S2: Ep 6 - From Skydives to Site Launches: Taylor Glass on Building GlampLaunch

This week on The Glamping Business Roundup, Vicki and John sit down with Taylor Glass, founder of GlampLaunch, to talk about shaking up the traditional glamping pod market with a lean, digital-first approach. 

From quitting his job with nothing but a laptop and a big idea, to delivering bespoke pods across the UK and Europe, Taylor shares the honest reality of building a business at just 23. 

In this episode, we cover: 

•  How Taylor went from electrician to glamping entrepreneur 
•  Why he ditched expensive showrooms and trade show overheads 
•  The power of founder-led marketing and authentic storytelling 
•  Lessons learned from delivery day disasters and site setup challenges 
•  Why social media, video content and AI search are changing the way guests book 
•  The common mistakes new site owners make when launching 
•  Why “people buy from people” matters more than ever in 2026 

Plus, Vicki and John share their own behind-the-scenes struggles getting sites ready for the new season — from mould and mice damage to those all-too-familiar “should we sell it all?” moments.
 
A must-listen for anyone running a glamping site, planning a new launch, or navigating the realities of hospitality entrepreneurship.
 

Thanks so much for listening. 

To find out more about how GITA can help you and your glamping business then visit www.gitauk.org or find us on the socials...

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Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61564207155053

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/glamping-industry-trade-association-uk

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to the Glamping Business Roundup, the podcast where we grab a copper, dive into the glamping world, and get straight to the honest practical stuff.

SPEAKER_03 0:06

I'm John Maddy.

SPEAKER_00 0:07

And I'm Vicky Jones. Every week we're here to share the latest stories, tough lessons, and crucial conversations from inside the glamping industry.

SPEAKER_03 0:14

Before we jump in, a quick nod to our partners. This podcast is brought to you in association with the Glamping Industries Trade Association, Gita. They are the voice and the support system of our entire sector.

SPEAKER_00 0:25

So whether you're battling laundry, figuring out your next investment, or just need a dose of relatable insight, you're exactly where you need to be. So John, you're coming live from your new pub. I'm very jealous.

SPEAKER_03 0:35

Live from the cow shed, Vicky.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

Oh yeah. I obviously our listeners can't see it, but I've just had a little tour and it looks super cool. So when you've got all your stuff on your socials, we'll uh share it on the Gita page and then people can have a checkout of your uh new pub.

SPEAKER_03 0:49

Absolutely, yeah. And um I suppose when we when we get round to putting all this great video content on our new YouTube channel, then people people can see see us and and yeah, and see see the bar as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

So yeah, maybe November might have some time.

SPEAKER_03 1:09

Series six, I reckon, Vicky. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:14

Uh because um we're both obviously still in the thick of it. We open next Friday, Easter weekend. You're already open, so you're probably a little bit further ahead than me, are you?

SPEAKER_03 1:23

We are, yeah. So we've been open for a few weeks now. We will be getting our um we we've got our glamping customers in as of this week and the weekend just gone. Yeah, happy to happy to see them again. And yeah, just um things don't feel as crazy this year. Uh, they're still pretty busy, but we are able to uh not pull all nighters and all of that sort of stuff. So yeah, happy, happy with how it's going.

SPEAKER_00 1:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:51

And how how about you?

SPEAKER_00 1:53

Yeah, still massively in the thick of getting the site ready. I've got full team, like four of us, five of us, trying to sort everything out. So clean all the domes, like deep clean everything. Went into one dome and there was just mould everywhere, like everywhere. And so luckily that kind of came off all right. We've just spent like an entire day just demoulding, um, which is really depressing. Um, yeah, it's just it's going all right. And then obviously last week I had like three days out to go to Portugal for the European Glamping Forum, which um obviously like terrible timing, absolutely terrible timing, but um, it was so good. I had such a good time. I mean, mainly the food and the drink.

SPEAKER_03 2:33

Why not?

SPEAKER_00 2:34

So um I was hanging out a lot with um so the guys from International Glamping Business Magazine, so like Steph and Dan, the show organiser, and um, you know, we went out for dinner, Sarah Riley as well, who you know, uh we were out for dinner, having like octopus and like amazing seafood, and then they just kept just kept topping my wine glass up, and I don't really drink John's food. It wasn't great. And then um, yeah, that we had a full day in the hotel, so it's a really beautiful hotel, um, and lots of insights from the European glamping world. Like they just seem to be booming over there. They've got sites that have got 50, 60 units on them, they've got space, they've got great weather, they've got just a really booming lamping economy over there, and so it was kind of I was sat there thinking, oh my god, what am I doing with my tiny little pathetic site? That's how I felt. I felt like such small fright. Obviously, I was out there representing Resin Excess. So I have to do a talk on tech tools and stuff like that. So that was all fine. But when it was me reflecting on my site compared to these incredible sites that people were talking about at the conference, I just thought, oh, I'm just like a poor relation.

SPEAKER_03 3:42

But listen, you know, Europe have had this sign-up for decades.

SPEAKER_00 3:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:47

They they know how to run a site and know how to manage multiple units and have been doing it successfully for for decades. So um, yeah, yeah, it's uh it's an easier rollout in the nicer weather.

SPEAKER_00 4:01

Yes, absolutely. Yes. I blame our weather.

SPEAKER_03 4:04

React, yeah, definitely. Definitely, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:07

Yeah, no, it was it was it was really good. I really loved it. Just having a couple of days, um, you know, a plane journey on my own, oh my days. That was amazing. Having, you know, time in the airport by myself. I read a book. I mean, honestly, and uh, it was amazing.

SPEAKER_03 4:22

That's pretty good for a parent, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

Yeah, I know, exactly. So yeah, Lisbon as a city, I didn't see much of it, obviously, but I saw some nice restaurants and um all the beautiful cobbled streets. It was just so beautiful.

SPEAKER_03 4:34

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 4:35

So yeah, I would recommend it as a city. I would like to do that, do it as a city break. But um, but yes, and Brian held the fort down down here and nobody died while I was gone. So that was a bonus. Um brilliant. All in all, it's good.

SPEAKER_03 4:47

Yeah. Oh, awesome, awesome. That sounds amazing. And then obviously you're straight back into playing catch up, being being a mum, juggling, all of that as well.

SPEAKER_00 4:57

Yeah, I had a little couple of couple of days of being a grown-up. And now I'm back to mum slash business owner.

