Scaling Impact: How Elvis & Kresse Turned Waste Into a Thriving Regenerative Brand

[SPEAKER_00]: A business can design products, okay? [SPEAKER_00]: We design products, but we can also design the business of function as a good actor to function as something that gives more than it takes. [SPEAKER_00]: And that's to me what being regenerative means. [SPEAKER_00]: We've lost our sense of wonder and imagination if we think a business can only do one thing well.

[SPEAKER_00]: After all, a business is just a group of people in a series of decisions. [SPEAKER_00]: So why not make better ones? [SPEAKER_01]: It's the e-commerce master plan podcast. [SPEAKER_01]: Here to help you solve your marketing problems and grow your e-commerce business.

[SPEAKER_01]: Cutting through the hive to bring you inspiration and advice from the e-commerce sector and beyond, here's your host, Chloe Thomas. [SPEAKER_02]: Hello and welcome. [SPEAKER_02]: It's great to have you here. [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for hitting play and choosing to listen to one of our inspiring guests and inspiring is the word for this one.

[SPEAKER_02]: We are catching up with a past guest as part of our 10 year celebrations. [SPEAKER_02]: We are. [SPEAKER_02]: Talking someone who we lost, last caught up with in 2022, who runs, I think the most sustainable e-commerce business I've ever come across. [SPEAKER_02]: I think with waste products, creating luxury product that they sell and since we lost caught up, they've expanded that into a farm, creating products that they will be selling imminently back on the website as well and that's doing huge amounts [SPEAKER_02]: Chrissy is a hugely inspiring person, but we are also going to be sharing some nuggets and bits of advice around e-commerce as well, so make sure you stick around for the top tips where they'll be a very cool kind of influencer affiliate partnership E tip hard to classify but very powerful if you can do it right so make sure you listen to the end.

[SPEAKER_02]: And now to introduce our special guest, Cressey Wezzling, CBE is the co-founder at Elvis and Cressey. [SPEAKER_02]: The designers, manufacturers, and sellers of their range of sustainable and ethically produced luxury accessories and homewares. [SPEAKER_02]: Founded in 2005 to rescue London's decommissioned fire hose, they now sell via their Shopify site and wholesale. [SPEAKER_02]: The donate 50% of their profits to charity and have donated nearly half a million pounds to date, and saved over 315 tons of materials from landfill.

[SPEAKER_02]: Hello, Chrissy. [SPEAKER_02]: Hi, how are you doing? [SPEAKER_02]: I'm good and it's so lovely to have you back on the show again. [SPEAKER_02]: I know your episode was one that [SPEAKER_02]: kind of lurked around my brain for many, many months afterwards reminding me of things that you'd said, so it's really cool to have you back on the show.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's been four years, so how have the last few years been? [SPEAKER_00]: They've been kind of... [SPEAKER_00]: wild and amazing actually we we I think when we last spoke uh we had just decided to move everything to a farm and we're in the midst of doing all of the work here and the work has been immense you know there was seven buildings it's ironically called new barns farm it should have been called worst it barns in the world farm [SPEAKER_00]: It, yeah, seven buildings that all needed rescuing failed septic system, a landscape that it was registered as grade three to grade the past year because not the previous under, but the owner before had sold the top soil along with the turf.

[SPEAKER_00]: Wow. [SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, pretty much in as bad condition as you could get and it just doesn't look like that today today. [SPEAKER_00]: It looks absolutely spectacular and. [SPEAKER_00]: That is because of a little bit, I guess, to bring it back into help and to deliver on our regenerative mission.

[SPEAKER_00]: So what, you know, we came to the farm because we thought that the business was a great business. [SPEAKER_00]: It didn't does wonderful things, but we knew that the how could be improved. [SPEAKER_00]: we always want to push the boundary and I think a lot of businesses might think that climate change in biodiversity loss just aren't there problem. [SPEAKER_00]: But for us, we thought, how can we fold those challenges in to how we run the business and to improve and to really say, can we be exponentially better with water than, you know, it can we give water back to the environment.

[SPEAKER_00]: in a better state than we then we take it and can we clean more than we use? [SPEAKER_00]: Can we generate more renewables and we consume? [SPEAKER_00]: Can we sequester more carbon than we emit? [SPEAKER_00]: Those were the series of questions we asked and we knew a farm was where we could put those challenges to the test and that's what we've been up to since we came here and and the progress is all around me.

