as a non selective school. There is a wonderful opportunity for expat Asian Asian expats and general expats in our local families to enter an international curriculum. And this is what we this is what we offer to to to to families. now again if you're talking about Asian expats, you're talking about the the the local families that come in, yes. There has been a shift in our market since COVID. I don't know if you all remember COVID, but it's it's quite far back in back in Nik Higgins: We remember. We remember, don't worry. Rickert Marais: Yeah, it it it was it was a rough time. But I would say when that happened, we seen a lot of the market shift from our expat families leaving Hong Kong. So that was a time where schools in Hong Kong had to make some change and they had to put a different set of lenses on. because you suddenly had to and I I would probably I'm probably speaking for the general international school market in Hong Kong, but also for private schools. But I would say for international schools it became a bit more challenging because they've got the nationality caps. Now that's yeah, that that that was one challenge. But I would say for us as Hong Kong private register private registered American school that offers this international curriculum we you know we were able to you know take the opportunity where we weren't limited by that. And so we had to create an EAL department whereby we can support EAL students. Now when I say EAL, do you guys know what that even means? maybe one of you could answer what EAL means exactly. Nik Higgins: English as an additional language. Rickert Marais: Yes, correct. So yeah, so James: Well done, Nick. Rickert Marais: that is quite you know, that's quite a a big thing in Hong Kong at the moment is you've got these ex expat Asians, Asian expats, I keep saying that the other thing, but you've got these Asian expats coming in, but they have you know, they're developing in the English language. Okay, let's let's just put it that way. And there's always a question whether they can access the curriculum. Now for Stamford we have very early, just after COVID, identified the opportunity. and that was to give give these families access to an international curriculum. and you had to tailor the programs, not the curriculum, you had to bring in programs that can help with that adaption and give these students the opportunity to enter the international curriculum and to be successful. This is this was our aim. And and that's why we we we're successful, we've taken in a number of EAL students, but you know, we have fantastic, unique selling propositions. Nik Higgins: Cheers, Rickert. That was a really good introduction. So we we have listeners from genuinely around the world who are in senior marketing admissions roles. They're not all gonna be familiar with the kind of texture of the Hong Kong market. So I wondered if we could just go back to that a little bit briefly. You alluded to two things which I thought were really interesting. The first were the nationality caps, and the second was the kind of changing demographic composition. So I'm I'm simplifying here. You tell if I'm right, but a reduced number of Western expats and an increased number of Asian expats. My understanding is a lot of those come from mainland China via talent schemes. But again, you're the expert. So I'm just wondering if you can just add a little bit more colour to that for our listeners. So what are these nationality caps as they apply to Hong Kong and how's that kind of demographic mix changed in the time you've been in the role or maybe the time that the kind of school's been been operating? Rickert Marais: So if you are a registered international school in Hong Kong, there are a sort of set of requirements that you need to meet. Okay. So there are benefits to being an international school. I'm I'm not gonna go into too much detail about you know you know, those kind of benefits, but what I can and from my understanding really is the international s school registered international school do have those nationality capacities that they have to meet. Okay. To be for you to be in an international school and to hold up that status and and license agreement is you need to make sure that you meet those different ratios. So now if you're talking about ratios, you could be talking about different nationality types or you know different groups of nationality. So you need to have some schools go by 80 20 so whereby they need to have 80% international students with an international passport international passport holder and then you have the 20% that can be local Hong Kong families that can join the school. Some schools have different nationality ratio capacities okay so depending on size and you know licensing it it it differs. I've I've heard some schools are sixty forty, some schools are seventy thirty. So in in that sense schools are legally held or or sort of comply to James: Okay. Rickert Marais: they have to stick to those. and if they do cross those lines, yeah, then you can you you can you can be tapped on the fingers from what we call the EDB which is the education bureau here in Hong Kong. Nik Higgins: Mm-hmm. Rickert Marais: And schools all have to register to this this government department. So we are a