E142: Lucy Jeffrey

Richard Hill:
Hi, and welcome to another episode of eCom@One, today's guest, Lucy Jeffrey, founder and CEO of Bare Kind. How are you doing, Lucy?

Lucy Jeffrey:
Hi. Thanks for having me.

Richard Hill:
No problem at all. It looks like we've both got a beautiful day for those that are watching the video version of the episode. Looking forward to a beautiful bank holiday weekend.

Lucy Jeffrey:
Yes.

Richard Hill:
Thanks for coming on the show. I'm really looking forward to getting stuck in and having a chat, all things socks.

Lucy Jeffrey:
Yeah, all things socks. That's me.

Richard Hill:
Now, those that know me well, will know that, I think when I walk into the office every day that I have purple socks, I have bright pink socks, I have bright blue socks. The more colors, the better.

Lucy Jeffrey:
Love to hear it.

Richard Hill:
It's one of my favorite clothing items.

Lucy Jeffrey:
Good. Me too, funnily enough.

Richard Hill:
Absolutely is. My sock draw is multiple draws, to be fair. So let's crack on. So what inspired you to start Bare Kind, a socks company with purpose?

Lucy Jeffrey:
Yeah, absolutely. The premise of Bare Kind is, we sell bamboo socks and 10% of the profits are donated to save the animal on the socks. So we are partnered with loads of amazing animal conservation charities around the world. We've got some in the UK, we've got some everywhere because animals need saving all over the world. I started Bare Kind. I was in a corporate job, just didn't feel like it was lighting any fires underneath me. I wanted to leave more of a legacy to the world, and so I started the company. I started with a few other products before I landed on socks. So tested the waters in e-commerce as you do, just see what lands, see what sticks. And I knew that I wanted to bring out a product with a charity model in this way. So I actually started with the charity model and then thought what product would work well with this? And as you said, I really love a jazzy sock as well. So I just started there.

Honestly, I just started with one sock. My first one with turtles, donating to the Turtle Foundation, and my customers loved it and started asking, "Okay, what animal is next?" And so I launched another four, and we're up to about 40 now so plenty of socks going round.

Richard Hill:
So you started with a few of the products, testing, testing, testing, and then landed on what is now obviously...

Lucy Jeffrey:
Hero product.

Richard Hill:
I love these stories because that's usually how things start. You start with one thing and that one thing, it might not be a hundred percent or it might be the thing, but then ultimately you find that niche potentially, and obviously aligning that with the charity aspect and sustainability aspect. And then now you've got 40 different animals then on the different socks, or is it a combination of some similar animal animals on the socks or?

Lucy Jeffrey:
Yeah, I'd say we're up to about 40, and that's 40 animals rather than charities because we've got a mix of, so it's turtle and Turtle Foundation, orangutan, Orangutan Foundation, but then we've got other socks. We've got a range of jungle socks that are panthers, leopards, sloths, and they all support one charity, Rainforest Trust UK. So depending on the sock, there might be a few socks supporting one charity or we've got a very specific sock and very specific charity. But always growing, and got some more to release this year. Got to the stage of, "Where do we go next?" I get asked a lot, "Are you going to do anything other than socks?" A lot of people ask me that, and at the moment, no, because there's just so many more socks that I can do.

We do kids as well as adult socks, and I haven't got the full range of that out. And also, naturally, everything costs money, so I just have to balance keeping everything in stock versus bringing out new products. And then do I have enough money left to experiment with new products? Probably not the moment. So maybe one for the future.

Richard Hill:
That's a great point for the guys there listening, obviously to take on a new line, there's obviously a substantial cost no matter what size business you're at to try a new line from idea all the way through to actually having stock of an item, obviously it's quite a costly exercise. You've obviously got to be careful and cautious as you are adding new line. But do you envision you yourself adding other lines then, in time?

Lucy Jeffrey:
I think so. We really are focusing on new lines of socks at the moment because we are just really seeing that demand still. Every time we bring out new designs, our peaks and sales, other than Father's Day and Christmas, peaks and sales do tend to work with our drops of socks. We've got lots of retailers now. We've got about 700 retailers around the world and they're just asking us for more socks. So I see it as, "Yeah, let's keep going with what we know works, but try to think ahead of, 'Okay, what could be the next product?,' and get testing and be there before people start asking for it. But at the moment, no, we've just got so much to do in the sock world and I feel like we're only just getting started as well, because obviously there's other technical socks we can do. There's diabetic socks, there's ski socks, walking boot socks, slippers. Honestly, the list is endless. So I think I could honestly grow a company just on socks. That might be the case. Who knows?

