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[Voiceover]: Welcome to the Checkout. We catch up with previous add to cart guests and ask them five quick questions to get to know them better. Leave you with a little extra inspiration to get through your Friday.
[Ad]: Here's your host, Bushy Today's checkout features Brett Sinclair, founder of the B2B E Commerce Association. It's a community that's shaking up the B2B landscape in Australia and globally. Brett's doing incredible work helping people in the industry learn, connect and grow, and his passion for B2B really shines through. In our quick chat, Brett shared his personal thoughts on tech, his constant challenge of juggling work and family life, and his perspective on Amazon. While Amazon has its limitations in the B2B world, Brett gives us a really good insight on why it is still a major player and a force to watch. Can Amazon really disrupt another space? It's a fascinating glimpse into the mind of someone leading the charge in B2B E commerce. Brett, welcome to the checkout. We had an awes awesome main episode
Nathan Bush: with you talking about all things B2B E Commerce association, how you have established that in Australia, and some of the work that you're doing around helping upskill and educate and connect people in the B2B world. Which hadn't been done before, not only here in Australia, but around the world, which is just amazing to see. I have five quick questions for you as per normal to get to know more about you Brett. Less so around the B2B E Commerce association for five things we want to know about you. Number one what is the weirdest thing that you've ever bought online?
Brett Sinclair: Weirdest thing I've ever bought online. I bought something weird I thought was weird recently. It's just a single thing I bought a fly swat. Not that weird, but it's pretty lame
Nathan Bush: you just had enough.
[Ad]: Did you get to one of those
Nathan Bush: points in the night where you. I've just had enough of this shit. I'm straight on Amazon, you're gone.
Brett Sinclair: My in laws have a fly swat and I just thought this is. Who has a fly swat? I've never seen anyone have a fly swat and they actually thing is they actually work kind of crazy. My father in law just like is a master of the fly swat. It's a good skill to have my kids actually my 3 year old thinks it's fun.
Nathan Bush: So there you go. Yeah, a little bit of pocket money. Every fly you get 5 cents out of the bank account. Number two, which retailer has most inspired you recently?
Brett Sinclair: I'm just always in awe of the Amazon delivery experience. Like it's crazy. Like I order a lot, I just never like never been let down once. Just never, never missed. So probably not what all the retailers want to hear.
[Ad]: How does the Amazon experience.
Nathan Bush: So Amazon is obviously changing the benchmarks for consumer led retail. Does it have any impact on the B2B world?
Brett Sinclair: Yeah, I was just going to say it's a huge impact because in the US they have Amazon business. So it's a huge thing. Like some people are very anti Amazon, like the B2B World, or anti Amazon because they're kind of, if you're a distributor, because they're taking potentially taking market share from you. Right. So some of them have to make a decision, do we go on Amazon or don't we go on Amazon?
Nathan Bush: So similar challenge.
Brett Sinclair: Yeah, similar challenge. But you know, this shows you to answer some of the questions talked about earlier around complexity. Even Amazon find it hard to do the B2B because they may have all the products but they don't have the product knowledge necessarily. And you still sometimes need to speak to people and specialists. And also back to what I said before, if you're a B2B company and you design something really specific for your customer, super hyper focused, customized solution that becomes more sticky than probably what Amazon can do. But with that said, they're getting better and better. And I believe Amazon business coming to Australia soon.
Nathan Bush: Have you heard any rumors of timeframe?
Brett Sinclair: I don't know but I mean they're always talking about it, that it comes eventually. So for a lot of simple stuff, you know, you can get cut out, you know, if it's more simple. B2B through the Amazon world.
Nathan Bush: Fascinating. All right, number three, can you name a piece of tech that you or your business couldn't live without?
Brett Sinclair: Well, for me a piece of tech that's costing me big time that I don't have anymore as I lost it on the golf course was my Apple watch. So I'm starting to miss a lot of calls and different things now.
Nathan Bush: How do you lose it on the golf course?
Brett Sinclair: Well, I don't play with a watch, so I don't know what happened. So it's gone now. But it's the second one I've lost, so it's hard to justify going back for another one. I have to think about that.
Nathan Bush: You've done your dash. Yeah.
Brett Sinclair: But in the business, you know, as we. We've got so many as these apps just keep growing. But I really love their, you know, this AI recorder world now with the transcripts and everything, because one of the cool things that, you know, we're doing, you know, we go and speak to people and we just have some fantastic conversations that get recorded in the transcripts and, you know, we're creating content from that and just, you know, even the. Even this app we're using now, Riverside, we're doing a lot of cool stuff with that. Just having, you know, creating volume content, you know, through that is really awesome. So loving, you know, that space. We're trying to like everybody else, we're trying to get better and smarter at AI, particularly for content creation because that's really like a big part of what we are as a business. We're like content creators for B2B commerce.
Nathan Bush: Yep. To be able to distribute the education
[Ad]: further on the call recording and the transcripts.
Nathan Bush: What are you using?
[Ad]: Because I've used.
Nathan Bush: At the moment, I've got Firefly and Fathom both running. Have you found a winner yet?
Brett Sinclair: We're using Firefly. I really like it. But best person we're to speak to would be Sarah Falconer now, who's running our marketing now. And she said that even. Maybe it was even this morning she said that Opus AI was the best tool she'd found for like carving up the best clips, like automatically. So that she found it was better than Riverside Hit and miss. Yeah. But it seems like, you know, there's a. You have to have quite a few pieces to do it really well.