private registered school. So if you're a private Nik Higgins: Okay. Rickert Marais: registered school, you don't you don't actually have any legal lease. contract with the d with the government. Okay. So your your land is private, you're renting from a private landlord and your building is private. So that's very different. And you are very independent. Okay. So and and you're obviously in most I don't there aren't many private register schools in Hong Kong, but Nik Higgins: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Rickert Marais: you are revenue driven as well. so there there's different and so we we I remember back then speaking to some of our our board members, just in terms of h how did they make this decision? And, it the person who made the decision to be private registered was probably the smartest person on earth back in the day because we were going to COVID and I was thinking, man, these people were they they didn't know this was coming. But you know, we got some really good advice as to why not to register as an international school. Now we The th and some people probably go, Hey, you're a private registered school, so you're not necessarily an international registered school. But and and my response to them is always, yes, we're private registered, but we offer an international curriculum. And so you know, that that's that's that's what we go by and it truly is an international curriculum. And if you talk about nationalities, yes, To answer your s your the second part of your question, Nick, is we've got 30 nationalities, just over 30 different nationalities in our school. And they they represent that you could probably group them in different numbers of ratios. Okay, so they're smaller sizes, you know, and and I would probably say yes, we've got the mainland families, we've got the Hong Kong local families. we've got American families, UK, India, Japan and Korea. Nik Higgins: That's really interesting. Thanks, Rickert I think the listeners are going to find that fascinating. So because of your niche regulatory position, you've been really well positioned. I've said positions wise, so that's terrible. You should never say positions wise in the same sentence. But you you you've been in been in a great space to kind of embrace Hong Kong's change in demographics and your enrollments benefited from that. I think that's that's super interesting. So thank you for the thank you for the colour on the regulation. I think that I think the geeky people that listen are gonna En enjoy that. James: to what extent, Rickert, and and perhaps you can tell our listeners a little bit about your career path, because it's it's been anything other than what I would say is what we often find is a traditional path of a school marketing and admissions director. To what extent do you think all of your experiences in previous roles and positions have equipped you to deal with the complexities of marketing the entity that you're now marketing? So tell us a bit about your career. Give us a quick potted history of your 'cause it's super interesting. And then yeah, Rickert Marais: Yeah. James: to the question of how does all of that perhaps position you differently to somebody who's a a school marketing and admissions lifer. Rickert Marais: Yeah, thank you. yeah, James, so dating back, so I I'm from I'm a South African, so I was born and raised in South Africa. look I my career started just after my my my graduate degree. So I've got a university degree in communications, business communications management and I did an honors degree which is Not a lot of people know what an honors degree is, but it's actually a follow-up course that you do for one additional year and you do a big research project. It's very interesting and it was very focused on customer experience. And so I actually did it with CELSI, which is a very big cellular company in in South Africa, and they were I was very pleased that they would partner with me and allow me to do this this dissertation with them. so I I moved out of university quite excited about life and I suddenly just joined a nonprofit organization, which was unexpected. You know, I'm I felt like an entrepreneur and I was ready to start my own business. but I I very quickly jumped into nonprofit organization and actually what an amazing journey that was. you you learn how to how to harness a very small budget. And how to maximize your outcome. now I worked for the Gideons International for three years. It was three amazing years. I actually launched the very first donors program. and that is where my passion for tech stacking, if you want to call that term, and it's what tech stacking really is, it's taking all of the different platforms that you have digitally and you link them so that All of your various points of data are collected into one place. So into one place I would probably mention is a CRM system that captures all of your social media content and your data and your marketing campaigns, all of your leads coming in, and you're able to track all of all of the things that you're doing for an organization. Now that was my learning curve. and I I've first built a very small CRM system and then realized that actually this CRM system doesn't have it doesn't have enough power because it is