Richard Hill:
There's got to be a lot of people out there that haven't found the wonderful world of socks or as passionate about socks as we both are.

Lucy Jeffrey:
Yeah, there's just so much going on.

Richard Hill:
So obviously, I assume, I think you touched on it, you get an uplift around Christmas and things like that and different events. Is there international sloth days and things like that? Do they exist?

Lucy Jeffrey:
Oh, definitely. Honestly, there is a day for everything. There's a rabbit hole you can go down there with the amount of days of anything. There's odd sock days and there's specific sock days, but we definitely focus our marketing around those animal days as well. It's so integral to our business, the animal side of it, and supporting those charities that we try and plan ahead and work with our charities for those days. Maybe we'll do a giveaway with the charity. We tend to focus our email marketing to target the customers who've bought those socks to be like, "Did you know it's sloth day coming up? Don't forget to wear a sloth socks." It's a really nice addition that we can add on there.

And we do it with our retailers as well. So we'll plan ahead maybe a month or so, maybe even longer, to say, "Did you know, next month these animal days are coming out? Make sure you've got your stock in. Make sure, if you've got pig socks, don't forget to put them out and advertise them," and we'll give them all the marketing assets for those days as well. So we've really doubled down on that niche there.

Richard Hill:
Yeah, odd sock there. I remember, I've got two boys and a couple of years ago my son would literally every day go to school in odd socks. It was quite a thing. Not so much animal socks to be fair, but I can see somebody wearing a giraffe on one foot and then a sloth on the other. Why did you decide to donate 10% of the profits to save endangered animals?

Lucy Jeffrey:
For me, it was a personal thing. I just love animals. They are so important to everything to do with the planet. The biodiversity of the world is integral to everything we do, and it's really focusing in on supporting climate change in the way that we can. And as I said before, I started with that model, I knew I wanted to donate some money to animal conservation. I've been able to donate far more than I could have done personally. So it just feels like just my little gift to the world, just helping in the way that I can.

Richard Hill:
That's lovely. I think more and more companies need to follow your lead, for sure.

Lucy Jeffrey:
That would be amazing. If you think about it, if 10% of the profits from even just fashion business, went to animal conservation or similar causes, that'd be billions, possibly. It's a huge part. I have to say, It's difficult. Obviously, as a small business, we need to try and sustain our growth and obviously 10% of our profits are being cut there as well as being pulled in all the other directions such as VAT and marketing and salaries and everything. So it's an added expense to manage, but I personally think it's worth it and that's why we exist.

Richard Hill:
That's lovely to hear. So for the companies that are listening, what would you say to them? Why should they focus on the sustainability side of their business and the way that they run their business?

Lucy Jeffrey:
It's so important and it's the way the world's going. It doesn't have to be in a way that you'd have 10% of your bottom online goes towards it, but there's other ways of doing it. A lot of companies I see, they join One Percent for the Planet, which I think is possibly net profits. And that's just a roundup at the end of the year, and that's a proper program you can join and you get the badge. But there's so many other things you can do in the sustainability space, as a business. And I think especially at the stage I'm at, which is a smaller business, is I'm much more agile so that I can implement this stuff really easily. We are actually going for our B Corp status at the moment and there's so many things that are in that process, policies that I can put in place that I can do really easily because I'm the decision maker.

So it's really interesting to go through that process and see. It's almost small things like Living Wage employer and things like that, which I already was. So there's actually loads of things that contribute to these things, that this umbrella term that we use as sustainability, that you're probably already doing, but possibly shouting about it more and signposting what you're already doing, but also where your gaps are and what your goals are because none of us are perfect. So at the moment I'm going through the process of working out. But a good example is we don't track our emissions at the moment. Probably going to be quite low because we're just a work from home business. We've got quite a small footprint, but I would like to understand what our footprint is and how we can improve it. So again, just loads of things you can do that don't have to be donating part of your bottom line.

Richard Hill:
I think that's the misconception out there. They're all with us, the investment maybe is too much or the understanding, I think, is the issue of what they don't know what to do. So then they maybe don't do it. But what would you say to those companies that are maybe, they're 50 people strong or they're fairly substantial companies and they're looking to implement things within their business?

