The PD Group is a UK based creative media company covering all aspects of print and digital media. The Founder, Kevin Thrussell gives us an overview of the company and its business strategy.

Script of Interview

Interviewee                                    Mr Kevin Thrussell (KT)

Position                                          Founder & Director

Company name                            The PD Group

Company website URL                http://www.thepdgroup.com

Interviewer                                     John D. Evans, CFA (JE)

Interview conducted on               5 June 2021

JE  Okay, good afternoon to this new edition of SEIML Ventures. Today we’re talking with Mr. Kevin Thrussell, who’s in the lovely countryside of the UK, just a little southwest of London. Kevin is the Founder and Director of The PD Group Limited, a media company that he’s going to talk about. We’re going to split this interview, a first one, into four parts. We’ll start off with getting a bit of background about Kevin himself, then we’ll talk about the company, The PD Group, then we’ll turn over to the industry, the media and advertising industry and then Kevin will close off with giving us a look at what his key objectives are for 2021. So that’s our agenda for today. So, welcome, Kevin. Glad to have you on board to these today.

KT  Thank you.

About Kevin Thrussell

JE  Okay, so let’s start off by, I will combine the first two bullet points, giving the viewers a brief personal overview of yourself, your working history, where you grew up, and the training and the background you needed to create and run this company.

KT  Sure. I think my background is quite entrepreneurial with my parents. They both, my mother was a schoolteacher, quite disciplined, and my father and my father’s father all were involved in the motor trade, funnily enough.  So, we’ve always had a really strong work culture in our family. So, I think seeing my father work till the early hours of the morning, whether or not it was on a sales pitch for a type of mechanical part on a motor vehicle because he was involved in designing those or indeed running the family garages. I think I had a pretty good work ethic drummed into me. So, I think that helped quite a lot.

JE  And how long have you been involved with The PD Group? And were you doing something different before that?

KT  Okay, so here in the UK, we leave school at 16 and so I left school at 16. I then went to business school for a couple of years. And then funny enough, my next-door neighbor owned a printing company. So, I was always quite interested in that. And then we purchased a small printing press, literally had it in our garage at home. And that is how The PD Group was born. Those days it was called Print Directions and we really specialized in letterbox marketing, to supplement my income. In the early days, I worked for a local newspaper organizing where the leaflets went. In those days, you’re talking about mid 80s late 80s, the whole of the UK had a very much a letterbox marketing culture. There were three newspapers. I don’t know if you can recall that, John. But they were free newspapers, literally two or three on a Wednesday or Friday of every week. And they all included many, many leaflets inside them. Obviously, those days are sort of gone now. But that is how I moved into print. I kind of found a bit of a niche, we started printing many leaflets at home and then the business grew from there. We had first a little printing press then we got a larger one. And things went from there, I had quite a lot of lucky breaks. Somebody in the UK cinema industry believe it or not had their carpets cleaned and at the bottom of the flyer it did say printed by Print Directions. And he summoned me up to London, he had enough of London advertising agencies, and that is how we actually broke into the UK cinema industry. I walked into a great office, spray plush office in Regent Street, and sat me down and he said:  right, how much would you charge me for 5,000 A5 flyers, very simple for a student Fresher affair in Brighton, always remember that. And I gave him a price. He shook my hand, I got on perfectly with him. And as I walked out the door he said, young man you do realize there are 68 cinemas, so I want 68 times 5,000 by Tuesday and I quickly got on the phone, not a mobile phone in those days, quickly got on the phone to my father explained the situation and we became print farmers almost overnight, giving that big job to another company. And that is how we kind of grew. In the cinema industry there was a company called ABC cinemas, who ran parallel, I think with a company called Canon cinemas, in the old days, and they morphed into Metro Goldwyn Mayer, and we’re still doing quite a lot for the cinema industry. Now, I think we’ve survived through about seven or eight different, more than that probably, maybe 15 different heads of marketing for that brand, whilst they’ve changed their name, probably seven or eight times.  It was UGC, then was Virgin for a while, of course Richard Branson was involved. And now, my team are designing posters for Vue cinemas, which indeed is that same brand, all those years later. So, we’re quite proud that we’ve managed to retain that. And we have expanded quite a lot.