quite a reputable NPO and they've never been online before. So we launched the very first website I've had to build their first web Facebook page and within a year I got 30,000 followers for this Facebook page and it just boomed after that and it they've got many many d donors today. Super successful project, very proud of it. and that's where I actually fell in love with digital marketing, but also how business strategy, communication and marketing strategy actually, if you have that all in place, you just need to make sure that you have the right foundation and the platforms to see successful conversion and outcomes. and that's where you know I moved into the agency market where I worked in digital agency. and then during COVID well I relocate I I moved to Hong Kong eight years ago with my family where I was in Hong Kong for about three years. I was working in digital agency, servicing a lot of different companies in terms of marketing and and website development. I worked in I actually helped a a company build their first board game, launch it on Kickstarter. and it it was in that time when COVID started. So it was I'm happy to say that the Kickstarter project was successful and it it was fully funded. very pleased about that. and then I moved into yeah. James: Rick, I pr I think probably just need to stop there and say, What was the board game and what was the premise? Rickert Marais: so the board game is called Caves of Rwenzori So feel free to go have a look. you can you can search it on Google, you'll find it. we've done a lot of content on it. so Caves of Rwenzori was a is a tile lane game and it's a maze. And so you're basically trapped in this cave called the Caves of Rwenzori. And you have to escape and you have different opponents in the game and you only have a limited number of tiles. And you need to use those tiles to get out of the out of the the cave. And different tiles have different traps and blockers blockages, so you have to find ways and then you have tools to actually break through those and and get out. So only one can exit the the cave, unfortunately. There aren't any survivors after that. But yeah, that that that's the board game and it was it was a absolutely fantastic time to work with this with this team. and then after that Nik Higgins: Rickert, Rickert Marais: Yeah. Nik Higgins: Rickert, sorry, I'm gonna have to interrupt you again. I'm on boardgamesge.com. I'm looking at the caves of Rwenzori right now. I'm absolutely loving loving the artwork. So Rickert Marais: Yeah. Nik Higgins: I've got I've got to ask. We just have to James: Mm-hmm. Nik Higgins: link this together somehow. Rickert Marais: Yeah. Nik Higgins: What I I'm trying to think, I'm gonna be clutching at the straws here. But what is a time in the marketing admissions world or in your work that it feels like you're trapped in the caves of Rwenzori? Rickert Marais: I don't Nik Higgins: And what do Rickert Marais: know. Nik Higgins: you do to get you and your team out of there? We we we have we have to we have to do this. Rickert Marais: I was worried about this. I was worried that this was gonna happen. what not a lot of people know that I've I've actually built a board game and you know, I was one of the one of the people who put it together and did all the hard work. But you know what? I have I have hobbies, you know, I'm actually a very creative individual and I just happened to have a really good friend who's who's just passionate about coming up with really quirky ideas like this. And I just partnered with him and we were like, let's let's do this. Let's put we got an investor and yeah, I yeah, that's one of the one of my hobbies and things was is being creative and doing stuff on the side. And a board game came about and we thought we actually wanted to start with toys actually. Let's let's just put say that as well. But for some reason doing all of our market research, we ended up doing board games because we discovered this whole world of board game geek and all of these different SN campaigns, where you actually can go and showcase your board games. We just absolutely loved it and we fell in love with it and and we we actually have a line of board games which we haven't been able to further produce and take to the market. But there's a little secret revealed about some of my hidden passions. James: So I think I do think there is actually a perfect link between this board game and some of your activity in in the school. But we'll let you briefly finish your career path. So you've you've turned into a board game creator and producer, and then you're a digital marketer, you're passionate about it, and then you you land on the doorsteps of your current place, I guess. Rickert Marais: Yeah. Yeah, so so I was yeah, so I actually was in Amazon but I moved into Amazon business. So supporting a company to do product research and you know, work in the European and the American market of Amazon. very interesting time as well, sourcing and and finding products that are lucrative and sellable and could make a quick profit return on profit. But then I actually very randomly was was contacted out of the blue and I was ac I was w it was a remote job by the way. I was working remotely here at yeah I was invited to to just very randomly