Lucy Jeffrey:
I think it's great for employee retention and also attracting top talent. It's the way the world's going, I think, especially all these younger people starting to join the workforce. It's really part of their values and what they want from their companies. So think of it as rather than just a tick box exercise, it is genuinely something that should be baked into the business to help you sustain growth in the long term. I'd actually recommend looking at the B Corp, even if you go. So if you go to B Lab and just go through their assessment process. It's free to just sign up. Basically what it is, is a massive checklist of all the different things that they would expect. You get points for each one, you don't even have to submit. I did this months ago. So I looked at what our current status is and it just gives you loads of ideas for things that you can implement.

So just use that and rank status yourself against each one to understand, "How are we actually faring as this?," Because the threshold is 80 points to register and then obviously you aim as high as you can, but that'll be a good place to start to understand how easy it would be for you to move, as a larger company. I used to work for HSBC and we had green teams. It was nothing to do with their jobs, they weren't paid for it, they volunteered because they cared for it. And I'm sure there's going to be people within organizations that would happily do that as an additional part of their role, just to do their bit.

Richard Hill:
Yeah, I think that's brilliant advice. For the guys and girls that are listening in. Go to B Lab.

Lucy Jeffrey:
B Lab, yeah. B Lab assessment, free, and it'll take some time, but just go through it. It's really valuable.

Richard Hill:
But I think that's where it'll spark ideas within the business, "Oh, didn't even think." "We're already doing that," or, "Oh, well, we are doing that, but we're not really talking about that or we're not really seeing that through a hundred percent," or just certain things that will then spark conversation within an organization.

Lucy Jeffrey:
Absolutely. And it adds a bit of structure as well, I think, to all those things that you are already doing. It just puts it in place because a lot of the B Lab stuff is you've just got to prove and have the evidence that you are actually doing it, which is for me, we are doing a lot of it already, but because we're a smaller company, I wasn't really evidencing any of it. I didn't have all these policies and stuff in place and now I'm just adding just some structure to what we were already doing.

Richard Hill:
Adding a layer of documentation in there.

Lucy Jeffrey:
Yeah. It's not the most fun thing, but it's important and once it's done, it's done.

Richard Hill:
I think. Say the word documentation and process and framework and...

Lucy Jeffrey:
Governance.

Richard Hill:
About switch off, I think, to the episode. But the reality is that's where you've got to do these things. And I think the guys that are listening in, you've got to do these things because it's so important, and I think we've talked about a lot of different episodes around documentation, around processes and systems and things like that. It's not the most sexiest work to do, but I'm sure that's somebody in the organization that can do the documentation side.

Lucy Jeffrey:
Absolutely.

Richard Hill:
Could be a full day sort of thing. So what I'm really keen to dive into is the marketing side. Obviously, selling socks online, I can envisage all sorts of things that you can do with a very exciting products in socks, but obviously the subject matter of animals in there is brilliant. So what marketing channels have shown you as most success and what have you been working on recently?

Lucy Jeffrey:
It's an interesting one 'cause I feel like the success has fluctuated, depending on the channel. When we first kicked off, we did really well on Facebook. We had some cracking ROAS and as naturally as everyone's seen, it's getting harder for Facebook to work, it's getting more expensive. So right now actually, Google is doing really well for us. We're picking up some really good keywords, I think. As people are getting wise to bamboo socks and them actually being a really good product, we're seeing a lot more of that being Google. Naturally, as well as we grow, as you'll know with all the SEO we're bringing in, we're starting to rank higher as well. So there's a halo effect that as we've sustainably done everything and just grown everything, we are starting to notice the effect now.

A really interesting one, which we did last year is, we actually did radio advertising, which is really fun to talk about because that went really well. It's expensive but it's great awareness advertising. We went out on the global network, which is Heart, LBC, Classic fm, all of those, throughout the Christmas period, which is our busiest time. So we really saw amazing results from that, huge uptake of customers. Obviously it's slightly harder to track because it's radio, but we do have a checkout survey on our website so customers will be asked where they heard us and over 50% said it was from the radio during that period. And naturally, we even have had wholesale customers coming to us from that as well. We don't really track where they find us, so we'd have definitely had some coming through that channel as well.

