E37: Callum McKeefery

Richard Hill:
Hi and welcome to another episode of eCom@One And today's guest is Callum McKeefery. Now, Callum is the CEO of Reviews.io, whose focus is to help companies collect more reviews from their customers. How're you doing Callum?
Callum McKeefery:
I'm good thank you.
Richard Hill:
Good. What Callum doesn't probably know or remember, is that we actually met about eight years ago. I think you were quite new into your journey in Reviews.io. And I was very much at the start of my journey with our agency. I'm trying to recall exactly the event, but I think you had probably one of your first exhibition stands at maybe eCommerce Expo or...
Callum McKeefery:
Was it eCommerce Expo at the NEC?
Richard Hill:
I think it was, yeah. Or IRX at the NEC, was it?
Callum McKeefery:
Yeah. Didn't we have a table football machine and a...
Richard Hill:
It was quite inspiring, because I remember you literally had... You were very new.
Callum McKeefery:
Yeah.
Richard Hill:
And I think you had a three-by-three and it was just yourself chatting. We had a little chat, just a very brief chat and I've been keeping an eye on your journey ever since. And obviously now, I think you were nine in change into your journey. But that was probably in your first year.
Callum McKeefery:
Oh my gosh.
Richard Hill:
Yeah, and I remember you were dead chatty and it was pretty crazy busy like a lot of these expos are. And obviously fast forward nine years later, here we are.
Callum McKeefery:
You know what, we're not great at expos and I'm not going to claim that we are. But those first few really stick in my mind and was just a pure hustle. We didn't have any money, we had no budget, it was literally putting stuff on the credit card to get there. And I wouldn't book the space until two days before, because we couldn't afford it. So, we'd just say to the companies, keep ringing them two days before, "Have you got any space? Have you got any space, any last minute space?" And I remember both IRX and eComm expo, I ended up with last minute space and it was so raw. I'd literally be there packing my car full of stuff.
Richard Hill:
Trying to find a cheap hotel and...
Callum McKeefery:
Yeah, no we couldn't afford a hotel, we had to drive home.
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Callum McKeefery:
It was insane. I can remember doing one in London, the big one in London and we couldn't afford a hotel. So, we literally drove home every night to Leicester from London, which is like 120 mile trip home every night. And then I'd leave out four in the morning to get there again.
Richard Hill:
So, we're eight years on from that, the first or second expo with your maybe two-by-two stand, everything you own on a table in effect which is...
Callum McKeefery:
It literally was like that, it really was. We really hustled and I'd speak to... I'm sorry if I can't remember the conversation because I'd literally...
Richard Hill:
I can remember, it was a bit like that, it was like, hi and then you were swamped, it was busy, busy. I can remember that, it was literally like a 30 second thing. And I remember, and then obviously I see what you're doing now and I see what your brand is doing now. And obviously eight years later, brings us quite nicely you know, tell us how did you become the CEO or Reviews.io?
Callum McKeefery:
So, it was a really long journey for me to get to where we are now. To even get to the start of Reviews.io. So, I started off when I came straight out of uni, we started a web development agency. And we got to the dot-com crash and no one wanted to pay their bills. And one of the clients who I'd done a lot of work for was this online appliances retailer. And they literally turned around to me and said, "We're not paying." And I'd spent six months creating this amazing site for them. We'd done all the marketing, done everything, got it just literally to launch day and they said, "No, not paying." And I was like, "I got all this stuff to pay." And I went, "You know what? I'm going to do it myself." And they went, "What do you mean?" I said, "No, we're going to have to run this." So, literally I put it online with a checkout on it and everything and then literally the next day, we started getting some orders. And I was like, "Oh my gosh, now I need to facilitate these orders."
So, I literally had to go out and get accounts with all the online appliance retailers. I went to Italy to sign up Smeg, I got Neff and got all these really big companies to supply me. I went off and leased a massive warehouse, bought 15 vans. Literally really quickly, all from... I was using the customer's money. Back then I was on a 14 day delivery time and I was using the customer's money to finance it. And luckily it worked out and I managed to pay the staff. We ran the company and I managed to run that company for a couple of years. And then I sold it to a larger company. And what I learnt throughout that, was that reviews were super, super important. So, I had this thing in the back of my head, reviews are important to me. We built a review engine into this business. Back then there was no E-commerce platforms to use, there was no Magenta, there was no Shopify. So, we had to build a custom E-commerce platform and we built a custom reviews engine.
And had a break. I used to buy a lot of domain names. I had the opportunity to buy reviews.co.uk and I took it, I purchased the name and then later on I got reviews.io. And I didn't do anything with the domain for such a long time and I tried a couple of things. I launched a couple of MVPs where we were actually writing... We were doing it as a magazine and professional content. And then we did an MVP just collecting reviews for one company. And that worked, so we thought we're onto something here, developed it out, go a few clients. We got Euro Car Parts was one of our first clients and we started to land bigger and bigger clients and develop the solution. So, the solution we started with was really not anything like the solution we've got now. And that brought us into the review space.