SPEAKER_03 5:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:05

Which is fine. It's the role I've got. But we're, you know, we're at the moment, I'm gonna be completely honest, because this podcast is completely honest. We're and we do this every year. We're like, do we sell it? Every, every March, April time. Every other, every other year we've had it valued at this point because we're like, this is awful. No money. We're like on the dregs of the money, there's so much to pay out for, like staffing costs now because I've you know, I've been busier, so I'm having to rely on more staff. And and then we're like, what are we doing? Why are we doing this? Um so the jury's out, will we will we get it valued and actually put it on the market this time, or will we just then get to the point where you know the gas are here and it's all lovely and it's sunny, and we're like, oh, we can do this, this is all good.

SPEAKER_03 5:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:54

So I don't know. I'll let you know in due course.

SPEAKER_03 5:57

Watch this space. Watch this space, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:00

I don't know. Do you want to feel like that? We just want to sell the whole lot up and you're sick to death of it.

SPEAKER_03 6:04

All the time. Like you say, this time of year, you're not having them experiences, are you? You just you're just kind of in the grind.

SPEAKER_02 6:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:12

You know, spending money like there's no tomorrow, knowing that you need to spend it and knowing, you know, there's there's not that money coming back in straight away. And sure, it's it's been a quiet start to the year. You know, bookings have been really sporadic, and you know, some some weekends we were absolutely flooded for the year, and other times we're thinking, oh, it's a bit quiet in comparison. Yeah, people are people are behaving a little differently again this year.

SPEAKER_00 6:40

Yeah, last year was very last minute. Do you think is this year feeling the same?

SPEAKER_03 6:44

Yes, I definitely do. I think um certainly with Easter, days like today, I don't know what your weather's like, but it's absolutely lashing it down here. Days like today don't help bookings. People don't want to camp or glamp when it's lashing it down in the UK. They're thinking about going abroad and enjoying the sunshine more.

SPEAKER_00 7:05

Yeah, so funny. A sunny day and you get bookings, a miserable day, nothing.

SPEAKER_03 7:10

Yeah, sure. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Today we're joined by someone who is arguably one of the most talked-about new gen faces in the industry.

SPEAKER_00 7:20

Taylor Glass is the founder of Glamp Launch. He entered the market at just 23 with a very specific mission to strip away the fluff of traditional pod sales, no expensive showrooms, no inflated markups, and instead focus on a lean digital first approach to helping landowners launch.

SPEAKER_03 7:34

Taylor, you've recently become a director of Gita and you're delivering pods across the UK and Europe. We're excited to dig into how you've navigated being the young guy in the room, a veterans, and what site owners can learn from your lean business model. So welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_04 7:50

Thank you, John. Thank you, Vicky, for for having me on. It's uh I'm very glad to be here. Uh it's very interesting. So thank you for inviting me on.

SPEAKER_00 7:57

Are you um happy today to just tell us a little bit about your background and what brought you into the industry?

SPEAKER_04 8:02

Yes, so I am an electrician by trade. So I started off my my working life on the building site. So I did, and I worked across Ireland and England, and I worked in Germany and Poland and Slovakia. So I've I've kind of always been on the road and I've always done a lot of travel, and I'm used to to sites and building sites, so I am. But it got to a point for me where I basically had a quarter life crisis, I guess you could say, and realized that there was like something that I wanted to change. I enjoyed my job a lot as on the site, but I just wanted a change. And I I quit my job and I said I'm gonna start a business. I had no plan. I didn't know it was gonna be clamping pause. I just quit my job. My parents were furious and I said, I'm gonna buy a laptop. I had no experience with computers, I didn't know how to work an Excel sheet or nothing. I just said, I'm buying a laptop, I'm starting an online business, and I'm gonna see where I can take it to. With a hoping of prayer, I uh quit my job and spent the first like eight months working from uh my bedroom at my parents' house trying to trying to get a business off the off the ground. And at the start, what uh the business was originally, it was selling saunas and hot tubs and outdoor garden furniture and barbecues and just a strange mix of stuff. There was gym equipment in there and stuff too. And I got to the point where there was so much going on that I couldn't maintain it all. And and I had a customer at the time ask me to make a garden office for her, and I was using the supplier for our saunas that that could make pods. And I thought to myself, well, this is interesting, and I'll I'll give it a crack. So I reached out to some designers. I created a bunch of like 2D and 3D drawings of this pod. I thought I was like, I thought I was an architect, and uh I sent them all off to the supplier, and they were like, Yeah, Taylor, we can do this, it's cool. So we'd done the project, we'd done the office pod, and that worked out really, really well. And that was like the first time I had done like a bespoke project for someone, and I really, I really enjoyed the design process. I enjoyed communicating with the client, and from that there it kind of went from all of these other products to doing bespoke builds, and then slowly but surely I found my way into glamping. It was back in February 2024 where I first got my first set of um glamping clients, and and from that there we started designing the pods, and I just end up doing pods full-time now. So now it's mostly glamping pods, but we do like office pods and sonar pods. We've done a library pod for a school and we're doing music pods for a school outside London right now at the minute that's got like acoustic paneling inside it so that they can have like drums and stuff inside it. So we're like we're doing like a lot of different pods, but it's mainly glamping, and that's where I I want to put majority of my focus center is is is the glamping pod. So that's that's a high-level overview of how I got here.

SPEAKER_00 10:42

It's so good to hear the story because um I've known you for quite a while now, and um obviously we were at the glamping show together and um helping out on the Gita stand, and I remember you uh we all went out for dinner one night, didn't we, John? And then the next day, Taylor came in and was like, Oh, I'm gonna be I'm gonna I'm a bit late because I jumped out of a plane this morning. We were like, what? Um so this was a marketing stunt, wasn't it? So tell us about that.