Richard Hill:
And these tips on radio, I know we have quite a few clients that I know do radio, for example, around an event or in your instance it might be international X animal day or we have quite a lot of clients do things around the bank holidays. We'll have just had a bank holiday when this episode airs and I know we've got a couple of clients that are doing campaigns two weeks prior to the bank holiday, but it's about the bank holiday. Have you got anything that you would share with the listeners that you learned from the campaigns you've done?

Lucy Jeffrey:
Yeah, because we're a product business, we are not obviously working around a specific event day, so really, we were building up to Christmas, that was our main event. We started in October. We had a really long campaign period and the guys we were working with had said, "We'll switch it on and don't expect up uplift straight away." Radio is one of those that can be a slightly slow burner. It takes people on average, I think it's three to seven times to hear from your brand before they actually purchase. And we did notice that, because it was slow to start with. So again, I don't know if this is just what we are being told, but a few weeks maybe, probably, is a bit of a waste, whereas you should be going for a longer period of time to really build up that awareness.

We're probably still getting customers now that maybe heard us at the end of last year and have only just purchased. And it's a case of, we used all our other marketing channels to add to it as well. So we still had all our Facebook and Google, we use Google to mop up all the traffic. So it's a case of you really have to invest really and have the longer period of time, I think. That worked for us.

Richard Hill:
So the messaging you're using in the radio campaign is the same messaging you'll use across the platforms during that campaign.

Lucy Jeffrey:
Although interestingly, we weren't allowed to talk about the charity stuff, which is annoying because it's our USP, but they have very, very strict regulations on how you talk about charity on the radio because we are 10% of profits because we couldn't exactly pinpoint a pound from every sale goes to charity. They were like, "Well the customer doesn't know what 10% of profits is to you." So, because that was quite strict regulations, we couldn't use that. But we still got a great uptake. And obviously all our messaging on all other channels is about the charity aspect of it. So we just had real focus on the animals in the ads.

Richard Hill:
So if they've heard the ad on radio, they've gone to the website and if maybe they've not purchased, all your remarketing, all of your Facebook ads, et cetera, obviously will then mention the charity aspect.

Lucy Jeffrey:
Yeah, absolutely. And just we hope they subscribe to our emails and then everything else in all our other channels is all about who we are, why we do what we do. So to hope that that would then mop up any uncertainty.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. You mentioned SEO, is there any specific things you've been working on SEO that you've had success that you could share?

Lucy Jeffrey:
We do quite a few blogs that again, that's more talking about the animals and the charities. I think we've done quite well to bring up our domain score in terms of getting lots of back links and press and things like that. So we've done lots on PR. I'd say actually we're quite reactive with PR, so we do a lot. I subscribe to a newsletter where I get press articles, I'm in a Facebook group with journalists and things like that. And for me it's all about pitching the right story at the right time. So I have so many different angles I can go after, like female entrepreneur, quit my job, used to work in corporate, the animals, the charity, e-commerce. There's just so many ways that you can spin your own story to make it relevant. And I think that's where we've done quite well in getting quite a lot of good press.

Richard Hill:
Yeah, I think a lot of firms don't do that. Definitely don't do that. So what we're talking about, guys, here is this reactive, something's happening maybe in the press or journalists want a voice, an expert on a certain topic potentially, and Lucy's there with the press or she's got access to different Facebook groups, different journalists, and you've got things almost ready to go, I assume, based on whether it's the sustainability piece, it's a sock piece, it's a gone from corporate to e-comm. You've obviously got a brilliant story, but you can be very quick, is the key I believe, to that sort of thing.

Lucy Jeffrey:
Absolutely. Yeah, it is. And that's what journalists as well because a lot of the time they're, "Deadline today. Let's go." And I'm like, "Yeah, okay." And that's where I've got some of my best press. I was in the FT in 2021 and I got a big spread. I don't think you'd be able to see it, but I've actually framed it because it's a massive photo of me in the FT. And it's funny because both me and my partner come from a finance background and neither of us got in the Financial Times based on that. It was based on socks.

Richard Hill:
That's brilliant. Finance for many, many years. And then started selling socks and you're in the FT.

Lucy Jeffrey:
Yeah. Pretty much straight away. And that was literally just reacting to a tweet I saw asking for people that have quit their job. And it's funny because the title of the article is something about the young people hitting a quarter life crisis and creating that job. And I was like, "Yes, this is my crisis."