asked, Hey, are you interested in the education market at all? I I I looked at different sort of I I looked at different ideas and ways to support schools with websites and whatnot. and so a friend of mine who actually knew the agent who was actually trying to find someone for a role in a school, my friend then put me into contact with this person. Very random, out of the blue. I was working on other projects and said, Hey, are you keen to like learn more about this? And I thought, Sure, what is this about? And the name Woodland Preschools came out and I was Woodland Preschools, I don't know if you guys know Woodland Preschools, but in Hong Kong It was at that time a c a school with a preschool that had seven campuses across Hong Kong. and and I thought, well, sure, let me have a look. And it's you know, looked at the website and I I thought they they they need some work on their website and and digital campaigns. but when I joined, I joined in an interesting time. I was very successful in revamping their website and working closely with Cognita, who is our, you know, the school group. and that's how everything started for me. I actually started as a marketing manager and about six months after that I was given the opportunity to step into the role as marketing admissions director, had n absolutely no idea what admissions was about. I came in as as a digital marketer, you know, guru, could tell you all about the Hong Kong market in terms of what you can see in analytics. and so I very quickly grabbed the reins and and got a lot more familiar with the education market. And that's actually where I've learned more about the education market in Hong Kong and, doing a lot of competitor research. What are other schools doing? You know, how can you continue to compete in a in a market where it is extremely densely populated with schools. James: So let's let's hone in on a couple of the the great things you've done from a a marketing and admissions function perspective. And I do think this is where we can bring back the caves of Rwenzori because you've got players desperately trying to escape the caves. And I think by your own admission, you would have induction or onboarding sessions with parents that were powered Powered that were driven by PowerPoint presentations and you recognize that they were probably feeling a little bit like those plays in the caves of Rwenzori They just wanted to get out of there. So you recognized something was wrong, tipped it on its head and implemented something completely different. So can you tell us a little bit about how that came about and what the outcomes were? Rickert Marais: Yeah, sure. So as part of the part of the admissions process, we are responsible to make sure that you know our parents are well onboarded, well informed. and so there there's a number of things that you need to inform parents about. And there's there's there's a there's a no there's quite a there's quite an anxiety that sits with parents, you know. On the first day of school, they've just relocated. Most of our pa families actually relocate to Hong Kong when they join us. And you know what? I hosted the first new joiner session and my goodness was it boring. It was extremely boring session and you had like we had like 70 slides that we had to take parents through. And it it's it's it was a number of things from like bus services to some of the school's health and safety regulations, you know, what do you need to prepare for on the first day of school. it it was quite a it was quite a long-winded session. and it was delivered by our our wonderful principals here at Stamford. and and I thought, my goodness, we ended this session and you could kind of see that parents, although they're very polite and they they wouldn't say much, you kind of wonder how much of that information they've actually taken in. And they kind of w we had we had a they there's some onboarding things they need to do, meet with finance and, they can they can tour the campus a little bit if they like and meet with ICT team, set up their devices. That's all good stuff. But, you have only a short amount of time to make sure that parents actually are well prepared and onboarded and oriented. And you know, we took that back and I started brainstorming with a team and it's not just credit to me, but we we revolutionized that that process and we looked at what we call a new joiner fair. Okay. when you think about a fair, it's actually quite exciting and it sounds like a lot of fun too. when you talk about new joiners information session, you know, parents kind of you you lose half of your parents, they probably won't even show up, they'll wait for an email on onboarding information. But when we put down, when we came up with a new joiner fairs we had like a full attendance. Now there's a lot of detail that goes into an arranging a a an event like this, but we hosted it at our our new campus, West Kowloon campus, where our high school is based. And you know, it was a it was an amazing time actually because we set up intentional booths that focused on specific stage that the parents should be onboarding at. And we created this passport list that they got to tick things off on. and so they had like step one. Okay, step one is let's just meet the head of