SPEAKER_04 11:09

So I woke up the next morning after we had dinner and I had a like a two-hour drive to some airstrip just outside Luton. And I rocked up there and it was all pre-planned. I'd planned it in advance because I uh I like to to you know try and conquer my fears and push myself to the limit. So I intend to go bungee jumping later on this year. But I uh I try to study entrepreneurs and see what makes them special. So one of the entrepreneurs that I I looked at was Richard Branson, and Richard Branson is known for being very eclectic. Every every brand he's launched, he's done some insane marketing angle to get it off the ground. Like whenever he launched Virgin Cola, for example, even though I was only young at the time, he got a bunch of like Pepsi cans and built them all up in a street in London, and then he drove a tank through all the Pepsi cans or the cook cans or something, and he had like a bunch of these supermodels and stuff hanging off the side of the tank, like just insanely crazy marketing tactics. And then whenever he launched Virgin Atlantic, he took the hot air balloon and and flew it across the Atlantic Ocean. And these stunts that he was doing are literally not even relevant whatsoever to anything that he was marketing, but it worked because it got him in the spotlight and it got him that attention, and attention sells. And we live in an economy now with social media where attention is probably the biggest driver to what makes people buy from brands. So I basically took a leaf out of that book and I thought, okay, well, if I if I want to skydive and I want to do that, I might as well try and turn it into a company-related thing. So I bought these wee banners and signs, um, and I had like cool wee slogans saying, if you want to launch a clamping site, we'll be your parachute. And I had a bunch of these weak cool slogans and stuff, so I did. And uh I jumped out of the plane and it was the most terrifying experience of my life. So it was sitting at the edge of the plane 15,000 feet and looking over, thinking, is the business really worth it at this point? Work? And uh I jumped out and the whole way down, I'm trying my best to enjoy myself. But I'm in the back of my mind, I'm thinking, Taylor, you're actually here for work. So I have a t-shirt on, a clamp launch t-shirt on, and I'm trying to like point to the t-shirt whilst I'm like going through the air. And then as I'm landing, I I was watching other people that jump before me, and everyone was like landing on like on their backside, and people were falling. And I was thinking to myself, Taylor, just get a good landing, get a good landing. And whenever I come in, I land it perfectly, land it on my feet first time, didn't fall, it was like James Bond. So it was brilliant. Just on the spot, I went to the camera and I said, That's how we learn what I said something like that's how we launch clamping sites. Um, we'll get you on your feet first time around. Like some slick sign line I had. Yeah, we did. Nice, nice. So that was that was that there.

SPEAKER_03 14:02

Um, and I tried to yeah, that was brilliant, absolutely brilliant. So I suppose most 23-year-olds at the time, Taylor, aren't necessarily looking at the glumping supply chain thinking I can fix this. But you've been quite vocal around the old way of selling pods. So and and how it and how it's potentially broken, specifically around the kind of the the mid to high level brackets um with heavy overheads. So, what was the lightboard moment that you realized you could do it differently?

SPEAKER_04 14:40

I think the pandemic has forever changed the way people interact, B2B and B2C. Before that, there I don't think my business model would have would have worked very well. So I don't, because especially in an industry like this, it's very high trust. Like, as you guys know yourself, it's a very small industry, like everyone knows everyone in the industry. And I think after 2020, something shifted across like all of the first world where everyone started working from home and that environment has been here for the last five or six years, and it's here to stay. And think, you know, ultimately, my goal like it's it's it gets easier over time for me because I'm getting to a point now where I have like installations at different parts of the country. So if someone wants to come and stay in a pod, or or there's definitely a lot of skeptical buyers, which I completely understand. So I'm getting to a point now where I can recommend they just go and stay at a site. So my ultimate objective is to sell high quality pods but have a price point that's affordable for most people. I think that that's I think that that given the way the world's moved now, that's something that I actually can do. Because as you can see right now, like I'm in my house right now, I don't have an office, we don't have a shoe room. And I just thought that I thought that the glamin industry is an industry that's maybe lagging behind some of the other more forefront industries in the world, whereby they're adopting like these modern methods of working. And I thought that if I could take s a system that works in other industries and kind of apply it to our industry, it might help change things up a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 16:11

And you're really young in this industry. I mean, compared to us oldies who are millennials slash yeah, we're millennials, John, aren't we?

SPEAKER_03 16:19

Just about yeah, I think I think I'm clustered as a millennial. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:23

You're you're 82 as well, aren't you? As me. Oh, you're younger than me. Man, I really am old.

SPEAKER_03 16:29

I don't look it though. I look, I've had a hard paper around Vicky.

SPEAKER_00 16:36

But it it can kind of be a bit of a double-edged tool, can't it? You kind of got the tech savvyness, but you're often dealing with landowners who have like decades of experience. So, how do you build that initial trust when you haven't got a physical showroom for them to walk into?

SPEAKER_04 16:49

It's been incredibly hard. So it has, I think the best example of that is uh is a gentleman. I'll just guess first name his first name's Andrew, and Andrew is a gentleman who wants to start a glant on site, but Andrew is in his his 80s, so he is, and he doesn't even have an email, he doesn't even have an email address, he doesn't have WhatsApp, he doesn't have nothing. I end up going to his site and walking the site with him and bringing brochures and I actually posted brochures to his house before my arrival so he could look over pictures of the pods, like that's complete old school. So I try to like meet people where they're at at their level. Like for example, I have clients right now that we're doing like their pods for that I've never met in person. Um we've just had Zoom conversations together, we've just had WhatsApp chats together, and then there's other people that I would go if it's if it's feasible for me to go their site, I'll go and actually just walk the site with them. And that way I can kind of meet everyone where they're at. Because not everyone has adopted this business model yet. So I have to be adaptable to the clients as best as I can be.

SPEAKER_01 17:54

Tricky.

SPEAKER_03 17:55

Yeah, it's um but I think it takes me back to sorry, Taylor. Sorry the thing.

SPEAKER_04 18:01

I was just gonna say that it um it does get easier because then people like Andrew, I can send him to sites nearby him and he can go and see them in person and touch them and get that feel for him. So my ultimate objective is my quote unquote showrooms are actually just all the clients that have bought from me in the past that own glam insects. And then people can just go and stay in them. And then that acts as my shoeroom. And not only does that act as my shoeroom, that's actually better for me because as long as I deliver a good quality product, then the the past clients will give a good testimony on my behalf and they'll be open to passing on my details to other people. So that way I effectively do and can have showrooms all around the country, but without having the overheads for it. But it takes up the time to get to a point where I have installations scattered across the country. So slowly but surely.

SPEAKER_03 18:52

Absolutely, yeah. I love I love that no showroom philosophy. I think it's great. You've mentioned before that skipping the higher rate trade shows allows you to pass on that savings to the customer. For our listeners who are running their own sites, how can they apply that kind of lean concept thinking to their own marketing? Do we do we really need them glossy brochures anymore?