Richard Hill:
Love it. So tips to do that for our listeners then if they're thinking, "Right, I'd like to get involved more with or actually start doing reactive press and reacting to things that are happening," is there certain, you mentioned Facebook groups and obviously you've got access to certain journalists now, but let's assume you're starting from fresh with that. I think a lot of eCommerce stores don't have that. I know a majority of, we're speaking to probably two or three new merchants every week, and digital PR, reactive campaigns, couldn't tell you the last company that's been to see us, that is actually doing that. What would you say to those that want to get started with that?

Lucy Jeffrey:
The best one that I use at the moment, and I pitch regularly to this one, is a newsletter called Editorial. I've actually got a referral link so I can send that over to you and they can get money off because it's quite cheap. I want to say five pounds a month for the one I pay for, but I think I've got a free month link for you so I can send that over. But basically, they send over a newsletter every weekday just with a list of all the different journalists that are asking for pitches. So they'll literally turn around to be, "Looking for someone who quit their job during the pandemic to jump on the call or something." Honestly, it's just really specific pitches in different sectors and you just click and you pitch and the good thing about it for the journalist is you're not getting their direct email, you're just pitching through this company.

But I will literally just go down and pitch to anything and that I think that I can have an angle on and you just go for it and just see what comes back. And it's a really good way, really easy way to get press.

Richard Hill:
So you literally have those angles ready that are already written out potentially then you might just have or have variations of them and then you might just tweak them or you might have to write some from scratch, but you'll have quite a lot of the work done potentially

Lucy Jeffrey:
Yeah, absolutely. And all your links ready. And another really good one that I do, is I've got a Google Drive with all of my photos in, so I've got head shots, I've got logo, any sock photos, just anything that a journalist could need because you don't want to attach it in the email because it blocks their inbox because they've just got all there heavy emails. So just have a link ready with all your assets. Journalists just want to work fast and sometimes they'll just pick someone that's really easy to work with. So just make it as easy as possible for them.

Richard Hill:
And that's Editorial.

Lucy Jeffrey:
Editorial, yeah.

Richard Hill:
It's not something I've heard of actually. So that's something I know I'll be going straight out of this office in the agency main office. I'm talking to our head of digital P

Lucy Jeffrey:
Yeah, there you go.

Richard Hill:
That's brilliant. Obviously you've had some great success. Selling socks, it's a great story. But what's been some of the challenges you've had with growing the business and how you've overcome them?

Lucy Jeffrey:
Now what we're seeing is, so my partner has also come from finance. He's quit and joined me now. So it's the two of us running the business together. Neither of us have any experience other than what I've done with Bare Kind so far in this space. Retail, socks, e-comm, any of it. So I think what we're coming up against now is just a lack of expertise in the team. We've got quite a young team, like me and Andy are the most experienced people in the team and we don't have any experience in retail. So now it's trying to learn on the job and also grow the company. And what we've doing at the moment to counteract that is spend a lot of time trying to go to events, expos, just talking to as many people as possible.

We've also started an advisory board of directors, just with some really good people that we know, that we've got someone that's a consultant and another that's head of content and marketing another brand and they're just at the moment volunteering their time to help us look at the business from a different angle, provide that constructive challenge, because especially when you're working in the business pretty much every day, you don't maybe take the time to step back and understand the strategy of the business as well. So as soon as we go with our ballpark and we sit down with these advisors and just share what we're doing, they'll be like, "What about this?" We're like, "Oh, I hadn't thought of that." "Okay, yeah, I get that." So they really challenge us on that.

Richard Hill:
That's brilliant. I love to hear that. I think it can be a lonely place, running a business, especially an e-com store when there's twenty marketing channels, you're buying the stock you're trying to run and make it profit. There's literally dozens and dozens of hats you've got to wear on a daily basis to have that external sounding board, whether that's on a board of advisors or it could even be a friend that runs a similar business or a business. And then going to events. We talk about that a lot, on a lot of episodes at eCom@One. Just going to events, the people that you can meet, the talks that obviously are generally free as well to go and listen of people that are representing big brands or that have got their own story of taking X to a thousand times X sort of thing. Have you got any specific events that you recommend?

Lucy Jeffrey:
We just Google expos in our local area. So we are luckily based in London, so obviously there is a lot of opportunity here. I think we've got a retail technology expo coming up and we are just going to go and just see what comes out of it. Sometimes it's just one meaningful conversation and that's enough. So we just Google events that are in our local area.