Richard Hill:
Okay, I love that story, that origin story of the fact that you're just trying to figure everything out. And obviously you did this website for a client at the time and it all went a bit pair shaped. But that mind set, "Right, we've got to figure this out." And you figured that out, got in and out of that. But then it's like, "Hmm this reviews thing, yeah, “How can we then turn that into a business?" And then literally no doubt, it's a very basic proposition. But it's the start of the journey and then here we are today. So, today obviously you span across multiple countries.
Callum McKeefery:
Yeah, we're in Australia, USA in California, Sydney in Australia, Berlin in Germany and sunny Leicester in the UK. Which is a strange place to have your headquarters for a tech company. We get rang by all these Silicon Valley, venture capital companies. And they come on the phone and they go, "Where are you?" They think I'm in San Francisco, "We'll just come and meet you." And I'm like, "We're in Leicester, just opposite The Holiday Inn, next door to Subway." And they're like, "What are you on about?"
Richard Hill:
I can imagine.
Callum McKeefery:
When we first started, I tried to raise venture capital. We went out and looked at it and it really slowed down our development time. And I was like, "No, this isn't working for us, I'm not spending enough time with our clients, enough time on the product." So, I said, "I've got to stop doing this, I'm going to bootstrap, I'm going to go my own route." And it's the best thing that's ever happened to us. That we did that, because it actually helped us go on our own path. There's no way we would've taken venture capital and been able to go down the route that we've actually gone on. Because they would've been too focused on revenue.
We've done a great job because of that. But when you're dealing with these companies, it was just so funny. I'd walk in, I've got a pretty Leicester accent, and I'd be like, "Hey, hey." And it was quite funny, basically they laughed us out of the room because we were husband and wife. And at the time, that was the biggest no-no you could get. And we was based in Leicester City Centre.
Richard Hill:
Yeah, from then now, obviously things are going very well today.
Callum McKeefery:
Yeah, we're seeing massive growth, we're at 10 million revenue now. And we're growing quite quickly still. And we're really happy with what we've got. We've got such a good culture, we've really worked hard on that to work out what E-commerce businesses actually want out of a review platform. Instead of forcing down their necks, something that they...
Richard Hill:
That's partly why I wanted to get you on. Also, I wanted to have an eight year catch up. But from my point of view, obviously we represent a lot of E-commerce brands within our agency and obviously the people that listen to the podcast. And when we see a lot of brands out there that are offering services and solutions to E-comm stores. We're keeping an eye on a lot of different brands out there. But your marketing, I actually think it's amazing, I do. And I think, obviously your... What's the word I'm looking for? But obviously you're all about reviews and you're leading with reviews and people are reviewing you, very consistently. People I know, just by pure chance, somebody else that I had on the podcast a few weeks ago from your print partner, I bet you know, a very large...
Callum McKeefery:
Oh, yeah.
Richard Hill:
Very large E-comm store, yeah, we put a review of your review system like three days ago, four days ago. He was on it 10 weeks ago, the stuff you're doing with your E-marketing. We'll touch on that in a bit and your…
Callum McKeefery:
Yeah, it's amazing. It is amazing, it's kind of coming together at the minute really. I think the space has changed massively. And we were very lucky, not very lucky, we worked bloody hard. And we really focused on what the customer needed, what the customer wanted. And we delivered that. So, what we did, we built brand advocates. We not just delivered a review platform, we delivered knowledge as well. So, if people rang up and asked, "What shall I do? I've got this problem, I've got ad fraud." Do you know what I mean? "I've got this problem." We'd always give them the advice. And that built these advocates of the brand, that we were the good guys. And that's amazing, some of our clients just love the product.
Richard Hill:
And that's very evident...
Callum McKeefery:
And it's a tough space, we've got...
Richard Hill:
It is, I can see that.
Callum McKeefery:
There's big players out there who have had hundreds of millions of VC money. And little kid from a counsel estate in Leicester's giving them a good run for their money. But I don't play that card, I am going after them but I pay a lot of credit to my CTO, Bob.
Richard Hill:
I've seen your playing ads, I can see you going after them.
Callum McKeefery:
Yeah, my marketing team, we've run two sets of ads. The nurture ads and the aggressive ads.
Richard Hill:
Yeah.
Callum McKeefery:
And the more aggressive ads seem to be doing very well at the moment.
Richard Hill:
Yeah, you're poking in certain areas, obviously is quite a hot topic I think.
Callum McKeefery:
It's a sore point. It kind of needs to be called out. The bit that I call out a lot, is these long contracts that E-commerce companies sign with partners and providers, us providers. That really they shouldn't be, because as we've learned over the last 10 months, the world changes so fast. And you've signed these...
Richard Hill:
I mean you can’t pivot, nimble, all that stuff that you need to be able to build a review quickly. But I guess that's where you being self-funded, you can make those decisions literally like that. VC funded, you've got people, there's a lot more...
Callum McKeefery:
They're like a yacht, I'm like a speed boat. They're like an ocean liner with loads of containers on top, slowing them down. And I treat myself like...
Richard Hill:
Yeah, so they'll see your ads and then it'll probably take nine meetings and three months to be able to react to them. Where, by then you'll be on to the next thing.