[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, it's been busy. [SPEAKER_00]: but it's been probably the best challenge of our lives and one that just delivers in terms of making you feel great every day, you know, just to hear owls hooting at night time and see [SPEAKER_02]: Very cool. [SPEAKER_02]: So how do you link the two, see, I grew up on a farm, I live in a rural area. [SPEAKER_02]: So I'm not, it's not like I don't understand farming and all the things you're talking about, many friends following vaguely similar paths.

[SPEAKER_02]: But how do you join those two quite disparate businesses, the luxury accessories? [SPEAKER_02]: and the farm. [SPEAKER_02]: How integrated have you made them? [SPEAKER_02]: Is it just a case that Elvis and Cressy now operates from one of those previously dilapidated bonds?

[SPEAKER_02]: Or is it fully tied together in every way that you can possibly imagine? [SPEAKER_00]: It's fully tied together and we did that intentionally. [SPEAKER_00]: Our accountant was very distressed that we wanted to do this because it meant we had to add, you know, on companies, you have to use these descriptors to say [SPEAKER_00]: and he thought definitely we need to account for these things separately, and that wasn't the point for us, because without the farm, we can't treat more waste water than we produce, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: We needed to build a wetland system, which we did, and that is a big functioning part of the farm. [SPEAKER_00]: it need to sequester carbon. [SPEAKER_00]: And there's only a few ways to do that. [SPEAKER_00]: You can plant trees.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can do rock weathering, which nature does on its own is pretty hard to speed up. [SPEAKER_00]: You can produce biochar and you can practice regenerative agriculture, which is why we came to the far. [SPEAKER_00]: So we planted 12,000 vines. [SPEAKER_00]: We are going grapes.

[SPEAKER_00]: Our first [SPEAKER_00]: Harvest was last October, so we have officially made wine now, and that will be something that we start selling in spring summer of this year. [SPEAKER_00]: And without those two things being integrated, we can't say that we were on a regenerative journey. [SPEAKER_00]: This is part of that journey. [SPEAKER_00]: and I think it would be a really interesting journey for businesses to go down and to follow our example because even if you make vacuum cleaners, you can go on this path, even if you are consultancy, you can go on this path, find a failed ecosystem, bring it back into a state of abundance and make that part of the DNA of the business.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I kind of think we've lost our sense of wonder and imagination if we think a business can only do one thing well. [SPEAKER_00]: I think businesses can do a lot of [SPEAKER_00]: After all, a business is just a group of people in a series of decisions. [SPEAKER_00]: So why not make better ones? [SPEAKER_02]: If only we could end the podcast there because that was so profound.

[SPEAKER_02]: I suspect you have more to share with us, though. [SPEAKER_02]: So do you see it as the farm cleaning up the mess that the accessories business creates? [SPEAKER_02]: Or have you found a way for the farm to feed back in to the products? [SPEAKER_00]: It's both.

[SPEAKER_00]: So obviously, you know, we have this wetland system. [SPEAKER_00]: It treats all of our wastewater, including our human ear. [SPEAKER_00]: We have a worm system that transforms human ear into vermicast. [SPEAKER_00]: Of course, we do, because why should sewage be a waste problem?

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a beautiful raw material once the worms have turned it into something into that, you know, once they've chewed through it and done there in credible work. [SPEAKER_00]: So that's something that we do here, and that's the only kind of fertilizer we use really on the farm. [SPEAKER_00]: We make compost and compost tea so we don't use any synthetics. [SPEAKER_00]: Everything that we put on the land is made from waste, but also the wetland system produces willop.