About The PD Group

JE  We’ll come back to those when we talk about the industry and the company in a minute, but I want to touch on these two first bullet points on your location. Now, I’ve been down there, you’re in an idyllic, part of the countryside. How did you come to choose this location? And how does it affect your business? You know, particularly if it’s more with companies involved in the cities or London?

KT  Okay, we’re pretty much just outside a place called Basingstoke. So, we are very close to the corridor of the M3, M4 routes into London. So, we feel we’re kind of ideally situated to serve London, and the southeast, just because where we are, I mean, we can get to Richmond here in 35 minutes, without any traffic mind. And it’s quite therapeutic, we don’t want to be in concrete city in London, we don’t want to be in an industrial estate. We literally overlook fields here, which is quite nice for the staff, I think a little bit different. Most of the staff are fairly local; come from Fleet, Alton, Basingstoke, that sort of place, those places.

JE  Okay, now the other question is, you have two email addresses, one says The PD Group, and the other says Web Directions.  What are these two different entities and what’s their relationship?

KT  Okay, right. The PD Group, as I alluded to earlier, we started off as Print Directions. And we acquired a couple of smaller companies to assist us with the creative design that we do, just to bring every single thing in house. So, and of course, the word ‘group’ is quite commonly used here in the UK, if you want to try and, not make yourself bigger than you are, but try and attract larger companies to you. So, The PD Group really is targeted at quite large companies targets, as I mentioned earlier, Vue cinemas, large hotel chains in London. I would say that is cost effective solutions for small businesses, medium sized and large, large corporations, like General Electric, we do some stuff for them. Remember the small business categories, one with a turnover of I think over 500,000. So, The PD Group very much fits into that brand, that sort of group of customers. About seven years ago, we started building websites here for some larger clients. And I think it was somebody’s cousin who was a landscape gardener wanted a website. But, of course, that particular segment of the market, those self-employed people, John, they are scared stiff of dealing with a company called The PD Group because that would come over to them as an expensive large corporation, perhaps unfriendly, not cost effective. So, Web Directions is the brand we set up for websites for the self-employed. Don’t forget, in the last five years here, there’s been an explosion of little white vans, explosion of service industries, people who are self-employed, whether or not they are roofers, landscape gardeners, Bob-the-builders, all those sorts of things. Then everybody knows the market that GoDaddy goes after with the television adverts, that sort of thing. Well, Web Directions is very much in that category. A lot of takeaways, a lot of restaurants, a lot of beauty salons, that sort of thing, couple of guys, and somebody in the office at home, we call them here, micro businesses. So that’s how I categorize Web Directions. So those type of people when we market to them won’t be scared of thinking they’re dealing with a large company. And we have a separate website for that.

JE  Okay, so really The PD Group, as I understand it, is the registered company and Web Directions is like a department within the legal PD Group, but they’re focusing on different customer segments and providing different services.

KT  Absolutely. It is, indeed, Web Directions, trading as The PD Group limited, although those clients for Web Directions would in theory, often never even have heard of The PD Group. We like to keep it simple with them.

JE  Okay, so let’s look at the second and third bullet point about The PD Group because they go together. So, you’ve defined the two departments, are you going to continue to emphasize and try to grow these two different segments, PD and Web Directions? Or is the company going more in the direction of say the digital media going forward?

KT  Okay, so, The PD Group, yes we’re going on all guns, we’re launching a new website, I think within the next two weeks, we have to rebrand, reevolve, reevaluate, relook at ourselves. So, we are very much trying to expand for The PD Group where, obviously that is the bulk of our turnover. Although Web Directions, because of the, perhaps because of COVID, so many people are starting up their businesses.  So many people are starting up small little micro businesses, whether or not they’ve purchased a hedge trimmer and think they’re landscape gardeners, or they’ve taken the plunge and taken a little lease on high street shop, selling XYZ. So, we want to continue with the Web Directions brand. We don’t only build the websites, we have servers here. So, we run email systems and web hosting for those micro businesses. And indeed, obviously, we’ve got some clients with sort of 30 to 40 email accounts under The PD Group brand. So, you know, web hosting, it’s been a real growth for us in the last 18 months, I would say. Definitely.