Richard Hill:
Well we might see you in June 'cause we're running an event at the Klaviyo head offices in London. I forget the day. It's the June. I can't remember the exact date actually, but I'll drop it in the show notes. But mid-June, late June, about eight of the team are in London at the Klaviyo offices. There'll be about 50 merchants there, all things e-commerce. So we're talking about SEO, email, retention, PMax campaigns, reactive PR actually we'll be talking about. So a lot of different things there. So we might even see you face-to-face then.

Lucy Jeffrey:
Awesome. Yeah. I'll have a look.

Richard Hill:
Tell us how your donations have helped saved endangered animals.

Lucy Jeffrey:
This is such a nice part of the business. I'm officially contracted with all these charities. So what's interesting is that you do really actually have to have a contract in place with the charity. So I've got all these commercial partnership agreements set up and I donate once a year to these charities. So we finish the year on a high after Christmas and then go back and work out what our donations are and split it between our charities, based on the sales of the socks. So it is weighted, based on what our customers are actually buying. And then we will go and make those donations and we come out with our charity impact report. In January we launched our 2022 charity impact report and it just goes into detail about how the donations have helped that specific charity.

We've gone to them and say we've donated X amount of pounds, what does this actually get us in physical value? A really nice one is the Turtle Foundation came back and said, "Well actually your donation this year will be able to build a turtle hatchery with it." So this is something that's built on the beach and they'll be able to safely have turtles lay their eggs, they're not going to be tampered with. There's a lot of problem with poachers taking eggs out of nest and things like that. So we're actually seeing the impact of what's happening on the ground. It's amazing.

And then depending on the charity we work with, depends on the impact we're having. So the rainforest trust is based on acreage protected, so they'll buy land in certain areas to protect it. And so we've protected thousands of acres now and some of the other charities are about removing rubbish from the ocean, planting mangrove trees, which helps bring sequester carbon from the atmosphere. So there's just so many little aspects of it depending on the charity. So it's nice that we can have a widespread, and also, from a communication point of view, you can really talk about all these different ways that we can help support the planet, rather than just one niche area. I love it.

Richard Hill:
You finished the year, obviously you closed the year down commercially, but you can then see the multitude of different charities that you work with, the socks that are relevant to that charity, whether it's the turtles, and then you can see how many have the profit on each area of the business and then break that down and then send a percentage to the different charities. And then from that you then can create, what you refer to as the impact report, which is fantastic. So then that's going back and educating and reeducating and helping the marketing as well, isn't it?

Lucy Jeffrey:
Yeah, absolutely. And it's such a good piece of work. I really recommend. If you go to barekind.com and look at our charity impact reports. We've got two out now, so we have 2021, 2022. Jess, a lady who works in my team, she was pretty much solely responsible for the charity and patch report this year, and it's so awesome. Some really lovely photography in it. And just the stats in it are amazing,. 'Cause I think it's 10% is a small contribution and it's just a pair of socks, but it really is like you can save animals one pair of socks at a time because when you see it all added up after a year, it's pretty incredible. So I'm really proud of that piece of work. Jess did an amazing job on it and it's just really nice to be able to communicate out in this way, the real impact on the ground rather than... Because 10% of the profits, what does that actually mean? And this is how we translate it.

Richard Hill:
We actually bought this land, or we actually built this particular, whether it's a compound for a certain animal or it's a... Whatever it may be. And so you are using that then to educate. So let's maybe talk about that a little bit more. You have touched on it. So you've creating the impact rapport, but then is that then, you are using that in your emails, in your socials to educate and then to just really highlight that importance for the sustainability side?

Lucy Jeffrey:
Yeah, and we'll use that throughout the year. So that's one piece of big macro content and then that fuels so much of our content throughout the rest of the year. So we're constantly using it. It's basically a highlight reel. So we'll have a particular graphic that says X acres saved. That can go in an email every now and then. It goes into our email flows. It's very evergreen for the year. Naturally then, yes, there'll be some updating required for the next year, but that particular report sits on the website. So every year we've just got a new report, a new load of impact. It just strengthens the trust we're building with our consumers of, "Okay, you're saying you donate 10% profits. What does that actually mean? How do you save animals with your socks?" And we can just be like, "This is how."