SPEAKER_04 19:16

I don't I don't think so. I mean, I think one of the models that I try I've tried so hard to build this business on, and I'll try I'll continue doing it, is that people buy from people. And I don't think people want a polished corporate entity to deal with. I think that people want to meet other people on their level. Because if you meet people on your on the same level as you, then you have a shared goal. Even if you're even if someone, even if it's a uh commercial transaction, if you're on the same level with each other, you have that mutual level of trust. But if someone is appearing to be more corporate and formal than you, then it's almost as if they're talking down to you. So what I find works best is having um relationships with people where they actually know me personally. So I can send WhatsApp messages to people that I work with and like my clients and stuff like that, there, and we can like banter and have a joke with each other. Like I've gone for like dinner and stuff with with the clients and things like that there. So I think I think trying to just show people like who you are as a person and let them see that, I think that's probably the best thing that you can do, especially as we move into a world that's going to be governed by artificial intelligence. Um, I think that actual personal relationship and connection with people is probably going to be the biggest drivers of what makes businesses survive, this AI wave. Um, and one of the things that I've started doing with that in mind is I've started vlogging and documenting all of our delivery dates. So I have. So we have we I was on the road there a few weeks ago. We drew I drove from Northumberland to a place just outside Inverness, and then I drove up to Leibster, and then I drove back to Inverness. I'd covered 850 miles in the space of four days, and I met six clients and walked six different sites. So I did, and the whole week was vlogged, all the behind-the-scenes content, all the footage of us driving in the car, rocking up to the site, shaking hands with everyone, all like the the laughter, all the things that I said wrong, like messed up a little bit. Maybe there's like a slip here or there, all that that stuff was built into the video. And by having that there, if people are interested enough to watch it, then they can see me and they can see the character. And I feel like that's really important. So I would just recommend that people try to show off who they are and show that it's it's a real business, it's real people.

SPEAKER_00 21:40

And yeah, people are deliberately making mistakes in emails now to prove that AI didn't write it, aren't they? Have you have you heard this? Because we like even now when I send an email, AI will generate what they what it thinks I should reply. And sometimes I just go, wow, that's yeah, that's good. Derry was telling us about the fixer app, which basically can just look on All your emails and your tone of voice and reply to emails as if it's you. And so now, yeah, you're having to kind of deliberately make it like I am a real person, hi, it's me, it's actually me that's replying to our emails and not somebody else. And I think, yeah, that's super relevant in today's world, isn't it? You want to have that genuine connection that you're the founder and you're sending the email.

SPEAKER_04 22:23

I I think there's like a real giveaway. There's like one dash that ChatGPT does, and it's like this really long dash. I don't even know where that's out on the keyboard, but as soon as I see it, I know which one you mean.

SPEAKER_03 22:35

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, anybody'd know content coming from me or Rich because the amount of spelling mistakes that we both make, and and not just on ourselves, but on our Facebook pages. I I'm there on a Friday night if something's gone out and you know it'll be either myself or Rich that'll have put it together. So I think it's fair to say that anybody that goes on our socials knows that it's not AI that's created. Um I'm drastically logging in when I'm in the pub going, oh my god, the state of that. You know, I'm trying to remember my business account, you know, on my phone and trying to edit it when I'm half cut, and it's it's probably even worse, to be honest.

SPEAKER_00 23:17

So I would say don't don't bother, John. Just uh make it look makes it look even more authentic.

SPEAKER_03 23:23

Yeah, you're right, you're right. Authenticity is is definitely where it's at. Definitely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:29

So you've uh we've been chatting, Taylor, about your five-step launch framework. So we see a lot of people get stuck at step two, which is planning, um, and never really actually even reached step five, which is getting the bookings in. So, in your experience, where's the most common place that people waste money during that whole setup phase?

SPEAKER_04 23:48

I think I think people waste money at all the stages. Like I had a I just had a call with someone there this morning, and they're looking to start a site within like an R range of London. And like the sites that they're looking at, they don't have like the electrical uh supply to even put a glamping development there. So I think like I think the biggest hurdle is just understanding like what people want to do because I speak to so many people and they just say, like, oh, I want to start a glamping site. I'm like, great, how many pods do you want? Uh six, and then they have like this idea of how much a glamping development costs, and they basically just look at like the price of the pods and think, okay, if I take like 40k and multiply it by six, that's how much a glamping development costs. And I'm like, well, no, because you have to buy the land, you have to get planning permission. Planning permission alone is like 10 to 15 grand. So it is, and then you've got all the auxiliary costs on top of it, then you have to set your business up, you have to market it. Like it is it is insane the amount of different elements that are required to get it off the ground. But I think I think finding land is something that a lot of people struggle with. Like a lot, if someone already has land, then it makes their life much easier because then they can just they can build it there. But I don't think there's much services. There's not many people out there that help people find land for clamping development, and I and I feel like that's a big area where a lot of people will just give up on their dream. Because people come to me like, Oh, I want to start a clamping site, but I don't have any land, I don't know how to find land, I don't know what type of land I need, what should I look for? Uh, does it have to be close to a town? How do I get water to it? How do I get plummet to it? What how and then I say to him, I was like, Well, it's also important that the ground is good quality ground, because obviously, if you're doing a plan and application, we have to do a percolation test to see what the drainage of the site is like. But people, they there's not like really any um hub where you can find information on like all these topics. So I feel like I feel like people make mistakes at all of it in all the different areas, but definitely at the start when they're trying to find land.

SPEAKER_03 25:53

It hasn't all been plain sailing though, has it, Taylor? I you know, I remember seeing footage of the crane lift at the crown, which looked like a logistical puzzle, to say the least, you know. So what what's been been the biggest kind of near disaster because we've all had them, you know, we we've we've shared many of these on the show. What what what's been the biggest near disaster moment for yourself and you know glamp launch and and what did it teach you about the for kind of the physical reality of of site prep?

SPEAKER_04 26:27

How much time do we have? Well, thankfully I can say there's there's never been anything major that's went wrong. So I just want to for all the listeners out there, it's been nothing major that's went wrong. There's only small things, but you live and you learn. Um, the very first pods that we sold, the very first ones, uh we put the water heaters that we put in the pods were too small. So they were. So we put uh 30 litre water heaters into the pods, and the guests could only get like four minutes of like warm water per tank, and it wasn't ideal. So we had to upgrade all upgrade all the water heaters, and and that's one example of something going wrong. But the delivery days are stressful depending on the requirements of the site. So in that that video where you saw like us lifting the the pods up through the roof of the lorry, um we were supposed to unload the pods with a telehandler. So we were that was the original plan, and then like two or three weeks before that, we realized that the ground at the site was too waterlogged because we were delivering them in February, and the ground was too waterlogged, so we didn't have the the capability to get a telehandler onto the ground because the telehandler would have just sunk. So our option was was to bring in a load of uh a load of gravel and basically make a temporary a temporary driveway for a telehandler, which is going to be very expensive, or cream the cream the pods in. So whenever we built the pods, we put um we put all of the the um the skirting around the outside. So we did because we didn't anticipate having to lift it. And then last minute we had to change our delivery method, and that's why it rocked up on the back of uh on the back of a 40-footer. We had to get the farmer to use his land to unload the pods on, and then it just was it just was complicated, but it was uh it was it was complicated. It took an extra couple of hours, but it wasn't it wasn't too difficult to do. It's scary watching it so it is because you're watching like a 30 or a 40 grand asset being lifted up and it's slinging up through the air. You can see it move inside. Just stand there, please God, don't let this thing fall.