JE  I mean, just following up on that point, with the changes you’ve seen in talking about all of these small micro businesses and websites, is that going to slow down after COVID? Or is it your expectation that that’s a more permanent trend?

KT  Our expectation is it will slow down, I would have thought that it will slow down probably around January 2022. And the reason for that is because we’ve got the government Furlong scheme, ending in September. Now, an awful lot of people are going to be made redundant in September, without a shadow of a doubt. If we’re talking about a huge, as soon as those government payments stop, a lot of people will be made redundant. Now they will be setting up their own businesses. So, I predict, I can’t say hopefully predict, because this is a very difficult situation for lots of people. But I do see our Web Directions intake of new clients going steeply up from September until maybe Christmas, January, February, even in 2022. And then by then, I think people will have decided what they’re doing. They’re either starting their businesses or they’re taking early retirement, or they’re being retained by their current employers, it’s going to be as simple as that. So, I do see the market flooded in a lot of those micro business sectors. There are too many. There are going to be too many small building firms, I’m sure too many carpenters, too many following their hobbies and passion to try and make money, I think, but we will see. But to answer your question. I think it will continue to grow until 2022 and then it will drop off. And when I mean drop off, I mean the new inquiries will drop off. We will retain those existing. Yeah, that’s it, the growth will slow down. Exactly.

JE  Now, you told me an interesting story and your building or your area is called Never Despair Studios. There must be a story behind that.  Tell us, that’s a very unusual name for a commercial building.

KT  It is we kind of think: Never Despair, come to us and we’ll sort you out with your creative design and marketing, email solutions.  But really, that name Never Despair is associated with this patch of land about, we’re sitting on a two-acre patch of land if you can imagine a nice industrial estate in in a village just outside of Basingstoke. Now that land was acquired by The PD Group some time ago and it is called Never Despair.  There was a Never Despair shop, there is still a garage called Never Despair on this patch of land, okay. Now, it’s called Never Despair because, as I understand it, in the early 1920s this was a small holding and one of the farmworkers put all his, put two- or three-months wages, on a racehorse at a whim, and it came in he won and the racehorse was called the Never Despair. And he purchased the land off the farmer who was getting elderly in years. That is true. I have actually seen the picture of the black racehorse, a little bit like Lloyds Bank, the Never Despair racehorse and that is why the whole area here is called the Never Despair.

JE  Okay, very interesting. Now, tell us about your facilities, your buildings.  I’ve been there a few times but it’s not just you, it’s sort of like a small commercial compound of different companies. And I think some of them you have some collaboration with.

KT  Sure, we have about 7,000 square foot here, we’ve got 13 full time staff here at The PD Group, so we don’t fill the building. Okay, so what we’ve done is, we’ve drawn in, we call them creative partners. So, there’s some guys who make videos here, there’s some guys that do top-end Magento websites, this is ones that, you know, if you’ve got over 600 products, that sort of thing, we’ve got an IT company who’s just joined us just two, three weeks ago which is excellent. So, we’ve now got a pool of resources that we can draw on for anything that is slightly outside of our skill set. And then we command excellent rates from them. So, to make things cost effective for our clients, we cannot claim to be experts in everything. And I think any business that does it’s a fatal error. Okay, so we draw in all those experiences, all that knowledge and expertise from other sectors back and combine to give our customers the best solution they want.  Eighty to 90%, we can do these tasks were given for The PD Group and Web Directions, obviously, in house without that support, but it’s comforting to know we’ve got that backup.  We had an inquiry two weeks ago for 230 email addresses that needed to be set up within 48 hours for a bank in London. And that was achieved with the support of our IT company who moved in two weeks ago. So that was a very, very good example whereby we drew in their expertise. All hands-on deck, fulfill the expectations of the client and The PD Group, we’re in someone else’s good books.