Callum McKeefery:
Yeah, they see my ads and call me up and go, "Please stop running that ad." Physically, that is what happens. They go, "Callum look, can you do me a favour, can you stop running those ads?" I've had the CEO of Trustpilot tell me to calm down.
Richard Hill:
What I would say guys, listening to the podcast, go to Callum's site, review.io. And then the next thing you know, you're going to be followed around by various versions of ads.
Callum McKeefery:
We have a couple of retargeting ads, yeah. We're evolving all the time and we're evolving our marketing all the time. And it's just part of the story for us. And with a lot of those ads, we're just trying to get people into the top of the funnel. To get a conversation to go, "Actually, we're different and this is why we're different, and this is what we're doing differently."
Richard Hill:
Get them on the demo calls...
Callum McKeefery:
Yeah. We don't do any outbound, all of our clients are word of mouth or come in inbound. Whereas our competitors are all outbound. My business model really, when developing reviews has been to be exactly the opposite of what my competitors do. And it's worked every time. And I didn't know that we were doing exactly the opposite until a couple of years ago. And went like, "Every time they do that, we'd shift this way."
Richard Hill:
Okay, so I've got so many questions to ask you.
Callum McKeefery:
Fire away.
Richard Hill:
So, obviously reviews, as an agency owner is something that's been a big part of any E-comm stores that we work on. And with making sure that they've got that functionality. Now, why are reviews so important, why are they so important still?
Callum McKeefery:
It's a trust thing. Years ago, before the born of the internet. Really when you were going into a shop, you'd go in and buy something based off the trust of one of your peers. Someone you knew, Clark's shoes are good. That kind of recommendation. And what reviews online have done is just move that forward into the digital age. And really we're trying to create a flywheel effect with reviews. So, really the review is the first part of the journey. So, the review is left and then you're using that review to attract more customers. And you're using that review in your marketing, in your social proof, to bring more people into your business in an efficient way. And in a repeatable way.
So, we've really taken onboard that whole process and that's the funnel... Sorry, not the funnel, the flywheel that we've built our business around. So, right we can help you at this stage, then we can help you at this stage. And now, one of our latest products creates social proof for you that then you can use your reviews to create really interactive images. That then can be used on Instagram, Facebook and everything else. So, it's trying to use this flywheel to get more people into your business...
Richard Hill:
What really stands out about your brand for me, is that innovation piece. And obviously, I think reviews, a lot of people like you've said. Well, yeah people buy off people they trust, are their friends and they trust their opinion. So, a review online, it's like, "Somebody's used their service and they've reviewed it." So, you look at the review, is that a real review? That's always that little... And I think there's that piece that'll be good...
Callum McKeefery:
That's the biggest problem for us, that what you've just said, "Is it a real review?" Now, I've thought about this for years. How do I make reviews look... A text review, is a text review is a text review. So, what we did, we looked at photos and we looked at video. Now, you can't fake photo reviews and you can't fake video reviews at the same scale that you can text reviews. Now, we have some amazing technology to stop fakes. But even so, it's this constant war. So, we're trying to get our, not our clients, but the customers of our clients now to leave more rich media. Like photos and videos, that really shows that they're genuine, that they're actually showing their experience. That's been massive for us and I think that's the way the industry's moving, very, very quickly.
Richard Hill:
Yeah, very innovative.
Callum McKeefery:
Yeah, because you can actually see how somebody's using this product in their life. Or you can see how passionate they are when they talk about that product. And you can't fake that, you can't fake passion. I seen a video review yesterday, some guy reviewing... The company's called Whiskey World, they sell whiskey online. And this guy was reviewing this, one the company and the whiskey. And it was so authentic. It was an older gentleman, and you can tell he was like...
Richard Hill:
Likes the whiskey, yeah.
Callum McKeefery:
This is his first video review. And he was just so authentic and I was like, "This company has probably 10 000 reviews, but this one video review."
Richard Hill:
It'll be incredible, the amount of people that will relate to that guy, who is that? That man of a certain age that's like, "Oh yeah, this guy says..."
Callum McKeefery:
Beautiful, it was absolutely beautiful. It was something that, for them it's probably more important than those 10 000 reviews, text reviews. And it's about for us, keeping ahead of that, keeping ahead of the...
Richard Hill:
Innovation moving, investing all the time. You've no investors et cetera, you and your team are making those decisions, those quick decisions. What the road map is, what the tech for the road map is.
Callum McKeefery:
There's some hard bits in that, everyone thinks, "Oh, I could just collect a video review." Well, you can't, there's a lot of tech that goes behind the scenes. What if someone gets naked on the video at the end? And you're like, "Ah." You've got to create tech that looks at all that and...
Richard Hill:
You've actually discussed that in your meeting, did you, with your team.
Callum McKeefery:
What do we do when we get a picture of a penis? How are we going to spot this? And it was literally like an episode out of Silicon Valley, the show. Where they did that app where it's Not Hotdog, Hotdog.
Richard Hill:
I haven't seen it but I know where your head is, yeah.
Callum McKeefery:
Yeah, so I watched that episode and I was like, "That's what we had to do." So yeah, it's good in that way but we're very innovative and we're trying to push the industry forward.