Richard Hill:
Yeah, very transparent, very real. People are actually seeing what you are doing. The impact being the key word on the repo. They're saying, "Well actually a lot of firms say they donate X, Y, Z," and I'm sure they do, but you don't see as many actually saying what we actually did with that money or what the charities did with that money and what the impact was on, whether it's the animals, save the, whatever it may be. That's brilliant, Lucy, that is really inspiring. Thank you for sharing that, really.

Lucy Jeffrey:
No worries, I'm glad.

Richard Hill:
Really good. That's given me a lot of things to think about actually. So what's next for Bare Kind?

Lucy Jeffrey:
So interesting, at the end of last year, we did a profitability analysis. We had a really big year, our revenue more than doubled, but our profit didn't go up as much as we'd liked. Were hit by quite a few things, the postal strikes, so our shipping costs went up three times internally because we were having to use couriers. That stings when that happens, 20%. And just generally marketing costs going up and things. So I think just the natural things that happen with growing a business. This year we're having a big focus on our profitability and one of the things we're doing is pivoting to wholesale at this time of year. We were a very, very heavily focused Christmas business, very seasonal. 50% of our revenue happens in Q4 and that's very D2C-focused. So we really need to have sustainable revenue throughout the rest of the year, and that's where wholesale comes in.

We've done a lot of work. 2021, we had 20 retailers. Within 2022, that had grown to about 500 retailers, so we had a massive amount of growth. We're on about 700 now, but I'd quite like to double it by the end of the year. So a lot of work to be done. And that's worldwide as well. We've got a lot of retailers in the UK, but I'd like to grow our base in America. So basically global domination is on the cards.

Richard Hill:
It sounds so damn exciting. I'm actually so excited for you. So you push on the sort of B2B side and then obviously those different profit centers or the different times of year. But absolutely, focus on profitability. We don't talk about that enough. We do talk about it, but so many companies are so focused on just shipping the boxes out. You've got to have a profit there and it is easy to double, fairly easy to double a business, but obviously you've got to keep an eye on the profitability. That sounds like you're completely focused on that. I'm excited to get you back on in 12 months time.

Lucy Jeffrey:
Oh yeah, hold me to it. Let's see, do we double our wholesale customers? Yeah, I'd like

Richard Hill:
Yeah, let's get you back on. Well, thank you for coming on the show. It's been absolutely lovely to speak to you.

Lucy Jeffrey:
Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Richard Hill:
I like to finish every episode with a book recommendation. Do you have a book recommended to our listeners?

Lucy Jeffrey:
I do. It's called The Grid by Matt Watkinson. When I recommend this, most people haven't heard of it and not come across the author before, but basically, it's a strategy book on how to structure, looking at all aspects of your business. So it's actually a really good way to structure if you were to have an advisory board or something. It's a way to structure, so you cover all the bases from things like the power you have within your supply chain versus your marketing versus everything. Because I think there are certain aspects of the business, that as a founder, you'll lean towards talking about just because it's more favorable, it's your strength or it feels like it's on fire, but whereas actually this is a really good way to ground you as a business and make sure that you are actually pulling all the correct levers and considering everything. So it's a really good one and it's actually one of those that you could probably read every couple of years or so to refresh yourself on. So that's my recommendation.

Richard Hill:
We do have a tendency to focus on the things that we're good at, don't we and neglect areas in the business, like finance for example, or the business that maybe we know that we should focus on more or we should get some help on that in that area.

Lucy Jeffrey:
Absolutely, yeah.

Richard Hill:
Well thanks for coming on the show. For those that want to find out more about what you're doing at Bare Kind and more about yourself, what's the best way to do that?

Lucy Jeffrey:
Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn. You'll just find me a Lucy Jeffrey, maybe if you just Lucy Jeffrey Bare Kind, that's probably going to be quite obvious which one's me. And just Bare Kind on everything. We're Bare Kind.com, Bare Kind on social media, and actually we're Bare Kind on YouTube and we've actually just recently started our own podcast, literally just talking about all things within the business, charity, profitability, all this stuff. We want to be really open about how we are running an e-commerce business, how we're growing it. Going to be an interesting year for us because we are really trying to go from six figures to seven and I think it's going to be a hard one. So we're building in public, which is the new thing to do. So come and check us out.

Richard Hill:
Brilliant. Well, we'll link all those platforms up and I look forward to speaking to you in 12 months.

Lucy Jeffrey:
All right. Yeah, look forward to it. Thank you.