JE  So, it’s sort of like you have two distinct functions: you’re managing The PD Group/ Web Directions, but you’re also managing a small business park. That’s about half a dozen companies in media. We work with some companies in the startup area that go with incubators, you’re much more developed group of companies, but it’s similar people who have shared interests or some commercial shared interests, all coming together. It’s very interesting to see.

KT  You mentioned half a dozen that is in fact exactly correct. Well, there are six small companies here supporting us. Various sizes between two and six, seven people each. So yeah.

JE  Is it full now or is there room? Are you still looking to try to work with new companies then?

KT  We are still looking.  Unfortunately, we lost one of the companies; couldn’t survive through COVID. So, we have got space here for whoever maybe to come in and work here. We’ve got good facilities, obviously, this is every single facility that you can think of is there’s a there’s even a restroom, games room, etc.

JE  Okay. So, these are sort of like partners for you, even though you can do a lot of the stuff yourselves. What about new media? I know, universities are getting involved with that. Do you bring in interns or hire students into your business? How do you get people because you are a little isolated from a large town?

KT  Sure we are, that’s why it’s very important to have the facilities we’ve got here. I totally agree with that. That is always a very valid point. We have just signed up for the government Fresh Start scheme. So, we are due to get some people here coming in to do training for six months. And then the plan is we expand enough to take them on full time. That’s the government schemes set up fairly recently, to try and get people back into work to give them a chance. Obviously, we have just been in very unusual times. And I’m recording this interview in early June 2021. But really, for I’d say, for the last 14 months, it is extremely difficult. And there are lots of people who are losing their jobs. And they are good people. It is the fact that there are people are losing their jobs because of such circumstances completely out of their control. Whereby I think a couple of years ago, if you lost your job, maybe you weren’t working hard enough.

JE  It’s been a difficult time, all around everywhere and it’s not over yet. So, it’s going to be still several tough months, maybe even another year ahead of us.

KT  Yeah, that’s correct.

About the Creative Design Industry

JE  Okay let’s talk about the industry. So how do you classify yourself, as a media company? I know maybe there’s two classifications with PD or Web Directions, how do you sort of market yourself, what type of company, what industry?

KT  Right, I would put us into the creative design industry, but fulfilling all the various solutions that that would encompass, such as end user printing, graphics, internet solutions. So really, whatever way you want to portray yourself, whether it is, in the Web Directions market, it might just be a very simple website and that’s it. You might be a slightly larger business and you might want a website and you may want a series of eCards sent out every couple of months. We also create in our studio interactive PDFs, that link to websites that sort of thing. eBooks. Quite frankly the days of printing large brochures are disappearing.  In the last 15 years the market for print has really changed and decreased but obviously the market is for people promoting their businesses in different ways. They’re going on to YouTube. Have these videos, they’re having, obviously websites, eCards, that sort of thing. So, it’s all those solutions. So, it’s any particular solution to promote a business really here is catered for large or small.

JE  Okay, so what about your geographic focus? Are all your customers in the UK? Or do you have any international clients?

KT  We have some international clients, and we have Huawei that is very, very close to us in Basingstoke and they moved their head office to Reading. So, we’re serving them with marketing solutions, and point of sale. When I mean point of sale, I mean, frames for posters, marketing, large format, posters, they order pens with their logo on, rulers, that sort of thing. So, they are, that is probably our largest international client. Geographically, with the Web Directions market, it is psychological. If somebody’s starting a small business and they want a website, although they never need to visit the place where the websites designed, 100% want to be dealing with someone within I’d say a 25/30-minute drive time. I think it’s a security thing. If they live in Basingstoke, or they’re in Reading, or Southampton or Portsmouth or just outside of London, they will deal with a web company like us in Basingstoke. If they are in Hull, in the north of England, they will not feel comfortable, although there is no reason for that because you can build it on the internet, you can build a website, anywhere, you know, any day we do have clients from the other side of the country. But so with Web Directions, I’d say it’s very geographical.  I’d say that we’ve got a 50-mile radius or 40-minute radius. With regards to the PD group, of course, those people that are giving us, we’re talking to marketing departments, heads of marketing, okay, so they’re not going to worry where we are, we could be in Katmandu, as long as they’ve checked out our reviews, they’ve seen our websites, they’ve seen our work, we’ve got ZOOM, perfect. We’ve got all sorts of ways of communication. So, for The PD Group geographically, it really doesn’t matter.

