You are currently viewing See a Gap in the Market and Fill It, that’s Marleigh Sayers’ Story – Episode 9

See a Gap in the Market and Fill It, that’s Marleigh Sayers’ Story – Episode 9

Stories From The Bush – Our Stories are from our community of Spend With Us – Buy From a Bush Business, stories of Australian’s who work and live in Rural and Regional Australia.

Marleigh, a keen fisherwoman, had no good fishing shirts to wear that were suitable – so she went and starting making the shirts herself!  This is her story.

A Spend With Us – Buy From a Bush Business, Business Owner’s Story

 

Today we chat with Marleigh Sayers about fishing, fish shirts, and how a problem she encountered became the inspiration for her business.

This transcript was made by Rev.com – if you’d like to try it yourself click here: try.rev.com/3mmN2z

Transcript:

Jenn Donovan:

Well, hey there. Welcome to the ninth episode of Stories From the Bus‪h. I am, of course, the host, Jenn Donovan, marketer, keynote speaker, social media strategist, and rural girl, obsessed with helping rural Australian small businesses. I’m a farmer’s wife. I live in the Riverina of New South Wales and a mum of three. And just so passionate about sharing these stories of business and life in rural Australia. My business partners and I, Sarah Britz and Lauren Hateley, shout out to you amazing two ladies, are the co-founders of Spend With Us – Buy From a Bush Business.

Jenn Donovan:

If you want to hear more about our story, how a clinical psychologist, a web designer, and a marketer came together to create this movement, head back to our intro episode or, of course, you can hear about how three rural girls have got together to make a big difference in rural and regional Australia by checking out our about section on our website. Of course, this episode is brought to you by our marketplace, Spend With Us – Buy From a Bush Business, which you can find at all the W’s spendwithus.com.au. It’s an online marketplace for rural and regional small businesses and we’re currently supporting almost 1,000 small businesses through that marketplace. But we also have a Facebook group called Buy from a Bush Business, which has currently about 310,000 members. So clearly in that group, we are supporting hundreds of thousands of rural small businesses. I’d love you to check us out and maybe share this podcast or our group or our marketplace with a friend or a family member.

Jenn Donovan:

But today on the podcast, I have Marleigh Sayers and she is from MALi Designs, and she’s going to tell us all about her fishing shirts/sun shirt business, how it came about and what the growth of the business has looked like. As with all amazing business ideas, in my opinion as a marketer, it came from a problem they had themselves. They couldn’t find a good fishing shirt and they’re a very outdoorsy and very fishing-orientated family. So they decided to do it themselves. Marleigh is such an amazing young lady and she’s in love with her business and, of course, her customers, and I know you’re just going to love her story all about MALi Designs. So go and grab a cuppa and take a listen to my chat with Marleigh from MALi Designs.

Jenn Donovan:

Thank you so much, Marleigh, for coming on the podcast today. I’m really excited for everyone to hear a little bit about your business and your story. But can you tell us a little bit about Marleigh and a little bit about where you live?

Marleigh Sayers:

Yeah, thanks for having me, Jenn. I’m really excited to be here for my first podcast interview. Yay. So my name is Marleigh Sayers and I live in Booral, which is in Queensland. It’s about 15 minutes outside of Hervey Bay on the Fraser Coast. It’s about three and a half hours north of Brisbane.

Jenn Donovan:

Yeah. Okay.

Marleigh Sayers:

Yeah. Yeah, I work from home, so yeah. I’m being a stay-at-home mom, but now my kids have just started prep and kindy. So now I have a little bit more quiet time and nap time.

Jenn Donovan:

Well, that’s good. That’s good. I always love another person who works from home but I always did think it was a bit of a myth when the kids went to school that you would have more time.

Marleigh Sayers:

It kind of is, I think. But the amount of time you spend at school drop-offs and school pick-ups, it does feel like a very short work day. And I guess, it’s sometimes hard to stay actually focused in those four hours that you end up having.

Jenn Donovan:

Exactly. Exactly. It’s just like I used to look at the clock and go, “Is it 3:00 already, how did that happen?” But, anyway. Now, Marleigh, I know we’ve been talking a little bit off-air, which is one of the delightful things I get to do as the podcast host, but we’ve been chatting a little bit about a couple of businesses that you have that you run from your home. Could you tell us a little bit about what they are and how you actually got started?