[SPEAKER_00]: and this is something we can harvest every year and make products from. [SPEAKER_00]: And the farm produces grapes and we can sell that as wine. [SPEAKER_00]: So there you go, you have another product. [SPEAKER_00]: It's all tied together, but it's tied together in order to maximize benefit for [SPEAKER_00]: air quality community are the water table locally and everyone who's associated with the business.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I think you can read, a business can design products, okay? [SPEAKER_00]: We design products, but we can also design the business to function as a good actor, to function as something that gives more than it takes. [SPEAKER_00]: And that's to me what being regenerative means. [SPEAKER_00]: And it's a kind of example, [SPEAKER_00]: We always thought we might be capable of being and that's just what the farm journey has been and I think the most exciting thing over the past four years has just been the amount of people who drive in here or Who book time here who come down to do corporate away days or board meetings here and it's because a lot of companies are exploring this idea of what does regenerative mean But very few of them are taking the big the big bold decisions to deliver that [SPEAKER_00]: And we can show here in a two-hour tour exactly what it looks like and how not difficult it is.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I think a lot of people think that these transformations are complex and virtually impossible and unaffordable. [SPEAKER_00]: But, you know, the same with our fire hose business, I've always thought, if too, if us too crazy kids could get this far, [SPEAKER_00]: What excuse to let's see one hundred companies have I don't know you know what what excuse to companies with bigger budgets and bigger teams and better finance thing I don't know you know I think no excuses.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think zero excuses [SPEAKER_02]: Back when you started the business, you kind of stumbled across these decommissioned firehows that needed to be repurposed. [SPEAKER_02]: You're now, I think using 12 different waste streams to make product. [SPEAKER_02]: And I suspect you've been offered several hundred more over years. [SPEAKER_02]: So how do you decide which ones are worthy of becoming Elvis and [SPEAKER_00]: I wouldn't say it's worthy.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think we do have a checklist. [SPEAKER_00]: One we think, can we solve this whole problem. [SPEAKER_00]: So. [SPEAKER_00]: is there something that we could do that would make a real meaningful contribution to eliminating this as a waste stream?

[SPEAKER_00]: And if the answer is yes and we kind of kind of are really intrigued. [SPEAKER_00]: Do we love it? [SPEAKER_00]: Do we think, yeah, I can talk about this for the next 20 years. [SPEAKER_00]: That's also on the checklist because the reality is for the last 21 years I've been talking about fire hose.

[SPEAKER_00]: So unless I'm prepared to put that much energy and effort into it, then it's not going [SPEAKER_00]: be really responsible for in the long term. [SPEAKER_00]: And the third is, is that are we the right team for it? [SPEAKER_00]: Because there are some materials that come here and we look at and go, yeah, we could solve that. [SPEAKER_00]: But we know there's someone better for that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then we make that connection and we pass along. [SPEAKER_00]: Because, well, we're not the best at everything. [SPEAKER_00]: And there are businesses that have real expertise in certain material types. [SPEAKER_00]: And we are always keen to make those connections.

[SPEAKER_00]: that's fundamentally the game for us or the goal or the mission is a world where every molecule that's out there gets cherished and put back in a better state than anyone found it and we're so far away from that right now that that anything we can do to the help and even if that means passing up great opportunities we will do that. [SPEAKER_02]: as it would be, I'm trying to think of a product that someone might come to you. [SPEAKER_02]: If someone came to you with a load of old plastic barrels or something, you fundamentally can't turn into a home or as accessory or a fashion accessory.

[SPEAKER_02]: It would be so crazy for you to suddenly go, oh yeah, we can turn those into plenters and we'll suddenly develop a garden arm or something. [SPEAKER_02]: It would be obvious that there would be somebody else better place to reuse that material than the news. [SPEAKER_02]: I think that's really fascinating. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, Paul, if there's somebody better, if there's somebody that already has the equipment, if there's somebody that already has a process, we will make that connection.

[SPEAKER_00]: We don't want to just go around duplicating anyone else's effort. [SPEAKER_00]: This is for us, it's about can we do something that really is innovative and really does solve a problem that is a live problem. [SPEAKER_02]: Do you think over the last 20 years since you started that the amount of waste materials is decreasing at all or that a substantially larger amount is now being repurposed have you seen an improvement? [SPEAKER_00]: No, it's so much worse.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's a few stats that make you think we're getting somewhere when I first was examining waste in the UK with something like 100 million tons to land for every year. [SPEAKER_00]: And now we're down to 30 to 40 million tons to land fill, but that's not because we produce less waste, that's just because we burn more and export more. [SPEAKER_00]: Okay. [SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, it's worse.

[SPEAKER_00]: We are producing more stuff. [SPEAKER_00]: We're producing more clothing. [SPEAKER_00]: Everyone keeps thinking that we're getting close to peak stuff. [SPEAKER_00]: And we just, we're clearly not there yet.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we're also learning more about the waste that is already out there. [SPEAKER_00]: You know, if you think about the research that's coming through on microplastics, we thought that you were going to get these little tiny microplastics that could be filtered out somehow. [SPEAKER_00]: But it turns out these microplastics continue to break down into things called nanoplastics. [SPEAKER_00]: which are much better at being carriers for bacteria and various other things.