Richard Hill:
My background is a SEO, PPC piece. And obviously from an SEO perspective you get in that user creative, rich, unique content. It's been written by a human and regular, consistently, they're discussing their experience with a fresh pair of eyes and what's happening there and then. So, you get that rich media in terms of text, but then move on several years you've got the video piece, the social capabilities. Which is where your focus is at the moment.
Callum McKeefery:
That thing plays into the SEO, because images then get indexed, videos then get indexed. And it all plays into the SEO landscape. It's all part of the same package, it offers the benefit. When people search now, you look on Google and put anything and a video popped up. Image search has gone up massively.
Richard Hill:
Image search, video search, there's a lot of different search result pages now isn’t there you know video is obviously huge.
Callum McKeefery:
You've got to be in all of them, you can't just be on the first page of Google for your term, you've got to now be on all of these different ones. And that's what we're trying to do. The big one for us is, obviously Google Shopping is massive at the minute now, they've made it free and they've done all these things. It's about having your product reviews on Google Shopping, so important. Because you're getting your name there for free.
Richard Hill:
Yeah, it's amazing when you look at the... Shopping's our core, it runs through our veins in effect and the amount of people that don’t even have reviews set up. Or they're not using the CCS platform. Or they've not got it into the services for the free aspect now. All those things are very quick wins.
Callum McKeefery:
E-commerce has to have product reviews. I'm an advocate of reviews, the IO brand. But I don't really care if you go and use another review solution. As long as you do it because it will increase your business. If I look at an E-comm site and it doesn't have reviews, when they say, "Oh, Callum, did you have a look at our site? What did you think?" The first thing I say is, "Guys, you've got to get some social proof on those pages, you've got to get some user generated content. It'll increase your conversion...".
Richard Hill:
You're working with, literally 10s of thousands of clients. You're saying you do see a correlation between the success of firms that are using reviews against the ones that aren't using reviews.
Callum McKeefery:
Massively. I’ve literally just seen an email from a guy this morning, who sells bizarrely, glass and Perspex pedestals that you put memorabilia on.
Richard Hill:
Oh okay, yeah like a display stand.
Callum McKeefery:
Display pedestal things. His email came back today, we just got him his product reviews in Google, just got everything set up, running really nice for him. He's seen a 35% increase in conversion month on month, from the month before to now... Sorry, I think it was September to October, in the US, he saw a 33 or 35% increase in conversion. And he's flying, he's set up now for Christmas, he's going to do a great holiday period. It does play a part. People say, "Oh, well it won't work for my brand." I've not found an online brand yet that it doesn't work for.
Richard Hill:
It’s the kind of thing, like you say, that initial piece of like, “where do you buy your stuff from?” Well, we buy through recommendation, and I get friends and family definitely. But if there's hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of positive reviews about a brand, you're going to take note, aren't you? You might question the odd one in there, like anything, you're a little bit skeptical about the odd review maybe, like we say. But the reality is, if there's a shear volume of consistent, you're looking at the dates when they came in. There's actually 20 reviews from yesterday and 20 from the day before. There's that newness to it, and it's not just the same thing like, "Great company, great company, great company." There's a whole variety and use of language, it can't not.
I think that's the same in any business, whether it's E-comm or not, from a B-to-B point of view for our agencies. Our industry is so tainted as an agency life, the agency world. A lot of our companies that work with us, work if us because they've had a bad experience elsewhere. So, they come to us and they're all a bit like, "Still not sure." Because they've had quite a bad experience. And then they look at our review, we don't actually use personally, an actual system like yourselves, we collect them manually sort of thing, but we get the people on video, like you say. And nearly every single time that we end up in a meeting about new business, we will refer to somebody that we know we've had a review from. And say, "Look, oh actually we work with a company very similar to you guys, there's a video here." We make a point of actually manually collecting videos, whether it's an electronics company...
Callum McKeefery:
What you're doing there, you're building a connection from your past customer to your potential customer. Exactly what you just said, and that's what reviews does. When you build that connection, you shorten the sale cycle. Whether that's whether you're buying a pair of shoes or you're taking out an E-commerce agency plan. All you're doing is building that connection and then you're shortening the sale cycle. And that's why it's so important. And I think you're exactly right in what you're doing, even if you're just doing it yourself. I'm a big advocate of reviews, whether they're done by us or in your case you'd, "Hi, can you leave us a testimonial?" And I'm a big advocate of all of that.
Richard Hill:
Guys that are listening in, it's the way forward, you've got to get a review system in place. Obviously, we'll link up and you can have a look at Callum's system or platform should I say. But even if you're just getting started out, reach out to some other customers on a manual basis. But I think that is sometimes a challenge, how to encourage people to leave a review. What some advice you can give there to try and... I think it's all right saying, go and ask for a review. But they don't give you one, that what things can you do to...