Marleigh Sayers:

Yeah, sure. So we do have two current businesses. They are both online stores. So E-commerce brands that we created, my husband and I. Our first brand is called Fish King and we started it in 2013. The year prior we traveled to Australia. So before we had kids, we left our jobs, sold our house, packed up a site on camper with a four meter tinny and checked off for the year around Australia, and did about 35,000 kilometers and a little bit on dirt roads and had the best year ever. And most of that time-

Jenn Donovan:

Oh my gosh, your husband’s very lucky. Your husband’s very lucky to have married someone like you because my husband would suggest that and I would just look at him like, “No. Just no.”

Marleigh Sayers:

We definitely have very similar personalities. And I grew up in a fishing family and we found that when I met Kip when I was 15. Yeah. We spent all of our alleged time fishing or trekking to waterfalls and doing camping or those sort of things. So it’s our lifestyle and that’s why today we live on 10 acres and have a big veggie garden and [inaudible 00:05:36] It’s who we are and that’s the sort of life that we love. But that year around Australia was really the inspiration for our business. Yeah. We fished and found that there was a bit of a gap in the market in the fishing clothing specifically fishing clothing at the time. We were wearing fishing shirts, men’s fishing shirts, basically. I’d have people come along by the boat and say, “How you going, fellows?” And they go, “Oh, that’s a lady in the boat there. Sure she can throw a cast net?”

Marleigh Sayers:

So, yeah. And we went into some competitions and we… In that kind of last story and not wearing those sun shirts a lot, whether you’re setting up camp or you’re heading out and about because it’s so hot in the top end. And in the central Australia when we walked around all along, we needed some protection. And at that time I was either covering up with a lightweight cotton sarong, wrapping myself up, or wearing one of these men’s fishing shirts. And we found that the man’s fishing shirts we had at the time weren’t as good as we’d hoped. There was no pocket. There was a floppy collar. [inaudible 00:07:01] We sort of said, “Why isn’t someone doing this? Making a good quality fishing shirt and making something to protect you properly from the sun and making something for women and something that you can wear anywhere and feel comfortable and not feel like you’ve just gotten out of a troller.” Yeah. That’s where we started planning.

Jenn Donovan:

So, Marleigh, from a non-fishing person’s point of view, what is a fishing shirt? We’re farmers, so my husband wears Yakka and KingGee and… I probably shouldn’t name drop on these podcasts. Whoops. Anyway, not to worry. We’ll cut that bit out, maybe. But my husband wears work shirts. So, what makes a fishing shirt different?

Marleigh Sayers:

So the really interesting thing about them is that they were just a fishing shirt and the thing that makes them really great to wear is the fabric. So it’s not a heavy duty cotton. Normally, the work shirts like… Yeah, I don’t want name drop either but [crosstalk 00:08:10] are quite thick like KingGee’s, for example. They are a thick shirt that protects you from the sun and protects you also from say barbed wire and things like that. They’re a durable shirt but they’re extremely hot because they’re so thick. Now the shirts, what we would traditionally call a fishing shirt, which we now have a sun shirt brand of, is a cool mesh fabric.

Marleigh Sayers:

So this fabric is a 100% polyester, but it’s a fabric that is very breathable and lightweight and great for people with allergies and sensitive skin, people with eczema, people with skin conditions where they need to be protected. So the fabric actually blocks… The way that it’s designed, it has tiny little holes in the fabric that allows the air flow, but it blocks over 94% UV rays. So it’s so incredibly lightweight and comfortable to wear, but it’s protecting you from wearing a singlet or something where you’ll be getting sunburn or needing to lather up with sunscreen. So when you’re sitting in a boat in the middle of a river and not a territory, you really need to be covered top to toe.

Marleigh Sayers:

And we would wear a sun shirt, pop that collar out, wear one of the two bandanas that you pull up under your sunglasses, sunglasses, wide brim hat, long pants. Often, we would literally wear socks under our long pants to protect as well from the sun and from mosquitoes, as well. So you can imagine someone sitting in a boat, they’re top-to-toe covered. You don’t want to be in a heavy fabric that doesn’t breathe. Most of the fishing shirts on the market are made out of a similar fabric in different thicknesses and qualities. Some of them are too thickened so they don’t breathe as well as others, but you see a lot that are cool mesh on the market. But, traditionally, have large fish prints all over them.