school. The head of school did like a very quick five minute presentation, done, right? Welcome. This is who we are, this is our principal's quick introduction. And then after that, it literally what felt like a fair but you know what? We didn't prepare for enough seats, you know, we actually We never had this kind of attendance on the first day for for orientation. And and we had we had prepared overflowing rooms just to make sure, but even the overflowing rooms were full. We were quite taken aback by this. And, you know, we set up we set up like all of our our CCA tables, we've set up our HR table was there, we sort of had finance table. We even had our our canteen vendor there, and they prepared lovely food for parents to taste. so this this is great experience that we created and I'm gonna probably use the word unreasonable hospitality, which is something I really, really firmly believe in that I would encourage any person who's in admissions or who's working in the parent experience industry, go and have a a read at that book. it's it's really it's it's a really interesting book to read. we actually did a whole conference was was based on that in a in one of our internal conferences. and it really goes about it it it it basically teaches you a few different techniques to look at what what what does service delivery actually mean today, especially for parents. And we do the general service As an admissions team and an onboarding when you when you take them through the process. That is quite standard and that's the expectation is that you deliver excellent service, right? But what is unreasonable hospitality, and so unreasonable hospitality is going the extra mile. It's going beyond just what the product is, just the product that you're delivering to the family, right? You're giving them an opportunity to enrol. but we've gone beyond that and said, right, let's raise the bar. And We want people to remember this. We want parents to remember this. And when they join, they actually feel connected to the school. They feel that there is, wow. You leave them off a wow moment. We're always asking ourselves, when we're s putting events together, when we're doing stuff for our parents, what is the wow moment? and so this was one of our big wow moments was hosting this new joiner fair super successful. You could see parents were walking around, we had ambassador students there. They were introducing themselves, taking parents around, and and at the end of the day, when parents completed this whole list of of items of visits that they do at the different desks, they got a pretty good idea of what the feel in the community is like in the school. And so yes, there's the admissions and it's good and it's we know we we continue to expand the market. but you know families are important to us and the service that we deliver to them, we want to make sure that parents are always happy and that they always feel like there's there's a there's a strong community and that they feel well supported. And so if parents are happy, families are happy, kids are happy, we know that they're most prepared to learn, the students are mo most prepared to learn. And we know that families are most prepared to continue to partner with the school. And so what we call for is partnership with parents at the end of the day. That's a very long winded answer, but that's Nik Higgins: No, that was great. No, no, thanks for the detail. Thanks for the detail, Rickert And I think I think people should go away and look at the idea of unreasonable hospitality, which Rickert you tells us come from comes from Will Guidara, who's the co-owner of Eleven Madison Park in New York. So that's definitely something that someone can go and look at. All right, we're coming into the last section of the podcast. So Rickert, I'm gonna ask you a quick fire question. And then James has got three quick fire questions for you, if that's all right. So Rickert Marais: All right. Nik Higgins: so in this series of the podcast, we're asking every guest about AI, predictably. But Rickert, as you are a mad leader and you're the first person answering this question, I'm gonna ask you, what are you doing in your team to be ready for the emerging moment of AI search and visibility? Rickert Marais: Hmm. That's a that's a quick fire question there. so we've we've very early on in AI realized and noticed that it's entered the market. So in Hong Kong it was quite restricted. but we we've we've harnessed we've actually taken it in. and when I say we've taken it in, we've carefully taken it in, looking at it. And I just wanna say that we are we're very focused on data protection. So when we use AI, we really use it for us to be more visible, more creative. we look at the content that we develop and we make sure that you know the content that we produce is accurate and and useful for us and what does it mean for our audience really? so we're very focused on how we use AI. So we use it a lot for our content that we develop, we use it a lot for you know the different emails that we that we produce for families, the parent experience that we create. but as a mad person as well, I do use it for a lot of my sort of data analysis, really looking in sort of market analysis, trend analysis. there's actually