Callum McKeefery:
So, probably in a day I probably send out a couple million emails in a day now. Collecting reviews is easy and it gets over complicated sometimes. Keep it really simple, that's my first bit of advice, how you ask for a review, keep it very simple. Make it as easy as possible for your customer to leave you a review. Whether that's using a platform or whether doing yourself. Make it as easy as possible. Keep the email as short as possible, the shorter the email the better it is. Don't incentivize, because incentivizing for a review, we've tested this. Some of our peers, some companies who we compete with, actually advocate for incentivizing. I think incentivizing one, damages your brand. Because now that person doesn't trust your brand as much because they think, "Are those review I left? Did he incentivize those?"
Richard Hill:
A £50 voucher or whatever, yeah.
Callum McKeefery:
So don't incentivize, offer a great service. Timing is super important. If you're running the business, just jot down where your customers happiest point is. Is it as soon as they've received the product? Is it as soon as you've got them on the first page of Google? Work our where that customers happy point is and then hit that point. Go after it right there and then.
Richard Hill:
Depending on what you sell.
Callum McKeefery:
Yeah.
Richard Hill:
Where they're at the optimum experience with you, whether you've just gotten to page one of Google. Or they've just received their shoes in the post.
Callum McKeefery:
Exactly.
Richard Hill:
They've just tried them on and they fit perfectly, so that evening hit them with the first...
Callum McKeefery:
Timing is huge, timing is probably the second most important thing apart from the message. So, get the messaging right, get the timing right, you will get conversion. And then it's all about publishing that review wherever you want. What we do at Reviews.io, we have some really clever systems now that help you publish that review. We publish into Google, so you get the gold stars, the gold seller ratings. We also automatically publish reviews into Facebook and Twitter. But now we've also got a solution that actually creates an image based around the review, that you can really customize. And that can be then used on Facebook or Instagram or LinkedIn. So, getting that review is the easy bit, making it and extracting that value. A review is like an orange, you've got to give it a good squeeze and then get the value out of it. That's what you've got to do. And I think if you can do that, you can really create an efficient, flywheel to build a connection between your potential customer and your past customer again. And that's the key.
Richard Hill:
Brilliant, some great takeaways there Callum, thank you. So, I'm just going back to that innovation piece again. I know obviously on your platform, like we said, you're always innovating. And you touched on your social proof side of things. But you've also got an influencer side onto the platform.
Callum McKeefery:
Yeah.
Richard Hill:
Tell us about that, it's something I'm very, very interested in personally from an agency point of view.
Callum McKeefery:
Yeah, so our influencer solution, it took me years. I had this massive problem, and every time I went on holiday, I'd always take a notepad with me. And I'd go, "I'm going to fix this problem this time." My wife would be like, "You're obsessed."
Richard Hill:
“You're on holiday!”
Callum McKeefery:
"You're on holiday, there's something wrong with you, you're obsessed." And I'd always try and figure out, the big problem with online is you don't really know who you're dealing with. And that's the problem that I was trying to solve is, who is the most powerful brand advocate that you made happy? Who has huge amount of social currency online, who's the most powerful advocate you've got? So, I spent absolutely, so many hours, days, months, working on this problem. Drawing pictures on boards that'd go nowhere and I'd rub it off. I was like Rain Man for a few months.
It came to me one day that, right we'll use what we... We've got to leverage some of our back catalog of reviewers. And we've got to now see who is the most influential on Instagram. And we're able to identify that this person is, for instance I've seen some absolutely huge ones. So, one of the companies we deal with a lot is a company called BOXRAW, which sells boxing equipment, really cool tracksuits and hoodies and all that. And they were getting some of the worlds biggest boxers, world champions buying from them and I didn't even realize. And we were able to identify these people and go, "Actually, you know that guy who gave you that review, that's Terence Crawford, WBO champion of the world."
And they'd be like, "What?" I did one for a furnishings company and they had massive, massive influencers actually buying their products and they didn't know. And we were able to identify that influencer and rank their brand advocates by their power. And they were then able to build relationships with these brand advocates. They could see who they are. One, if you've got loads of customers, you can see who they are and then do follows and you can try and build relationships up. It was just a great solution. Technically it's a very difficult one to explain.
Richard Hill:
But the bottom line is, if I am a retailer and I'm getting reviews or people are buying my product. Your system enables me to see the influencer score, would that be a...
Callum McKeefery:
Yeah, it kind of is an influencer score, we just rank off. So, you can go, right, who's the most influential person this week who's purchased? And you can see that and then you can go, right I'm going to try and... Most companies now, if they get to about the 50 person size, most E-comm's then have someone purely looking after social media and influence. That report would go to them and they'd use it to build relationships with these brand advocates because they're not just normal customers. These people have wrote positive reviews on them.
Richard Hill:
They already loved the brand before and left a positive review...
Callum McKeefery:
They're already advocates.
Richard Hill:
That is to see if there's some...
Callum McKeefery:
Engage, is engage. And that's what that's solution's actually called. We call it discover and engage and promote. And there's three elements to it. And it's such a powerful solution, and the companies that use it and use it well, we've seen dramatic growth from those companies.
Richard Hill:
That's completely new territory for me. I see obviously when we're doing the research for the published podcast that you guys do that. But I've not actually seen that before.
Callum McKeefery:
It's pretty fresh.
Richard Hill:
That really is amazing, because...
Callum McKeefery:
It's so good.