[SPEAKER_00]: And are now recently being linked to neurodegenerative diseases. [SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, it's in our bloodstream. [SPEAKER_00]: I thought when the news article came out saying that it was in pretty much every person's testicle, every man's testicles. [SPEAKER_00]: I thought something would happen.

[SPEAKER_00]: I thought, right, patriarchy is going to [SPEAKER_00]: And frankly, we're not civilized enough to use plastic. [SPEAKER_00]: We're just not. [SPEAKER_00]: As a species, we aren't sophisticated enough to deal with it. [SPEAKER_00]: So we shouldn't use it.

[SPEAKER_00]: We should recognize sometimes that there are things we, their toys we shouldn't have. [SPEAKER_00]: Right now, I would look at AI as being a toy. [SPEAKER_00]: We're probably not ready for. [SPEAKER_00]: And we're going to have all the consequences of it.

[SPEAKER_00]: and the upside will be sprinkled around in the hands of very few people and the fallout will be shared, you know, the risk will be socialized, the profit will be privatized, just like it is with social media and algorithms. [SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, I think we have a lot of toys that we take advantage [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, it is a strange thing of the, I guess, the Western democratic society that we play first, regulate later. [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, we're seeing the issue of social media now, finally being regulated what 20 years after it's birth.

[SPEAKER_02]: And you kind of see, see, the same scenario with AI, it seems kind of mad that we go, yeah, we'll just, we'll just test it on the entire population. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: And then if something nasty time comes up, we might do something with it at the time, but it might be like plastic and the testicles. [SPEAKER_02]: We might just not bother.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: We might just think, oh, well, what can we do? [SPEAKER_00]: It's everywhere. [SPEAKER_00]: And I do find all of that very frustrating, especially when we've had, we've had other examples.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, we had the whole thing with smoking. [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that it would have been fine if tobacco companies from the time they [SPEAKER_00]: It does. [SPEAKER_00]: Here are the risks if you want to smoke smoke fine in the same way that everybody who gets on a horse knows that it's not the safest sport in the world. [SPEAKER_00]: And everybody who plays rugby knows that there's a risk and everyone who is a downhill skier knows that there's a risk.

[SPEAKER_00]: But when companies say this is just a safe, wonderful, beautiful thing and then. [SPEAKER_00]: hogs all of the profits from it. [SPEAKER_00]: And those aren't redistributed. [SPEAKER_00]: You know, if they were all giving half of their profits to mental health charities, I'd probably, I'd probably be fine with it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if every time you logged on to social media, there was a risk warning, I'd probably be fine with it. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not into a world where everyone's rights are curtailed, but I am in a world where I do want a [SPEAKER_00]: where there is fairness and justice and honesty and transparency. [SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, the circular economy I'm trying to deliver is one where money also is circular. [SPEAKER_00]: Not just, not just extracted in a one way linear direction.

[SPEAKER_02]: And this circular economy has certainly in the world of the press, and we hear a lot more noise about circularity now than we did four years ago. [SPEAKER_02]: Have you seen that there be a shift in why consumers buy your products? [SPEAKER_02]: Because they're now more actively looking for the circular, [SPEAKER_02]: Element, they go away, I want to next the next handbag I buy, I want it to be from a circular resource, therefore I'll go to Elvis and Cressy. [SPEAKER_02]: Are you finding this?

[SPEAKER_02]: They're coming in because they like the product and then they're kind of, oh, that's nice. [SPEAKER_02]: It's also circular as they go through the process. [SPEAKER_02]: The reason I ask is because I've had several discussions with people in working in sustainability businesses around where the message goes to the customer [SPEAKER_00]: Well, there's a couple of themes there. [SPEAKER_00]: Like, one, I think, in the, if I look at the arc of time, so in the past 20 years, absolutely, this audience has a grown for sure.

[SPEAKER_00]: They amount of people who we would classify as conscious consumers has grown. [SPEAKER_00]: People who want to read more, want to know more are interested in where something's produced, how people are paid, what raw materials were used. [SPEAKER_00]: Everything that has increased tonight have written the wave of that and maybe been a part of, you know, a pioneering group of companies that are sort of delivered it. [SPEAKER_00]: So that is good there there is overall more of a customer base, but.

[SPEAKER_00]: There are also a lot of brands that have just learned how to adopt the language without adopting the practices. [SPEAKER_00]: So the space is more crowded because there's more companies who just say, well, I'm sustainable with no real justification for using that terminology or, oh, this is the natural product with again, no real justification for saying that, you know, we're making wine now, holy Moses, the world of wine is so crazy. [SPEAKER_00]: you do not have to put ingredients on the back of a bottle of wine.