some amazing insights that you can get if you use, for example, you know, some of the really great tools are on AI. They they can help you a lot with doing looking at market shifts and so I use that a lot for for trend analysis and and seeing where where Hong Kong is going. yeah. James: good stuff and and great answer. And we're really interested to hear from all of our guests across the season about yeah, how they're really tapping into AI and AI search. Well, we're almost at the end of the podcast now, Rickert. All that remains is for us to take a quick dive into your Madness Satchel and just learn a little bit more about what fuels your day and and makes you tick. So question one from the Madness Satchel is what is packed in your mad lunchbox to fuel your day? Rickert Marais: what is packed in my lunchbox? what fuels my day is the first thing I look at is my pipeline. That is like that drives me, that just gives me a drive and a kickstart in the morning is looking at my K at my pipeline dashboard and you know what is happening with my KPIs. you know, looking at a successful school, yes we're successful, yes we're full, but I very closely monitor performance and performance needs to to stay up there and stay high. and so you never slow down even if you're successful. Nik Higgins: What w on on a more practical note, what actually is your favorite lunch as well? We're gonna ask everybody this. What what's your go to lunch in Hong Kong, Rickert Rickert Marais: So my favorite lunch is My favorite lunch is actually in Hong Kong specifically, I would probably say a good Chao Si Fun, is what we call it. So yeah, so Chao Si Fun is really a barbecue chicken rice dish. and so barbecue pork is yeah, James: That sounds good. That sounds good. Rickert Marais: they and they prepare it really well in Hong Kong. So if you can get your hands on that, it's a really good lunch to have. Nik Higgins: Nice. James: Cool. Very good. Okay, next question. what is the one thing that keeps you sane amongst the madness? Rickert Marais: I'm a paddle player. So I I'm a I'm a mad person by day and by night I play paddle. So I stay active. that's what helps me keep me sane. I do a lot of sort of wellness different activities as well. So you know, I work hard but I also play hard and so I have a really great community of you know, paddle mates. We are actually we started a brand called paddle daddies, so so we actually James: Ha ha ha. Rickert Marais: Paddle dads are always coming together at night and we're playing a good two hours of paddle, smashing balls, James: Mad by day, pad by night, okay. well the pad that's Nik Higgins: I have to I have to ask a I have to ask a quick Rickert Marais: Yeah. Nik Higgins: question. Ricker, I went for I went for an intro to paddle session yesterday, my first time on a paddle core ever. Do you do you use the Play Tomic app? I I need to know your your rating and your score. I've got very concerned about this. Rickert Marais: Yes. Yes, yes. So well we've we get different apps, right? But we we have one that keeps your score. and so when we do official matches, it only it only counts when you do official matches and then you you record obviously your wins and your losses and then it it adjusts your your your scores, yeah. Nik Higgins: Are you are you beginner, intermediate, pro? Where are you sitting? Rickert Marais: I am intermediate. Yeah. not Nik Higgins: Impressive. Okay. No further James: I am I am Nik Higgins: paddle questions. James: I'm uninitiated in the world of padel so next time I'm Rickert Marais: Yeah. James: over in Manchester, Nick, we must get a game set Nik Higgins: Yes, absolutely. James: up. All right, finally, Rickert Marais: Okay. James: and then we will let you continue with your day, Ricker. The one thing you would tell your younger mad self Rickert Marais: Yeah, my younger self I would say from the beginning, you should focus on your data because the more you slice and dice your data, the more you get into the nitty gritty of stuff and know exactly how to make your decisions. Because data is the most informative way to help you make decisions, especially on a high level when big decisions need to be made. you always take go back to your data and what is the data telling you? And then according to that, it tells you a lot of stories and it depends on which story you're gonna follow and what outcome you wanna have. That's the advice I would give to my younger self. James: Brilliant Okay. Well, Rickert, thank you so much for appearing. And in fact, being the first guest of season three of the Madness Podcast. It's been great to hear some of your insights and anecdotes about life in the world of marketing and admissions in Hong Kong. Big shout out to the Paddle Daddies and the very Rickert Marais: Yeah. James: best of luck in your continued journey in Stamford American School. Rickert Marais: Thank you very much, Nick. Thank you, James. Nik Higgins: And a and a shout out to the caves of Renzori as well. I hope sales of the board game are gonna spike following this podcast. Rickert Marais: Yeah, James: yes, yes, absolutely. All right, thank you. Rickert Marais: thank thank you. Thank you very much. All Nik Higgins: Thank you, Ricker. Thanks so much. Rickert Marais: right, thank you guys. Bye.