Richard Hill:
Yeah, and they already had that positive experience with you. They've bought from you, they've left a review. So, it's natural, they'll be probably quite excited that that brand has reached out to them as well as the brand being excited to reach...
Callum McKeefery:
That's what I mean.
Richard Hill:
It’s win-win again.
Callum McKeefery:
You've turned the light on and there's all these influencers in the room. The companies that we deal with, didn't have this visibility before. And I'm talking, one of our clients who uses it is a massive... They're a multi-billion dollar E-commerce company. And they're like, "We've got 14 people on our influencer side Callum, and you've just..."
Richard Hill:
Now got something for them to do, got a list of people to connect with.
Callum McKeefery:
Actually they kept them on and they were able to build... They were probably building a couple of relationships a week. And now they're able to build absolutely loads. And that company's actually doing Black Friday at the moment. Obviously Black Friday coming this week. And what they've actually been able to do is give their influencers early access for the sale. So, they're actually bringing the solution that we've built for them into their marketing more. So, they're saying, right these are our influencers, these are our brand advocates. Instead of just treating the people who spend the most with us like gold, let's treat these guys.
Richard Hill:
Yeah. Amplifying it again before the gates are open almost for Black Friday, yeah.
Callum McKeefery:
Yeah, you're letting your market do your advertising for you. It's a new way of looking at it and I think it's the future of really how online retail will evolve over the next couple of years. I think we've ahead of the curve on it and I think it's going to be a big thing. Early adopters, they're all over it. There's some companies out there that we deal with, they're like, "It's good but it's not for us right now." They're not probably the right companies to be using anyway.
Richard Hill:
So, I think we've touched on a lot of very innovative different things that you've feathered through the business. And obviously that keeps you very competitive in a fairly competitive industry, with a lot of big money companies. What else do you do in your business to stay competitive? Obviously you're innovating all the time, is that where you physically head that up, you're in charge of that road map?
Callum McKeefery:
Yeah, so when we built the business, we didn't want to have massive sales team. We saw all these other review platforms out there. And they had these huge sales teams, very small development teams. And I just went, "That's not how a tech company should look." A tech company should have a bigger development team than a sales team. The product, if it's good will sell itself. So, we're developer heavy, we have more developers than we do sales people. And we always will do, that's our culture. And that helps us evolve in the market much quicker really, than our peers. Our pricing, we've always wanted to control our pricing and keep it as low as possible. Because collecting reviews, we just spoke about it, it's not rocket science. If you get it right, it's not rocket science.
It shouldn't cost you tens or thousands a year, it shouldn't. We're not cheap by any means, we get clients coming to us, "Ah, why're you so cheap?" And I'm like, "We're not cheap." We're just not ridiculously expensive like some of the other guys in the market who are squeezing you a little bit too much maybe. That's how we deal with those bigger guys. And we deal with word of mouth, so we're fanatical about offering a high level of service and trying to get one of clients, became a client, making them into a brand advocate. And getting them to talk about the brand. And growing like that, growing the old fashion way, the world of mouth way. A review company that doesn't grow like that is weird to me, it's alien. And a tech company that isn't developer heavy is not a tech company to me.
Richard Hill:
It's a good sign when if you're looking for a review company, that you look at the reviews of the review company. You're going to get quite a good feel for what the journey's going to be like I think.
Callum McKeefery:
Yeah. And I think we, over the last five years, we've really built these brand advocates. And I think if you go on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn and go, I'm looking for a review company. Our name will be mentioned by some of our clients who see that and say, actually try Reviews.io, they're really good. The first introduction to reviews platforms, it's probably by Trustpilot cold calling a company. Especially in the UK, not in Australia and not in America. But in the UK, that is how most E-comms hear about review platforms. Cold calling is super aggressive. And we've never done that, so for us they go, "Ah, we've got Trustpilot on our case, they're ringing us every time." And people then google what the review platforms are review platforms or put something on LinkedIn. And then our brand will get mentioned. So, growth has been more organic than forced. I think that's benefited us because I don't think we could've developed and built a customer focused solution like we have without that.
Richard Hill:
Impeccable customer focus and that customer aha of everything you do, which obviously is very much made it part of the culture. But it is the product that you're selling as well, it's reviewing other firms. It's almost like an amazing place to be, I think. In terms of that culture is your business and I think that really comes through, like I say, in all your marketing and everything that...
Callum McKeefery:
Yeah. Sometimes I get told off on LinkedIn for being too passionate. I had somebody say the other day, "You're too strong, you're too passionate about this." In kind words, they said it nicely. And I was like, "You know what, I am sometimes, I am a little bit too aggressive sometimes against our competitors." It's just me unfortunately.
Richard Hill:
Hey ho isn’t it. Well, it's working for you, isn't it?
Callum McKeefery:
Yeah, we're doing okay. We'll just keep doing it for now. We'll ride that horse till the end.