[SPEAKER_00]: Look at, look at any bottle of wine. [SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of a weird thing if you think about what we're drinking here. [SPEAKER_00]: And you can put up to 15% non-grapes in there and not say, hey, that's insane. [SPEAKER_00]: And also, you do not wash grapes before you squish them.

[SPEAKER_00]: So if a farm is spraying a lot and a lot of them are [SPEAKER_00]: you're drinking that and you're not just drinking it, but you're drinking it fermented. [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so [SPEAKER_00]: I can't imagine that's good for you. [SPEAKER_00]: I certainly don't want to drink it. [SPEAKER_00]: When people talk about getting red wine headaches, they blame sulfites.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, really? [SPEAKER_00]: Or is it the fermented glyphosate that came free on board on the skin of those grapes? [SPEAKER_00]: You can also add something called mega purple, if you don't like the color. [SPEAKER_00]: If it's not sweet enough, if the grapes haven't ripened enough, you can just add sugar.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then you don't have to say where that sugar came from. [SPEAKER_00]: So it could be completely non-fair trade sugar. [SPEAKER_00]: It could essentially have been from sugarcains that were picked by Haitian slaves. [SPEAKER_00]: And just because that slavery happening is happening now and some people would call it modern slavery.

[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't mean it isn't slavery. [SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, wine is wild. [SPEAKER_00]: And I think the reason why our wine will be popular is that people are going to come to the farm. [SPEAKER_00]: They're going to see us growing the grapes.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're going to understand based on our 21 year history that I'd rather die than use a chemical here. [SPEAKER_00]: That our wine is probably quite safe for drinking and might actually have genuine terrar. [SPEAKER_00]: It might actually be able to express this landscape unlike any wine that uses the word terrar and also uses. [SPEAKER_00]: Bayer or Moncanto in order to have pristine grapes.

[SPEAKER_02]: They will the wine be sold via the Elvis and Cressy website or a hutch at the end of the lane? [SPEAKER_02]: No, you know, what's your sales route? [SPEAKER_00]: both. [SPEAKER_00]: So we think, I mean, we're small.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we, we do think a lot of people who drive in will be buying the wine. [SPEAKER_00]: Another fun fact, 50% of the carbon in wine is apparently the bottle. [SPEAKER_00]: And that's because although, like glass bottles are heavy, even if it's recycled glass, that's a lot of energy to crush it, remelt it, reform it. [SPEAKER_00]: And we have decided to reuse bottles.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I've spent the last bunch of weeks driving around local pubs, making deals with [SPEAKER_00]: them setting aside boxes for us and, you know, our neighbors think it's a great cause. [SPEAKER_00]: But how, you know, this year, it's going to be 300 to 400 bottles. [SPEAKER_00]: Next year, it might be 5,000 and we're hoping to get up to 17,000 bottles. [SPEAKER_00]: That's going to be a big operation.

[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, we do think we'll sell everything from the website and everything from people coming into the farm. [SPEAKER_00]: It will have to be a gate-capped portion of the website, so you'll have to click on wine. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you go to the age thing, haven't you? [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you'll have to click on wine and do the age thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, absolutely. [SPEAKER_00]: And to be honest, I don't really want to put in a box and ship it. [SPEAKER_00]: I would much rather, you know, the most ecological way to provide wine is for people to just come here and pour it directly into their face. [SPEAKER_00]: And then spend the night and not do any driving.

[SPEAKER_00]: So that's really not what it's about. [SPEAKER_00]: That's yeah, that's definitely how we want to sell it. [SPEAKER_00]: It is a much more intimate and personal way. [SPEAKER_00]: And it is a beautiful, what we've tasted so far is absolutely gorgeous.

[SPEAKER_00]: Of course it is because we're growing grapes with integrity and with soul [SPEAKER_00]: by putting the soil first. [SPEAKER_00]: And great grapes make great wine. [SPEAKER_02]: It is that simple, isn't it? [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_02]: We've talked a lot about farming and we talked a lot about circularity. [SPEAKER_02]: Obviously, you're still running an e-commerce store. [SPEAKER_02]: Yes. [SPEAKER_02]: That is fun.

[SPEAKER_02]: I was shooting funding quite a lot of this. [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yes. [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah, farming is not. [SPEAKER_00]: The wine will eventually make money, but five years of zero.