JE  Okay, that’s interesting, because maybe I’ve characterized them wrong. But I see The PD Group as the more hard hardcopy traditional media and Web Directions, the more digital and I just assumed digital is more global and the traditional media is more local. But it’s the other way around for you because the customers are very different. Yeah, very different.

KT  It is, you’ve just summed it up; it is the customers that are different. The PD Group does everything Web Directions does. The PD Group will sell a website and then we only did one last week, seriously good website for a German company that actually purchased one of our existing clients. So, The PD Group can design a website, a large website, many, many functionalities, many, many features. Web Directions is just there because it sounds nice. We think it sounds quite attractive to that very small micro business sector.

JE  Okay. So, your focus is on people that have some sort of presence in the UK, largely, whether it’s the micro business or the Huawei, that’s correct and here in the UK. That is correct. So, am I your only customer with no residency in the UK?

KT  You’ll have to put out a questionnaire. I don’t know,

JE  You’re definitely not a 25-minute drive for me, that’s for sure.

KT  This is true. I’ve known you all the years where we go back a long way. Right? Yeah, that’s good.

JE  Okay, yeah. So, let’s talk, you’ve talked about the companies, the industries the size, etc. And you’ve made the reference to the pandemic, which we’re still not through the difficulties. So, looking for the next year, what are the main challenges and/or opportunities you’re facing right at this time?

KT  Okay, so is a good question, I’m going to be absolutely frank. The challenge for me is to get this company back to the level of sales turnover, it was pre COVID; is as simple as that. The challenge for me is to get more bodies in here to enable us to do that with a massive juggling act. With regards to the expenditure of staff, I think I’ll be frank, I mentioned, I think I mentioned the cinema industry, obviously. So obviously the cinema industry in the UK has been shut for the last year. So, if that accounted for a significant part of our business turnover, then we have an issue to address.  We don’t have a problem to address, because the UK Government have supported us throughout this. But we still have got to get back to the trend of securing the revenue stream from the cinema industry, back to what it was pre COVID. And that is a little bit out of our hands, that depends on how many of the general public are going to start to go and watch the films in the cinema as opposed to getting the most out of their new Netflix subscriptions, which is what they’ve all done, you know, which is during the lockdown.  I am absolutely, I know, I’ve seen the figures, that so many people have subscribed for various movies, whether or not it’s Amazon Prime, or it’s Netflix or whatever that is. When those subscriptions run out, then people hopefully will be trotting back to the cinemas and as cinemas get more confidence they start spending more money with us. So, we need to come up with some initiatives to help that happen. I think it is, that is the main objective for me to try and get us back to where we are to some sort of security for our own peace of mind. But at the same time, we can’t be complacent, we are launching a new website, on The PD Group, and we’re also actively going to be selling. Again, it’s a little bit difficult to be actively selling before this moment of time because UK is really only just starting up. And people are a little bit scared of spending some money. And that is true on both large and small businesses in the UK. So that is the objective for me, I think, to try and steer the ship. It’s well afloat, but it just needs to be steadied a little bit.