SPEAKER_03 28:37

Yeah, yeah, I bet. I bet it was high, it was probably high in mouth moment. Yeah, we've we've we've had we've had a few over the years. We bought these bell tents years ago when kind of bell tents first started coming out onto the market, and we realized very quickly that there just wasn't any commercial grade bell tents out there at the time, but we didn't know. So the first ones that came out were like these like metal poles, and they were like three-piece poles in. You kind of put them into the ground. So we had guests coming in, and within about a couple of weeks, they started failing at the cone at the top, and it they were just ripping or breaking and bending with like you know, guests inside, and it was an absolute shit show.

SPEAKER_00 29:22

Oh, yeah, we were the same thing, and did both.

SPEAKER_03 29:28

I mean, there was nothing, you know, nothing dangerous about it, but it was just not a good thing. You know, we had uh we had some cows once break out of a field just as we were about to set up and like crash into the bell tent and like rip it all. And I and and this was like in the early days, and I was thinking, oh my god, I just can't, this is just not the way I wanted to do business. And I remember the I remember that vividly standing inside, so I'd crawled in and I was kind of holding up the inside of the bell tent with my head, and I'm going, you know, this is it, I'm gonna have to close this. So I just didn't have the experience back then to deal with the anxiety and the stress that it was causing me. And just at that point, the phone rang, everything soaked, you know, it'd been raining as well to top it all off. And the phone rang, and somebody on the phone, so on there, kind of huddled over, holding up the canvas, pole sticking out the top, ripped to shred, soaking. And they're like, hi, yeah, I'm on the website, and um, I see you've got these bell tents on uh on Windermere. Oh my goodness, they are beautiful. No, I want to take all three of them, I want to bring all my family, you know. And at that point, I thought, yeah, we've got to get this bad boy back on the road as quick as possible. And then I was and I was fine. We got out, we sorted it out, we met a guy that made them specifically for us, and we turned it around. But yeah, it's uh it's you know, everybody has their moments, definitely, you know, and it's them experiences that for you, you know, now I mean you're you know, going into different builds, you've got that toolbox to be able to not only take with you to sort out these moments, but also help your customers prepare themselves for inevitabilities.

SPEAKER_04 31:18

I think that's awesome, and I love that story. So I think that's right because it's so it's so true. Like starting a business, it's it's so romanticized, so it is, and like everyone celebrates and everyone's proud of you, and everyone's happy for you at the start, but like most people just honestly don't see all the stuff at the back that you have to basically just take on your shoulders and just run with it. It's really it's really just down to stress tolerance. Like, what is your capacity to handle stress and how how do you deal with so many different things going wrong at the same time? And like I understand that completely. That delivery that we done there a couple of uh weeks ago, we we decided to put the plumbing connections inside the bathroom, so we put like a hatch on the bathroom floor so that the plumbing connections could come up through the concrete base into the bottom of the pod to stop them being on the outside because it looks better and also stops them freezing, because that was in the Scottish Highlands. And whenever we were like unloading the pods and setting them down onto the base, I was thinking, please line up properly, please line up properly. And it's just it's watching it all unfold, but also understanding that that that is a responsibility that's on your shoulders, and you have to you have to maintain that um composure, and also if anything does go wrong, you have to be the first to try and think of a solution. And there's always a silver lining in it as well. So even whenever things do go wrong, there's still a lesson in it, and it's it's just trying to, like you said perfectly, it's just trying to build up that experience, and then as your stress tolerance grows, the things that used to stress you out at the start, they're they're like water off a duck's back, like 12 later. So they are so you're constantly improving and and you're constantly iterating and getting better. So I I love that story.

SPEAKER_00 33:05

Yeah, that's so true. Like I um we had a situation where mice chewed the whole of the inside of the insulation of our dome over the winter, and I had no clue until I went in there to to deep clean it. And this is a case of silver lining. Like, I always think everything happens for a reason, there's always a positive to come out of a negative, no matter what the situation. Um, so when I walked in there and there was just thousands of tiny chewed holes all in my very expensive insulation, I was like, Oh my god, this is the worst thing that's ever happened. Anyway, we ended up completely covering the insulation with a really cool funky material. And um, in fact, this is the dome that you're going to be staying in, Taylor, at the summit, so you can see. And now it looks so cool.

SPEAKER_04 33:48

And you leave it, there'll be weed bite marks in the wall.

SPEAKER_00 33:50

You can't see any chew marks now, you'd never know. And yeah, now it looks cooler and it's more interesting and it's differentiated it. And I was and now I'm like, oh, we could do this with lots of lot of the other domes. We could put some cool material and jazz it apple bit and make it different from others. So yeah, I I really like that. That there's I just think there's there's always an opportunity out of a negative situation.

SPEAKER_03 34:11

Yeah, definitely. Rich and I always romanticize about the fact that because of the amount of issues that we've had to deal with over the years, if we ever sold the business or you know, it went tits up or whatever, you know, whatever happened, um we would uh we would start a business like the glamping A team where you could you could just phone us if like the proverbial hits the fan, would be we'd be able to get in the car and go straight there and sort anything out because you know we've pretty much done everything now that you can think of that's happened. Um so um you reckon we could probably solve any issue that anybody has on any glamping site in the country.

SPEAKER_04 34:54

Yeah. I I think for me, for me, like one of the things about the struggles and the challenges is that it really like it helps you be humble, so it doesn't help you have that level of humility. I had this God knows where I got it from. I had this idea I was gonna start my business and I was gonna start making loads of money and everything's gonna go swimmingly. But here I am three years later with problems and things are going wrong. It it like brings you back down to earth, it keeps you grounded, so it does, and it keeps you like in that mindset that that you that that you just have to keep going and that you can't just things just aren't going to work out perfectly. So I like it for that. There also it adds to the story, so it does like everyone loves a rags the riches story, so they do. Like no one cares about like the trust fund kid who just was who just had it all. People like to hear about like you know, starting off young and struggling and finding your feet and having a little bit of success and then feeling a little bit and then getting back up and going again. Like that story is what makes it valuable, and then in 20, 30 years' time, hopefully we can all look back at our journeys and be like, you know what, I'm I'm proud I overcame that and I had this challenge, and and you can look back on it and and be proud of yourself. So I think that it's there's definitely beauty in the in the struggles for sure.

SPEAKER_00 36:10

Definitely, yeah. Yeah, and that's why we started the YouTube channel, just so that people knew the struggles and that people weren't alone in their struggles, and that that yeah, that nothing is plain sailing, and you go and do a job and you think it's going to take 10 minutes and it takes three hours, and then you have to do five other jobs in order to get that one job done because we've discovered a million other things that go wrong. Honestly, it's like continual.