[SPEAKER_00]: So five years big investment with zero. [SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, absolutely. [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for the website. [SPEAKER_00]: the 20 year old business that is financing this adventure because without it we wouldn't be able to do it so yeah absolutely definitely still running and he comes website [SPEAKER_02]: It's a hugely ever more complicated time to be an e-commerce with more competition, huge shifts to what was everyone's go to traffic source of Facebook ads, SEO, etc, etc.

[SPEAKER_02]: How have you been navigating that with everything else that you've been doing? [SPEAKER_02]: I think it's been hard enough for those who can concentrate on it full time, but you've obviously got an awful lot of other things you're up to. [SPEAKER_00]: Um, I mean, to be totally honest, I think not well. [SPEAKER_00]: I think we could do better.

[SPEAKER_00]: I would give ourselves a, not the greatest score at that. [SPEAKER_00]: It's changing faster than we have adapted to it. [SPEAKER_00]: We're barely keeping up. [SPEAKER_00]: We do have a great agency in place right now that that is doing the heavy lifting for us.

[SPEAKER_00]: And, and I think could be a long term partnership and we've been hunting for that kind of partnership for a while. [SPEAKER_00]: So, [SPEAKER_00]: Fingers crossed it goes well because I think it is that sophisticated and complex that it unless you are a company of a certain size You probably won't be able to have that expertise unless you are just that person then it's your interest area But you know by interest areas human sewage and soil health and [SPEAKER_00]: the state of the universe and how to avoid Canada becoming the 51st state, you know, so I guess for me it's not what it's not part of my landscape of hobbies and that means we need to find really good talent to help us out in that sphere and you know and as you know it's not straightforward to find that kind of partner because every agency says they're going to be amazing.

[SPEAKER_00]: they can say all they want. [SPEAKER_00]: It's this the delivery that matters. [SPEAKER_02]: And have you been looking for an agency to run all the marketing to run the whole business and the website or just the ad side of things? [SPEAKER_00]: Just the ads, the creative comes naturally to us because our marketing strategy has always just been to tell the truth, you know?

[SPEAKER_00]: Our story is a true, wonderful, transparent story. [SPEAKER_00]: We don't need outlandish campaigns. [SPEAKER_00]: We don't need more than that. [SPEAKER_00]: So we've always taken our own in-house images.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're getting increasingly better at that. [SPEAKER_00]: The products have continued to improve over time. [SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, it's just the ads. [SPEAKER_00]: And actually, Elvis is amazing at running the website.

[SPEAKER_00]: in a good state of performance with freelancers from time to time. [SPEAKER_02]: What I love about what you've just been talking about is that you've gone, we've got all this stuff going on. [SPEAKER_02]: Working out how the answer is not, it's not core to what we need to do. [SPEAKER_02]: It's important to the business, but it's not core to what I need to be around, it's not core to what Elvis needs to be around about.

[SPEAKER_02]: Let's find the experts and bring it in, bring them in to run that part of the business. [SPEAKER_02]: So we can focus on the other elements that are more important to us. [SPEAKER_02]: but it is it is hard trying to find that agency. [SPEAKER_02]: You say you think, obviously, beginning to test with them, you think you found them.

[SPEAKER_02]: Any tips for anyone who's going on that journey at the moment of trying to find that right partner, because I think it's always been difficult, but it's even more difficult now than it was five years ago, ten years ago. [SPEAKER_00]: I think you have to don't get stuck signing up for something where there's a three to six month exit clause. [SPEAKER_00]: Make sure that it's look, you know, this is where this is exactly what our budget is. [SPEAKER_00]: This is exactly the row asks that we're looking for.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is how, and come up with your own calculation of how you calculate row asks, right? [SPEAKER_00]: Because every agency will have some way of doing it differently. [SPEAKER_00]: We've, we've always had our own calculation, which we share up front. [SPEAKER_00]: And then really pay attention, really ask a lot of questions, but also everything they ask for.

[SPEAKER_00]: If they say they need different creative, if they say they need more video, if they say they need different text, if you have to deliver that, because you can't be the blockade, you can't be the reason why they don't succeed. [SPEAKER_00]: So you do have to trust them and give them the opportunity to be successful and you just have to keep saying what else can we do to help, how can we help, how can we serve, this is the greater cause. [SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, you just have to be really specific about what outcomes you want and everybody has to know what those are in advance.