Nathan Bush: The subscription costs that up.
Brett Sinclair: Yeah, I know, it's kind of crazy. I took out a spreadsheet the other day and see where it was all. Where it was all at. Because it was.
Nathan Bush: Yeah.
Brett Sinclair: And you know, I'm one of those people that I can get wowed by the ads of these subscriptions, this tech, and you just want to play with it. Right. But they've got a good way of getting you in quickly.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. Or you start on the low plan and you go, oh, I really like that feature. All of a sudden you, you're on the next plan, which is double.
[Ad]: All right, number four. Can you recommend a book or a
Nathan Bush: podcast that our listeners should immediately get into?
Brett Sinclair: Yes, I can. This one podcast I'm listening to, it's called Tropical mba. Have you heard of that one?
Nathan Bush: No, I haven't.
Brett Sinclair: You would love it. Yeah, yeah, it's very much about communities and people that are running their own sort of solo, sort of style businesses.
Nathan Bush: Oh, cool.
Brett Sinclair: Yeah. Well, not necessarily solo, but yeah, yeah, yeah, you're very sort of community focused. And yeah, these guys just really awesome how they unpack things for everyone and talk about, you know, how you scaling businesses and community ideas and how you engage, you know, your customers to be advocates for your organization is really cool. And the other one that we all listen to at the association, our team is Jay Clouse, Creative Science. That is probably the best, like, that'd be up there. It's probably the best. One of the best podcasts ever. Listen to, like, if you want to have a podcast in business, I reckon, like, he's the benchmark. I reckon, like, it's up there. Like he just. The way every episode that he delivers, like, is just value in it every time.
Nathan Bush: Love it.
[Ad]: I'm going to throw my own recommendation in there.
Nathan Bush: While we're on the topic of B2B
[Ad]: and it's past guest, and I know
Nathan Bush: someone that's in your community is Jason Greenwood. And I think he's been in the game for a long time putting content out and if you want an opinion, he's a great guy for an opinion. Doing a lot of content in that space too.
Brett Sinclair: Well, yeah. Jason is going to be part of our new podcast as well, so because we're going to get like a lot of diverse voices on, so we're looking forward to having like a lot of robust discussions around different topics and getting people's opinions.
Nathan Bush: Robust is a good word, isn't it?
Brett Sinclair: Yeah. So especially in the tech space because there's so many new players and everyone's sort of like, you know, what do you think of this versus this versus that? And so we have some. That sort of world of discussion. It'll be fun. So. But Jason's been awesome for the growth of our industry, you know, like beating the drum. Like, you know, he's such an amazing evangelist for what we're doing for everything in the B2B commerce category. And like, he always leans into stuff we're doing and he's gonna be part of our events and everything this year.
Nathan Bush: So it'll be fun, good people doing good stuff together.
[Ad]: All right, last one I've got for you.
Nathan Bush: Brett, what is your biggest challenge today?
Brett Sinclair: My biggest challenge today is managing family, young family and the growth of this association, particularly as we are in like growing in different markets. Super exciting and fun, but I'm on a lot of late night, early morning calls and got two kids, a 3 year old and a 18 month year old. And yeah, they're close in age. So last year was absolutely brutal, hoping, optimistic that it'll get a bit easier this year. But juggling work, life, balance isn't my biggest challenge today. And trying to take steps this year to figure out how we get better at it.
Nathan Bush: I think it's tough too, isn't it? Like, people call what we do a lifestyle business, but it's definitely not a lifestyle business. And it's hard to get those barriers, especially when you're running a community, because there's parts of you that just don't want the community to stop. But there's times where you've actually got to stop and take rest.
Brett Sinclair: The thing is, I've tried and failed quite a few times at trying to actually get an active. We talked about this, you know, we would talk about this for hours. You and I like about how like trying to engage communities and get people, you know, keep it all going is really hard. That's been the best thing for me in recent times, like with Justin coming on board full time and others that are getting involved in the team. Sarah Falcon, who's just like an unbelievable marketer and community person. Like, and, you know, you need to be super available for people, you know, to help. And I enjoy helping. And you know, I make. It's been awesome. I made a lot of new friends and through the association of different things. But yeah, like, you know, like, you got to be active, you got to be on it, you got to be hard into social, which can like, also take you to the brink mentally.
[Ad]: Well, I can say you're doing an
Nathan Bush: awesome job at B2B E Commerce Association. I'm sure your family says the same thing. It's.
Brett Sinclair: They don't understand what I do. That's one of the big challenges you need to overcome. You might be able to sit down with my partner and explain it to
Nathan Bush: her kids just like, why is dad always talking to a computer?
Brett Sinclair: Yeah, there's randoms on the phone.
[Ad]: Brett, thank you for joining us on the checkout.
Brett Sinclair: Thanks mate. It's been awesome. Thank you.
[Ad]: To hear more from Brett, jump back into episode 475 where Brett shares how the B2B E Commerce association is helping businesses navigate the ever changing digital landscape and ride this incredible wave of B2B growth that's happening in E commerce right now. He also breaks down Amazon's impact on B2B and shares how his own journey is shaping the industry. He wouldn't put it that way, but I will. I'll do it for him on his behalf. Trust me. If you are in E commerce and have not paid attention to B2B or are confused by B2B or overwhelmed by B2B or all those words, this is an episode that you won't want to miss. Head Back to episode 475 to hear one of the leaders in B2B E commerce share where we're at. Thanks for listening and until next time,
Nathan Bush: keep adding to cartoon.