SPEAKER_03 36:31

And a lot of our listeners are in the same boat, Taylor. You know, they they're listening to the podcast when they're sorting out issues on their site or changeovers and negotiating, you know, issues. So yeah, we're we're we're we're all in good company here. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:51

So you're I know you're really big on the founder-led approach, and you're the face of the brand, and you know, you're jumping out of planes and glamp launch t-shirts. We've kind of talked about why that personal collection is so important in 2026, way more than having like a big corporate brand identity. You want to talk to the actual person. So, what other things have you done just as like crazy marketing tactics, or that you've got planned? Um, that maybe we can take some inspiration from.

SPEAKER_04 37:17

You want to put some pods in the moon next year. So um sounds awesome. Elon Musk, we're gonna put some pods in the moon, I'm with you.

SPEAKER_00 37:29

Well, even your um your flyer that you did for the glamping show, that was a bit way out there.

SPEAKER_04 37:34

Yes, yes, um, but it worked because uh you and John were very perplexed by it. So we were uh so the flyers we had uh like there, I think there was three levels to it. There was like uh standard pods, uh bespoke pods, and then there was like uh on-demand pods or like by request, and each of each level of it was like more insane. It was like space pods, invisible pods, floating pods. But the whole point of it was because like you know, whenever you go to like shoes like that, there it's like you have like suppliers and they they have their products on display, and everything's very regimented, so as in and you know what's gonna happen. Like, there's very rarely any surprises. So, my my what I wanted to do was I wanted I intentionally wanted people to be confused when they looked at the flyers because if they're confused, then they're engaged, and if they're engaged, then they're gonna read it and they're gonna look at it and be like, Why am I looking at a flyer for space pods and floating pods? They they flip to the back of it and then they see like a QR code detect them to the website. Most people are gonna scan it and click just to see like what's going on. So that was like an early way for me to try and gauge like visibility and to like try and see how can I like disrupt the market, how can I be like a little bit of a disruptor, and uh it still ties back into like the Richard Branson philosophy of marketing. So it's so I'm still playing about that there and spongy jump at the sounds of things, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:02

We're inside a pod at some point. So you so you've set some big goals, 300 pods by 2027. Uh but if if a site owner is listening right now and feeling the squeeze of them rising costs that we've been talking about, and and you know, in an industry where there's high competition, what is what is the one kind of different thing they should be doing in their business today to stay ahead of the curve?

SPEAKER_04 39:31

Um I think if it was me, I would focus a lot on posting on social media. So I would I feel like that's like the biggest differentiator now. Um also another thing is like trying to optimize for like AI and optimize for like AI search engines and stuff we got there, because I feel like a lot of people now will just go on to like Pinterest or they'll go into Instagram and they'll find a site that they want to stay at, and then they'll just go and stay there based on the pictures. So, like a lot of people buy off pictures, and I can actually give like a little bit of context for clamp launch into that as well. We used to have like really big descriptions for all of our pods, like we would I would have a description for like the bedroom, the bathroom, and kitchen, and then all the specifications, and I would explain everything in that, but no one would read any of it, they would look at the pictures, look at the price, and then film me, and then that was it. So I've learned through um through our marketing that people don't read anything, people just want to see pictures and stuff. So I feel like if you can just convey through pictures and videos like what your site is about, I feel like that's probably the best way to try and encourage people to go there because you're like you guys know this much better than I do. Like with Clampin, you're selling an experience, so they are, and that experience, like you want to invoke emotion, and the best way to invoke emotion is through imagery and through pictures, like Vicky. Like you have like the most beautiful image on the homepage of your website with like the sun setting through the trees and stuff, it looks really amazing, so it does, and like that there is what I think is really selling for clamp sites.

SPEAKER_00 41:08

What about from an AI point of view? Because now people are searching holidays through AI. Do we actually now need to start going back to having a lot of copy on our website for AI to scan and read and learn about? Like, I was considering putting a whole page on a website that was just for AI search. Have you got any experience with that?

SPEAKER_04 41:29

Yeah, I think that's I think that's really, really important, Soydu, because AI, like the AI is basically AI basically just takes all the information from the internet and synthesizes it into a response for a query that someone asks. And if let's say, just to keep the numbers nice, let's say if we look at like the glamping industry, if someone's searching for glamping sites in Somerset and you're one of like, I don't know, say 100 or whatever, or or 200 or whatever it is, if Chat GPT or any AI search engine is pulling information and you're only like 1% of all the available data on the internet, the likelihood that it's going to pull information about your site is quite low. So you basically want to have as much content on your website as possible so that the AI search engine has more data and context about your site, and then it and then it'll pull information from your your website other than competitors. So um having like lots of information and context is important because it gives it it gives it something to reference. Also, if you're updating the website and you're putting more content on it over time, the AI search engines, the AI search engines will be able to see that you're actually relevant and up to date. If you have a website and you wrote a blog in 2015 and you haven't wrote anything since, as far as like Google and the AI search engines are concerned, your website might as well just be dead. There might as well be nothing on it because there's no activity to it. It's like a website's like live, it's breathing. You have to keep active, you have to keep it active and stuff like that there. And um, like I don't think in two or three years' time, I don't think there'll be a search bar on Google. I think it'll literally just be Gemini. That'll be what we talk to. So if you think about how the connection will go, you have a person that asks a question to Gemini or ChatGPT, which then goes to the internet and then it synthesizes that data and pulls it back to it. So you in the future, we won't even be searching the internet, we'll just be talking to an AI model and it'll be doing the searching on the internet for us. So you want to optimize for that ahead of time. And one of the best ways to do that is just to have content so that it can find the data.

SPEAKER_00 43:41

Yeah, I find that the way I'm searching is changing. I used to always just type something into Google that was not a question, that was just a statement about something, um, or whatever it was I wanted to find. When I do that now, I'm like, oh, AI didn't come up with a really succinct answer for me. I'm gonna rephrase my question into Google. To make the AI come up so that I get an actual condensed answer. And that's really dangerous because actually I'm limiting my search to what AI will give me rather than going and finding stuff out like I used to. Um, it's making me really lazy and it's worrying me.