[SPEAKER_01]: Ecommerce Masterplan is supported by some of the greatest companies in the Ecommerce sector. [SPEAKER_01]: Here's a reminder of who they are. [SPEAKER_01]: It's time for the top tips round. [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, I love this section because it gives me and our listeners some really quick ideas for taking our businesses to the next level.

[SPEAKER_02]: Cressy, are you ready for the top tips? [SPEAKER_00]: Ooh, I think so. [UNKNOWN]: Awesome. [SPEAKER_02]: Awesome.

[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, the book top tip. [SPEAKER_02]: If everyone listening to this podcast, agreed to take Friday off and read a book to make their business better, which book would you recommend? [SPEAKER_00]: I would recommend Silence Spring. [SPEAKER_00]: think it will make you a better human being and a better critical thinker.

[SPEAKER_00]: And although it's very old, it is to everyone I've ever given it to a transformational book and I always have spares here to give to people who come around, you know, I read it when I was 12, but it's never too late. [SPEAKER_00]: It's not a child's book. [SPEAKER_00]: It I shouldn't have read it at that age. [SPEAKER_02]: Excellent.

[SPEAKER_02]: Do you know you recommended that one last time as well? [SPEAKER_02]: And I always love it when a guest comes back with the same book because it's like it's that good. [SPEAKER_00]: It's foundational. [SPEAKER_02]: It's foundational and then the traffic top tip which marketing method.

[SPEAKER_02]: Do you either prize above all others or think doesn't get the press it deserves. [SPEAKER_00]: I think that that we have really found a sweet spot with interesting collaborators. [SPEAKER_00]: So we've started doing a lot of collaborative posting on Instagram and on various other channels with not necessarily the usual suspect. [SPEAKER_00]: So not just another B-Corp, but with someone who does something that really, where there's a natural resonance in our audiences.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we recently did something with [SPEAKER_00]: someone who is an incredible where repair expert and does amazing videos about that and has a huge audience and that just we saw both of us saw that that really created a surge in genuine engaged following and we're constantly looking for partners like that. [SPEAKER_00]: We've also just done [SPEAKER_00]: amazing partnership with a hotel in Newcastle called Gotham Hotel, which was an old fire station we designed a bunch of pieces for them and everything around that collaboration is generating lots of interest and lots of attraction.

[SPEAKER_00]: you always think all we just have to work with people with lots of followers and that's just not true, you have to find the collaborators where there's a real resonance and also where you probably get along because that means it'll be an authentic collaboration, too. [SPEAKER_02]: And are these pure PR collaborations, or are they affiliate deals, or paid for deals, or does it all depend on the partner you're working with, what the structure takes? [SPEAKER_00]: It totally depends.

[SPEAKER_00]: And actually, a lot of it blossoms into many things. [SPEAKER_00]: So with the knitwear repair expert, she's actually going to come here and run a workshop. [SPEAKER_00]: We're going to design a bag to get it like it. [SPEAKER_00]: it just iterates and iterates because she's a fascinating individual and we share so many values around longevity, repair.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the hotel, again, it's something where one of the biggest installations we did there is in the lobby. [SPEAKER_00]: So many people will go in and have their picture taken in front of it. [SPEAKER_00]: and share that picture with us, because they'll say, hey, we saw you in Newcastle. [SPEAKER_00]: So it's one of these things that who knows what the format is going to be, and maybe don't be so prescriptive about that, you know, if you always go in with a very specific agenda, you might miss the wider opportunity, and maybe the wider opportunity is just a genuine friendship or relationship with a cool person.

[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, I think those are the kinds of things we look for [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, tooltop tip. [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe a collaboration tool, a social media plug-in, a phone app, or just a way of working, is there a cool little tool you use that makes you and your team a more efficient from day to day? [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, definitely I have a huge big screen and then I have my laptop and their links so I can move on my screens around. [SPEAKER_00]: And I can see lots of things at once, which, and I'm one of these people, terrible people that has probably about 42 tabs open at any given time.

[SPEAKER_00]: And finally, I have the, the landscape in which I can see and access all of them, and that is how my brain works. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm always jumping around and magpying. [SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, I have the kit for that now, which it did take Elvis a painful while to explain to how I could, how I should be using it, but that's been a revelation and massive times ever. [SPEAKER_02]: Huge screen, I like it, I really struggle when I don't have two screens, but [SPEAKER_02]: The freedom of a big screen just feels wrong to me.