Richard Hill:
So, we're going to go a little bit personal now on a few questions. We touched on reviews hugely, I think there's some amazing content there guys. They're listening in, I would say even maybe hit the pause now. Have a little think about, right what review system have you got in place. Or if you've not got a review system in place, have a look at what you're doing to collect them. Have a look at whether you've got them hooked into your paid ads. We're talking about Google Shopping, is that element working? Quite often you may love reviews and listening in but you've not actually connected the dots with Google Shopping. So, you're losing a potential point or two on your conversion rate. So, I know you did a podcast with your son. And how did that come about?
Callum McKeefery:
So, it was very, very difficult, I'm going to be honest. To open up about what me and my family have been going through with my son, it's been tough. And it took me a long time to be brave enough to do it. Hudson has a very rare genetic disease, that means he's non-verbal, non-talking, walking. And he has a rare mitochondrial disease, and it was mitochondria week and I thought, "You know what? Bite the bullet." And I just went outside and I did a post with him. And I said, "This is Hudson, this is my son. He's the happiest little boy in the world as you can see." It was just an off the cuff thing I did. I sat on the swing and did this video. He's a great little boy. It's very difficult to go through and I'm trying to do a lot.
It's my hobby at the minute, is trying to do things to make life easier for some of these kids. And to try and get more help. In America we've just set up our collab in America, in Buffalo, in New Jersey. We've just set up our first lab, we sponsored a lab. We've just invested $1 million into the lab and we've got scientists there now working on stem cell and genetic testing on mice at the moment, with Buffalo University. And that's going really great. We're just trying to do as much as we can, to help Hudson and all the families who are coming through. And it's a long road, we're in for a long road, but he's such a happy little boy.
Richard Hill:
I've seen obviously the various things you...
Callum McKeefery:
Yeah, I'm trying to involve him a little bit more now, while I'm doing the podcasts and things like that. He's just such a happy little boy, he's a delight. I'm going to take him for a walk after this.
Richard Hill:
He'll be waiting for it.
Callum McKeefery:
Yeah, he will be. He's a superstar but it's a long road.
Richard Hill:
So, the lab in America, we can link to that, can we?
Callum McKeefery:
Yeah. I'll send you the details for that. Basically, when Hudson got diagnosed by the NHS it was horrible. We went into this room, we found this mutation on his DNA, it was part of 100 000 genome projects. And they went, "Here's a piece of paper." Basically with everything they knew on this disease. And it's called FDXR. And they went, "Off you go." I was like, "What?" We didn't know anything, they didn't tell us one thing because they didn't know anything, there's 34 people in the world. And on the name of the form there was all these people who were working on this disease. Who had identified this disease. I emailed all of them, connected with them. I did everything I do to probably win new business.
I used all my skills, LinkedIn and everything. And I got hold of this guy, he was in Cincinnati at the time. Last year he rang me out of the blue and said, "Hi, we've had a breakthrough, I'm going to send you a video." And it's a video of the mice that've had their DNA slightly altered using CRISPR. And these mice were running around, drinking normal, it was amazing. I was like, "Whoa, what are we doing?" And I said, "Right, we'll work with you and we want to move this trial and move this forward." So, he said, "Right, I'm moving to Buffalo University, would you be interested in doing a partnership there?"
So, we set the lab up, we invested $1 million straight away to get the lab up and running. And it's going well, they're getting good results. It's only in early days, we hope at some point we'll get it to human testing at some point. We've gone out and found all these people who have the disease. Now, we think there's a lot more, but the testing is so hard to do, to know whether you've got it. It's probably hundreds of thousands people got this disease but they've never known. And yeah, that's what we're doing at the minute. So, it's pretty exciting, bit tough at the same time, very emotional.
Richard Hill:
Yeah, I see you talk about it, obviously I saw your...
Callum McKeefery:
Yeah, I try and be a bit vocal about it on LinkedIn and try and involve him a little bit. Because he is part of my life, he is part of what makes me.
Richard Hill:
Trying to balance that father piece and that work piece, I think it resonates in different ways to a lot of people listening in. Even more so right now, when we're all at home with our children.
Callum McKeefery:
Yeah.
Richard Hill:
Any advice you would give to the guys listening to the podcast?
Callum McKeefery:
It's so, so difficult. Having a kid with special needs is super, super difficult and especially during these times. I've taken on the role of physiotherapist, now I do all his physio. And those people I've got so much respect for paediatric physiotherapy, those people are so strong. But look, this is what I have next to my desk. Because I'm trying to make my hands stronger. So, I sit here doing this every day, because you have to do so many movements with his body. And I realized I'm so weak. And I'm not, but in this area I'm... There used to be this little lady who used to come in from the NHS to do his physio and I'd be like, "Oh, she's all right." Now, I'm like, her hands must have been made of steel, the way she's moving him.
Richard Hill:
I guess we forget to understand the skills they’ve got, the strength they’ve got.
Callum McKeefery:
Yes, so I've got absolutely nothing but respect. But it's difficult, you've just got to take a lot of breaks and you've got to focus on your family. Obviously with the pandemic, it's just put extra pressure on all families, more so with kids with special needs. Because they need help and they're probably not getting it at the minute, for their learning. We've not had a speech therapist in eight months. My wife's learning and trying how to do it, but it's difficult. And it's just an extremely tough period in time for everyone, it really is. But like I say, I'm going to finish this, I'm taking him for a walk. I'll stick my headphones in, I'll probably do a call on the way. And I try and...