SPEAKER_04 44:19

Yeah, for sure. And but that's but if you think like if you think about that and if you extrapolate that out across not just an industry but across literally the entire population, everyone is getting to that point, everyone's impressioning, everyone wants answers yesterday. So people aren't going to read, people aren't going to do their due diligence, they're basically going to take what they're told by the AI search engines, and then they're going to take that as verbatim, uh, they're going to take that as gospel. So if we apply that to your website and your business, if you can um provide as much information on a query as possible, the AI search engines will literally cite your website, and then that will just be provided immediately to the people that are reading. Like I can see on our website the traffic that we get. We're getting like so much traffic from ChatGPT and perplexity. Um, so we can see that we're being referred a lot through ChatGPT and stuff at the minute. So we are, and then people will then they'll call me other than make an inquiry based on what they've read, based on a blog that we've wrote or a product description that we've wrote. So it's definitely like that's the way the world's moving. So is it moving towards that interface? And even like talking to your phone, talking to AI, there's microphones on Chat GPT and stuff like that. You can just go and ask it questions whilst you're walking or you're running or you're in the gym or whatever you're doing, and then it'll provide the information for you, and then it'll read it to you through your earphones. So people aren't even seeing what they're searching or they're seeing where they're getting information from, they're just hearing stuff.

SPEAKER_00 45:55

So I go back to kind of that podcast we had with Brian Cell on AI and thinking like, what can I do to make sure that my website is um optimized for AI? And I'm thinking, I'm just gonna ask AI.

SPEAKER_03 46:07

I I I I always like fact-checking, I do I do it a lot, um, either through white papers I've um wrote, or when I was at uni, or you know, some of the consultancy work I do. So I'm I'm constantly fact-checking information, and I feel as though AI, there's a lot of people now that trust, like you say, trust AI as gospel without fact-checking any of the resource or the information, and some of it now you have to ask them to show you links because it will come up with content without any links at all. And um people think, well, you know, I mean, I'm sure there's polls out there now. Would you would you trust you know AI's information as 100% true? And I I would say there'd be a high percentage that says yes, you know, but there has been a number of times where I've you know I've I've used it and said no, that that that's absolutely not true. Their interpretation of that is is completely wrong or could be misread, you know. So it's um it's important to write your content, I suppose, for your site as as true as you can get it.

SPEAKER_04 47:16

Also, like whenever you look at images and pictures and videos, you can you can create pictures and videos with AI now, and like this is AI's only been here for like three years, so it has pretty much. Um, so in five years' time and ten years' time, I genuinely don't think we'll be able to be able to tell the difference between what's real and what's not real. Even now, it's hard to sometimes tell with pictures. Video is just quite obvious, but give it give it a few years, and you actually will not know like what you're watching. We could you could go to the cinema in five years' time and watch a filled movie, and it could be AI, and you literally wouldn't even know. So I think that's why it's really important, as I said earlier, to have like behind the scenes content and really show who you are as an individual because people buy from people, and as much as AI can understand uh human behavior and human biology and psychology, it can actually replicate replicate our own individual idiosyncrasies, so and it will never be able to replicate that. So uh that's one thing why I started doing the vlogs, all the behind-the-scenes content, because AI could, in theory, I could go on AI and I could get it to create a video or a picture of a pod in a field. And if I was a dishonest person, I could be like, oh, look at this installation we just done. But I can't get AI, you can't get AI to fabricate a 25-minute delivery day installation. And the reason that that's important now is because if we're if we post this on our YouTube channel in 2026, in 10 years' time, if people go onto our YouTube channel and they see it, they can see the data on it and they'll know that we created it before the AI wave hit, you know. So I am trying so hard to push as much content as possible. Like now, we have a client, like we haven't like confirmed the sale, but we are in discussions with someone in Texas in America, and also someone in Puerto Rico, believe it or not. And if we make either of them sales, I'm gonna document the whole thing. I'm gonna show me in on the British Airways flight over, show me doing the whole thing, driving, installing the pods, eating cake, drinking tea, whatever, and then flying back and having all of that there documented cannot be replicated by AI. And I believe that trying to be as authentic as possible and and keeping that as the core model of your business is probably the best way to um protect yourself from fed content online.

SPEAKER_03 49:45

Yeah, that's that's great advice, Taylor. Thanks so much for joining us today, Taylor. It's been an absolute pleasure, and yeah, yeah, really appreciate your time. And for for everybody else, thanks for listening. We hope you've picked up some great insights and ideas on how to make your clamping business a bit more tailored. I love my jump.

SPEAKER_00 50:06

Don't forget, this podcast is brought to you in association with the Gamping Industries Trade Association, Gita, the voice supporting your business and growing our industry.

SPEAKER_03 50:14

Make sure you follow or subscribe so you never miss a practical episode like this. And if you found today's chat a real game changer for your business, share it with another glamping enthusiast.

SPEAKER_00 50:24

And don't forget, you can also email us on glampingpodcast at gmail.com with any of your questions and ideas. Thank you so much, Taylor, and thank you all for listening.

SPEAKER_03 50:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 50:32

Thank you very much. Thanks very much.