[SPEAKER_02]: I need to be constrained. [SPEAKER_02]: But anyway, enough of my issues, the carbon top tip. [SPEAKER_02]: What's your favorite way to reduce the carbon footprint of an e-commerce store? [SPEAKER_00]: Well, that's a really interesting one and certainly a lot of the things that you do, you know, when you're optimizing the size of images and you're increasing load speed and all of those things actually help with carbon because it just means that it's not trying to chug along and it doesn't use as much sort of bandwidth and energy, but the the biggest things that we do it's it's it's not the website it's the materials it's the materials, you know.

[SPEAKER_00]: By using rescued materials, we estimate that we have displaced about 1.5 million tons of carbon. [SPEAKER_00]: If we had used new materials for our goods, we would have spent that carbon. [SPEAKER_00]: you know, I just, it's the materials for us.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then the fact that we built a passive building, you know, our workshop that we now now operate out of is made of straw bills, which a lot of people tease us about. [SPEAKER_00]: They call it the three little pigs workshop. [SPEAKER_00]: But we've got 45 centimeter thick walls. [SPEAKER_00]: We reduced our power consumption by 94.

7%. [SPEAKER_00]: by, you know, constructing a building out of natural materials that were locally available that just happened to make it incredibly well insulated, you know, and it's a sort of a near passive design. [SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, and that was a great decision because we knew the payback period on a building that was slightly more expensive was was going to be a while, but given where energy prices have gone, now payback's done, payback's done already. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, but there we give thanks for raising energy prices.

[SPEAKER_02]: No, I don't think we do, but it's it's always nice when it pays off that a little bit faster when you've made the right decisions and across the thank you so much for being up for coming back on the show again. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm sure this has inspired many of our listeners and given them a lot to think about before we say goodbye there could you please let them know where they can find everything you're up to on the web and social. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, absolutely.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we're Elvis and Cresty.com, Elvis A&D, Cary, SSE.com, and that's our Instagram handle and our LinkedIn handle, etc. [SPEAKER_00]: But also we're just six minutes drive outside of Fabrisham and Kent.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a beautiful spot in the north-downs and it's where the wine is. [SPEAKER_02]: Brilliant. [SPEAKER_02]: Cresty, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. [SPEAKER_02]: It's been lovely [SPEAKER_02]: fascinating chat there with Chrissy.

[SPEAKER_02]: I find it so fascinating how they're taking that that full all-in-compassing approach and they are exploring all those different avenues but making it all work together and absolutely, you know, she's clearly still got her finger very much on the pulse on the [SPEAKER_02]: on the e-commerce business in terms of product production, in terms of the marketing and so forth, but also doing all those other things and they all come together to create that cohesive whole.

[SPEAKER_02]: Lots for us all to think about, I think, as a result of that one. [SPEAKER_02]: So I hope you're really pleased we've got grassy back on the show again. [SPEAKER_02]: You can get your hands on our notes from this, including the top tips and links to what we mentioned by heading over to e-commercemasterplan.com.

[SPEAKER_02]: You can also use our direct episode short links that's ECMP dot info for such the number of this episode. [SPEAKER_02]: Just put that in the URL bar and you'll go straight to the right page on the site. [SPEAKER_00]: And when you're there, why not add yourself to our email list? [SPEAKER_00]: Go on.

[SPEAKER_00]: Why not? [SPEAKER_02]: If you like this episode, then you're going to want to check out our first chat with Cressy. [SPEAKER_02]: Where? [SPEAKER_02]: We got into all the house and the walls about how she began the business.

[SPEAKER_02]: And you'll also hear the two of us geeking out about Baseljet, sewerage, and all sorts of different things. [SPEAKER_02]: That's episode 392. [SPEAKER_02]: So a fair scroll back through the listings. [SPEAKER_02]: But well worth worth a listen.

[SPEAKER_02]: And if you want to hear from other people in the B-Cop space, then ECMP.info4sashB-Cop will take you to our page [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for tuning in to this and every episode that you do of this podcast, the Ecommerce Master Plan podcast. [SPEAKER_02]: We bring you and you interview every week because I want to inspire and help Ecommerce business owners like you to succeed and thrive with your businesses, including encouraging businesses and consumers to make more sustainable buying decisions.

[SPEAKER_02]: So if you know someone this show can help, please tell them to listen to the Ecommerce Master Plan podcast. [SPEAKER_02]: I hope you have a great week and don't forget to keep optimizing. [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for listening to the e-commerce Master Plan podcast. [SPEAKER_01]: Find out more at e-commercemasterplanned.

com slash podcast.