JE  I think there’s an important point there because even though your profits were down last year, you were still profitable for the whole year. And that’s a lot better than a very large number of companies who went into loss figures. So, there must be some good residual core business there that that keeps you profitable, even in the most difficult of times,

KT  I think one business area of our business that has expanded pre COVID and during COVID is actually digital web hosting. Everyone’s heard of web hosting. And everyone heard of web domains.  Well, we sell web domains, and we host websites, whether or not they are a one-page website for a cobbler in in North Hampton, or it is web space for a large multinational company, a bank with all the security that needs and all the firewalls that needs. So that area of the market is consistent. People have not wanted to shut down their websites during COVID unless they have unfortunately gone under. And we we’ve seen a very, very small amount of our clients actually gone under.  Some gone completely to sleep for a year, that’s fine. But the actual web hosting is extremely consistent. And it is quite profitable. We’ve got four servers here, we’ve got partnership with Microsoft Azure, and we’ve also secured some more virtual servers ourselves now.  So, we’re pretty confident that that will, I know, that has been steady for us and I know it will only expand.

JE  Okay, that’s very interesting. So, do you physically have the servers in the Never Despair studios? So, is there some sort of secure area for hardware?

KT  There is, that’s correct. We’ve got different types of servers. Well, they’re all the same but we break them into categories:  we have one for emails, one for high-end websites, one for eCommerce websites. We do lots of eCommerce here, they need to be pretty fast for eCommerce. If somebody is using a website, selling their services for roofing, that website, that inquiry needs to go through quickly. But if somebody is ordering food, and they’re ordering 25 items of food at six o’clock on a Friday night, that’s got to be super-fast. You know, that’s got to be, there’s got to be no error. There is no margin for error at all. So, we’ve got state of the art kit here, in layman’s terms.

JE  Okay. Very interesting. So, I mean, again, just sort of differentiating between PD and Web Directions, in three years’ time, are both of those segments still going to exist? Or will it largely move into one area or the other?

KT  I think we will keep both of those brands separate. And moving forward I reconfirm that I think the micro business sector in the UK will grow. But those people will want to deal with somebody called Web Directions and not a not a company like The PD Group, which could be perceived as a large, expensive advertising agency; it is as simple as that and we will keep them separate. And I will, I am determined, expand both of them.

JE  Okay, very interesting. Now, I’m going to ask you one question, that you’ve just triggered in my mind, it’s not on the talking points. I’m putting you in a little bit on the spot but is another thing that happened this year and that’s Brexit. Has Brexit had any impact on you since you’re dealing mostly with people in the UK?

KT  No, it hasn’t. We thought it might because we do ship a lot of printed material out to different countries, but then our partners, our suppliers, everyone’s heard of Parcel Force,  DPD they’ve handled the change of the mechanical paperwork needed to all the different rules and regulations. So, we do export goods, but we subcontract out to various carriers. So that hasn’t affected us.  With regards to what I’m sure you meant was the purchasing spend of our clients? Has it been affected by Brexit? I don’t think it has. I don’t see it. I don’t see any effect on that at all.

Near-term business strategy

JE  So, the big issue for you has been COVID. So there, bringing us to the last, the fourth section, which is the near-term objectives.  You’ve already painted the scenario that you see happening, of people losing jobs between September and December of this year. So, you know, that’s not too far away, that’s just a little over three months. So, what’s your strategy for 2021 to grow your business and get the revenue back up with the with the scenario you’ve just painted for us.

KT  So, our strategy is to try and encourage more people to join us on both brands. Obviously, we are redoing both websites for both brands, they should be ready in a couple of weeks. We are planning a series of marketing of eCards out to again, both brands, to try and encourage a spend, you know.  I have to be a salesman I have to try and get money off other people. It’s as simple as that. So, I need to try and get my guys to come up with some initiatives that are applicable to a few different sectors, whether it’s the cinema industry, or it’s the hotel industry in London. We need to try and help our clients get people into bed. Or to get bums on seats in cinemas.  Or if you’re a small Web Directions client and you’re running a small cafe, why don’t you have a card where it’s up your clients need to have a stamp and get five coffees every month or something like that. We just got to try and help our clients with every type of idea, initiative they can.