Richard Hill:
Just balance it out.
Callum McKeefery:
Yeah. I've involved him in the podcast, so every week we get me and him sit and do the podcast. And I've built these little buttons for him and he can press. The buttons do the talking. It's so difficult keeping him entertained at the moment and all kids.
Richard Hill:
Very, very busy, yeah.
Callum McKeefery:
So, five thirty we close the UK office and at five the California office opens. And then the Australian office opens. So, I'll get a call at 02:00 AM and it'll be, something's happened, the servers are down, we're getting hacked. Something will be going on. And we run 24 hours, so pretty much I have to run 24 hours.
Richard Hill:
So, you can operate on minimal sleep then can you?
Callum McKeefery:
Oh yeah, I'm full four hours now.
Richard Hill:
Can you really, four hours?
Callum McKeefery:
No, at a push I can go.
Richard Hill:
Not regularly, but yeah.
Callum McKeefery:
I don't like it.
Richard Hill:
No, I can't do that.
Callum McKeefery:
No, we sleeps when he sleeps. So, if he goes to sleep.
Richard Hill:
Gone.
Callum McKeefery:
Sleep now. Yeah, so it's been a tough period, but getting there. Hopefully with this vaccine news, I think has lifted everyone's spirits.
Richard Hill:
Yeah, definitely has, hasn't it? Well, thank you for sharing that, brilliant.
Callum McKeefery:
Yeah, no problem.
Richard Hill:
A lot of TV ads going around at the moment, a lot of Christmas ads, do you have a particular favourite at the moment on the Christmas ads?
Callum McKeefery:
They get better every year. More budget gets thrown at Christmas ads every year. I loved the ones that Amazon did last year. And I think they've really upped their game again this year. So, the Amazon ones, whereas it used to be John Lewis used to be the boys to beat.
Richard Hill:
They're getting some competition now, aren't they? I think they’ve got their own teams now.
Callum McKeefery:
The Amazon ones, I don't know, I think they've done a good job at creating a connection between you and the company. That's what they're doing, they've got obviously a lot of customers in there. They've got a lot of people in that new ad. And it's just building connections, that's what they're doing, they're doing a great job of it. Obviously Amazon's flying at the minute. I should've invested many, many years ago.
Richard Hill:
I have to admit, I did get a few bits and bobs from there at the beginning of the lockdown. But I wish I did it obviously, five years ago.
Callum McKeefery:
Yeah, I bought a Tesla car and I invested in the company at the same time. And I wish I wouldn't have bought the car and just put all of the money into the company. Because I'd be doing quite well.
Richard Hill:
Yeah, ridiculous, aren't they?
Callum McKeefery:
Yeah, I think when I bought the car they were so low, and now I think it's 500 again, it just keeps going up. But that's the tech stock market at the minute, just going up and up and up.
Richard Hill:
Yeah. So, I like to finish every episode with a book recommendation. It can be any book you like, it can be a book of reviews, it could be a book on mindset. Anything that resonated with you recently, that you've read.
Callum McKeefery:
I try and read a lot. As a CEO, I think all good CEOs continuously try and learn. That's something you've got to do. Even if you're a one man and going to a two man, keep learning, keep learning, keep learning. And I'm a big advocate of that. That's how you reach your goals, you can't stop. With what's happening in my personal life, I've not been able to read as much. So, I do a lot of listening, so I use Audible. At the minute I'm listening to a book called Hooked, I don't know who wrote it. But if you're starting out in tech in general, whether it's agency side, E-commerce side or you want to run a tool, tech tool or SaaS tool.
Zero to One by Peter Thiel is probably my favourite. It's a must read, Ben Horowitz, The Hard Thing About Hard Things is amazing. Zero to One, it just makes you think a little bit differently and it has some good little stories within that, about Elon Musk in the early days. And how PayPal came about, where they met at a caf in the middle. I think PayPal was over here and Elon Musk's company was over here and they were arguing. And they said, "All right, let's meet in the middle, this truce in this caf." And that's where they nailed out the deal to become...
Richard Hill:
We'll link that all up in the show notes.
Callum McKeefery:
Yeah, it's a great book.
Richard Hill:
I'll buy it after we're finished. Well, thank you so much Callum for you time, I really enjoyed that, that was fantastic. So many take aways, so many great implementable things. And a lot of things to think about, specifically about running a business and obviously reviews specifically. If the guys that are listening want to find out more about you and more about the company, what's the best way to do that?
Callum McKeefery:
I'm all over LinkedIn. I do a lot on LinkedIn, connect with me on LinkedIn. Got any questions, I'm normal, I'll just answer them. Even if it's not about reviews, it's about something else, connect with me on LinkedIn and just ask. Otherwise, go onto Reviews.io, sign up for a demo, mention the podcast and I'm sure the guys will look after you.
Richard Hill:
Fantastic, well thank you so much for being our guest on eCom@One, I'll speak to you soon.
Callum McKeefery:
Cheers mate, thank you so much.
Richard Hill:
Thank you, bye.