SPEAKER_04 52:10

So well, yeah. I do. It can't it can't sit like this on its own. So it can't. It has to like it has to have its own wax. But I'm getting better at it now. Now I can curl it. So I can. So I can actually like put a weak curl on it. So I can. And and then I'm gonna take the beard and I'm gonna grow it really long, and then I'm gonna breathe it and have a braided beard and a curly mustache. I'm just gonna see how crazy I can take it. So um yes. Exactly. That's the plan. That's the plan. See how crazy I can go before anyone starts questioning my sanity. I have. Yeah. Yeah, I uh I think it's cool because um I met someone like a couple weeks ago and he had like a really cool braided beard. So I didn't have to go, and I have to I have to try that out. I have to try it out. So I didn't know that. I'm good. I'm good. Hopefully, we have good weather for the summer, that's the priority. Oh, this is a very professional. Thank you, Vicky, for for having me on. It's uh it's I'm very glad to be here. So I am so it's uh it's very interesting. So thank you for inviting me on. Um yes, so I am an electrician by trade, so I started off my my working life on the building site, so I did, and I worked across Ireland and England, and I worked in Germany and Poland and Slovakia, so I've I've kind of always been on the road, and I've always done a lot of traveling, and I'm used to to sites and building sites, so I am, but it got to a point for me where I basically had a quarter life crisis, I guess you could say, and realized that there was like something that I wanted to change. I enjoyed my job a lot as on the site, but I just wanted a change. And I I quit my job and I said I'm gonna start a business. I had no no plan, I didn't know if it was gonna be clamping pods. I just quit my job. My parents were furious, and I said, I'm gonna buy a laptop. I had no experience with computers, I didn't know how to work an Excel sheet or nothing. And I just said, I'm buying a laptop, I'm starting an online business, and I'm gonna see where I can take it to. And with a hope and a prayer, I uh quit my job and spent the first like eight months working from uh my bedroom in my parents' house trying to trying to get a business off the off the ground. And at the start, what uh uh the business was originally, it was selling saunas and hot tubs and outdoor garden furniture and barbecues and just a strange mix of stuff. There was gym equipment in there and stuff too. And I uh I I I got to the point where there was so much going on I couldn't maintain it all. And and I had a customer at the time ask me to make a garden office for her, and I was using a supplier for our saunas that could make pods. And I thought to myself, well, this is interesting, and I'll I'll give it a crack. So I reached out to some designers, I created a bunch of like 2D and 3D drawings of this pod. I thought I was like, I thought I was an architect, and uh I sent them all off to the supplier, and they were like, Yeah, Taylor, we can do this, it's cool. So we'd done the project, we'd done the Office pod, um, and that worked out really, really well. And that was like the first time I had I had done like a bespook project for someone, and I really, I really enjoyed the design process. I enjoyed communicating with the client, and from that there, it kind of went from all of these other products to doing bespoke builds, and then slowly but surely I found my way into glamping. And it was back in February 2024 where I first got my first set of um glamping clients, and then from that there we started designing the pods, and and I just end up doing pods full time now. So now it's mostly clamping pods, but we do like office pods and sauna pods. We've done a library pod for a school, and we're doing uh music pods for a school outside London right now at the minute that's got like acoustic panel and inside it so that they can have like drums and stuff inside it. So we're like we do like a lot of different pods, but it's mainly clamping, and that's where I I want to put majority of my focus into is is is the clamping pod. So that's that's a high-level overview of how I got here. So I woke up the next morning after we had dinner, and I had a like a two-hour drive to some airstrip just outside Luton, and I rocked up there and it was all pre-planned. I planned it in advance because I uh I like to to you know try and conquer my fears and push myself to the limit. So I intend to go bungee jumping later on this year, but I uh I try to study entrepreneurs and see what makes them special. So one of the entrepreneurs that I I looked at was Richard Branson. And Richard Branson is known for being very eclectic. Every brand that he's launched, he's done some insane marketing angle to get it off the ground. Like whenever he launched Virgin Cola, for example, even when I was only young at the time, he got a bunch of like Pepsi cans and built them all up in a street in London, and then he drove a tank through all the Pepsi cans or the cook cans or something, and it had like a bunch of these supermodels and stuff hanging off the side of the tank, like just insanely crazy marketing tactics. And then whenever he launched Virgin Atlantic, he took the hot air balloon and flew it across the Atlantic Ocean. And these stunts that he was doing are literally not even relevant whatsoever to anything that he was marketing, but it worked because it got him, it got him in the spotlight and it got him that attention, and attention sells. And we live in an economy now with social media where attention is probably the biggest driver to what makes people buy from brands. So I basically took a leaf out of that book and I thought, okay, well, if I if I want to skydive and I want to do that, I might as well try and turn it into a company-related thing. So I bought these wee banners and signs, um, and I had like coolie slogans saying, if you want to launch a glamping site, we'll be your parachute, and I had a bunch of these weak cool slogans and stuff. So I did. And uh I jumped out of the plane and it was the most terrifying experience of my life. So it was sitting at the edge of the plane, 15,000 feet, looking over it, thinking, is the business really worth it at this point? I jumped out and the whole way down, I'm trying my best to enjoy myself. But I'm in the back of my mind, I'm thinking, Taylor, you're actually here for work. So I have a t-shirt on, a clamp launch t-shirt on. I'm trying to like point to the t-shirt whilst I'm like going through the air. And then as I'm landing, I was watching other people that jump before me, and everyone was like landing on like on their backside, and people were falling. And I was thinking to myself, Taylor, just get a good landing, get a good landing. And whenever I came in, uh I landed perfectly, landed on my feet first time, didn't fall. It was like James Bond. So it was uh just on the spot. Uh I went to the camera and I said, That's how we learn. Well, I said something like that's how we launch clamping sites. Um, we'll get you on your feet first time around. Like some slick sign line I had, and then I just got it on. So that was that was that there. Um, and I tried to crazy. The pandemic has forever changed the way people interact, um, B2B and B2C. Before that, there, I don't think my business model would have would have worked very well. So I don't, because especially in an industry like this, it's very high trust. Like, as you guys know yourself, it's a very small industry, like everyone knows everyone in the industry. And I think after 2020, something shifted across like all of the first world where everyone started working from home, and that environment has been here for the last five or six years, and it's here to stay. And I think you know, ultimately, my goal like it's it's it gets easier over time for me because I'm getting to a point now where I have like installations at different parts of the country. So if someone wants to come and stay in a pod, or or there's definitely a lot of skeptical buyers, which I completely understand. So I'm getting to a point now where I can recommend they just go and stay at a site. So my ultimate objective is to sell high-quality pods, but have it at a price point that's affordable for most people. And I think that that's I think that that given the way the world's moved now, that's something that I actually can do. Because as you can see right now, like I'm in my house right now, I don't have an office, we don't have a shoeroom. And I just thought that I thought that the lamping industry is an industry that's maybe lagging behind some of the other more forefront industries in the world, whereby they're adopting like these modern methods of working. And I thought that if I could take a system that works in other industries and kind of apply it to our industry, it might help change things up a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:15

Uh it's been incredibly hard, so it has. Um I think the best example of that is uh is a gentleman. Um I'll just guess his first name. His first name is Andrew. And Andrew is a gentleman who wants to start a glamping site, but Andrew is in his his 80s, so he is, and he doesn't even have an email. He doesn't even have an email address, he doesn't have WhatsApp, doesn't have nothing. So I end up going to his site and walking the site with him and bringing brochures. And I actually posted brochures to his house before my arrival so he could look look over pictures of the pods. Like that's complete old school. So I try to like meet people where they're at at their level. So I like for example, I have clients right now that we're doing like their pods for that I've never met in person. Um and I we've just had Zoom conversations together, we just had WhatsApp chats together, and then there's other people that I would go if it's if it's feasible for me to go to their site, I'll go and actually just walk the site with them, and that way I can kind of meet everyone where they're at, because not everyone like has adopted this this um business model yet, so I have to be adaptable to the clients as best as I can be. But I think it like I was just gonna say that it um it's get it does get easier because it because then people like Andrew, I can send him to sites nearby him and he can go and see them in person and touch them and get that feel for him. So my ultimate objective is my quote-unquote showrooms are actually just all the clients that have bought from me in the past that own glam and sects, and then people can just go and stay in them, and then that acts as my showroom. And not only does that act as my showroom, that's actually better for me because as long as I deliver a good quality product, then the the past clients will give a good testimony on my behalf and they'll be open to passing on my details to other people so that way I effectively do and can have showrooms all around the country, but without having the overheads for it. But it takes up it takes the time to get to a point where I have installations scattered across the country. So slowly but surely.