JE  That’s interesting. So, that’s almost like you’re becoming a marketing consultant. Sure, the digital or other things, you’re helping them with ideas, because if they become more successful you do

KT  That is something we have learned from taking instructions from advertising agencies in London. For our larger clients, and really, we have as much brains as them. Really, we have collectively a lot, you know, we’ve got staff here from 18 years old to 55, you know, we are experienced here. So, taking on the level of work a small advertising agency can generate is something I definitely want us to go into. We need to be careful that the end solution that we give our clients is perfect. It’s a very delicate balance, John.  To be honest with you are going to be frank with you, I mentioned the cinema industry. We’ve gone through several or probably 15 heads of marketing, under that particular organization, Vue cinemas. Because we have been taking instructions from advertising agencies as the end user, they tell us what to do we do it, they told us to build an eCard, to create a poster, to create some graphics, we do it. Now those instructions come from advertising agencies and I’ve seen about, they’re always, always fired after every two years. So, we don’t want to be coming home, become one of them in that particular for that particular client.  So, it’s just a delicate balancing that we just need, we are going to look at every one of our clients and see what we can do for them. That is part of our strategy.

JE  It will be interesting whether the marketing, consulting strategy can be profitable for your micro businesses, because those will be people that are probably starting a business for the first time, don’t have marketing experience. They come from a trade or a technical thing, so that they have a great need. But it’s also similar to the dilemma I face with startups in that they have the need for the expertise, but can they pay for it? So, there’s a great opportunity, but how do you make money from marketing consulting to smaller businesses?

KT  Very, very, very good point. I mean, we don’t want to scare our clients off by increasing any costs or giving them every single thing we’ve got to offer them, we’ve got to be 100% sure it’s viable. Some of those clients do grow. I mean, we’ve got one small restaurant track, chain in Reading. I do remember the phone call that came in six or seven years ago from this guy, just a tiny little shop. And now he’s got four huge restaurants in Reading. This is the Cozze restaurant chain, you know, and we’ve guided him with his website.  It’s gone from a one-page website to something quite nice and simple, but still simple now. But we’ve guided him. But it’s very, very delicate balance how you pitch to these small micro businesses, because if you give them an idea, it doesn’t work, you could almost bankrupt them. So, we’ve got to be very, very careful.

JE  There’s a lot of risks when you’re giving consulting, because you’ve almost got a stake on the outcome. And if the outcomes not successful, then that can be difficult, but I can see a big need for that. So, it will be interesting to see how marketing consulting develops at The PD Group.  I’d be very curious to follow that by show. Sure. Yeah, that’s good. Okay, well, that that comes to the end of our itemized bullet points, and I always close off by asking the same question. Is there anything else you’d like to mention or talk about that, perhaps important for you to, to mention that I didn’t think to ask?

KT  I think you’ve covered pretty much everything.  What I want to do is to try and to see some more international inquiries coming into this company, because we’ve got such a good skill set, I think that can do. If anybody is planning on doing business in the UK, I think we’ve got such a good skill set to almost act as an extension to their marketing department. That is how I would like to see us expanding here, over the next sort of six, six to 18 months, to secure some more larger clients like Huawei who need that cultural experience, expertise of how to deal with their clients in the UK, perhaps. That’s the sort of thing that I want to try and promote. And we will be promoting, we are going to be a lot more active in the Chamber of Commerce. We are members of the London Chamber of Commerce and also the Hampshire Chamber of Commerce. And that is a good outlet for us, because I know, we’ve taken a few international inquiries for creative design via the London Chamber of Commerce, have come through to my email and I’ve dealt with them. So that’s another branch that we want to try and increase here the amount of international companies we can secure and then initiate their fulfillment, which fulfillment I mean, the way they communicate with the UK, cultural clients that they will have lovely cultural, I mean, whatever brand they’re selling, whether it’s a type of car tire, or it’s a type of hair product. We’re pretty confident here we’ve got the expertise of how to do that creative design. whereby they probably wouldn’t overseas.

JE  Well, that’s an interesting point to close out on because, you know, we will be promoting this video. And our audience is purely international. We’re doing international, from China, but focusing on Europe and other continents as well. So, we’ll have to think together after this video has been put up on the website and YouTube, how we can increase the exposure to get your international marketing and maybe that’s something we can achieve together. So, I think that’s a good point to close on today. Thank you very much for your day, Kevin.

Ends.