Marleigh Sayers:

And what we decided to do when we started Fish King was… Originally, we were fishermen so we were happy to be wearing Fish King shirts for what we were designing but [inaudible 00:10:28] easily with no buttons for wearing and not getting tangled up in things like your fishing line or your cast net. We wanted a large zip pocket that you could securely pop your keys in when you’re getting in and out of the boat or beach fishing. Now today, when I take my little boys beach fishing, I want to take a photo of them looking gorgeous one second. And then the next minute they’re like, “Quick, mum help me put a new worm on the hook.” And I’ve got to pop my… Phones are expensive. Pop it in my pocket, zip it up. And then I can be bent-over or picking them up or dunking them in the water, which they often like, and not worry about losing something. And there’s nothing like that on the market. There wasn’t.

Marleigh Sayers:

And the other feature is the thumb hole that we did protect. So people riding a quad bike or holding a fishing rod or driving a boat had that extra protection because one of the most common areas for melanoma is actually the back of the hands. So people might put sunscreen on their face. They might apply it to their back. But the amount of times that your hands are in the sun, even in long sleeves in winter, the UV can be so high when you don’t even feel hot, that area of your skin is constantly getting damage from the sun. And any level of tanning. So skin discoloration is a level of skin damage. And over time that builds up and is the risk of skin cancer, which is incredibly common in Australia. It’s a really very common cancer, unfortunately.

Jenn Donovan:

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That’s it and explains what the fishing shirt is. Thank you. Now I understand. So when we were chatting before-

Marleigh Sayers:

You need one.

Jenn Donovan:

I do. Something that I always find really interesting is how people got to where they are. So you were saying how your trip around Australia was your inspiration, but you were also saying, off-air, that you had no design experience. So you’ve kind of come up with these idea, but you need the base levels to start with. So, how did you go through that process of actually getting it from a single thought to a manufactured product?

Marleigh Sayers:

It’s a thing of process. So I was a primary school teacher before we left to travel Australia, and I always drew a little bit, but that was as far as… And I liked learning things on technology, as well. So I was the type of person who needed to do something and would jump on YouTube and look up how to do it and then do it the next day sort of thing. So I do have those areas that helped me. But, basically, when we got home from the trip and we started with thinking of brand, my husband came up with Fish King and it was really what we wanted. We had a range like barra king and kind of a thing. Now snappa king back then. We had a bass king shirt. We still have a cod king shirt, which we sell a lot to people in more freshwater areas with the Murray cod.

Marleigh Sayers:

So we wanted that to really focus on different species and to be almost like a complimentary when someone gets to do one of these shirts. Give them proper snappa king shirt because he’s a great fisherman. So we started with that brand name. Then I literally put pen to paper and I started drawing and I drew our logo, which is a crown with hooks sort of embedded in it. And then, I thought, “I need something more than this.” And I reached out to a designer who I knew and they gave me a quote based on my drawings, but then said they were heading away for a period of four to six weeks. And I was a little impatient. So I-

Jenn Donovan:

Like every good entrepreneur, “No. We want it today.”

Marleigh Sayers:

Yeah. Well, I just thought, “How about I just jump on these free trial and just have a play.” And so, within a month I’d self-taught myself. Basically, one, what a vector file was, which was a whole new board game. But Adobe Illustrator was, and how it worked and realistically there are still functions of that that I’m learning today. I’m sure I’m not as fast as a graphic designer at whipping up something. Yeah, experimenting.

Marleigh Sayers:

My first design, which we still sell, is a Fish King shirt with a hand drawn marlin on it that I literally drew from scratch. And I photographed that marlin and I put it into Adobe Illustrator and I vectorized it, which turns it into an editable object, basically, so I can move little bits of it around easily. And the benefit of those types of things is that they can be printed to any size without losing any quality. So when we’re looking at our six XL shirts or a little tiny size one, two shirts, the image is as crisp and as detailed in any of those size ranges.

Marleigh Sayers:

So it was important to use that technology that basically self-taught and bought out three men shirts and three women’s within about three months. Yeah. And so, my husband set up all the manufacturing and the accounts and that sort of thing. I actually went back to teaching for 12 months and designed at night. And we launched our business offering custom design. So I started designing for other people, for teams and clubs and those sort of things, which helped me gain my skills. Yeah. And then after we finished up that 12 months, we moved to Queensland and I went into Fish King and had two children. So, as you do. [crosstalk 00:16:04]

Jenn Donovan:

As you do. You do. Well, as a avid canva.com user, I take my head off [crosstalk 00:16:14] Illustrator like publish… What is it Powell? No, I can’t even remember what it is now.

Marleigh Sayers:

Photoshop?

Jenn Donovan:

Photoshop. Yes. That was too complicated to me. So I’m a Canva girl and I will stay there, I think. So hats off for learning Illustrator.

Marleigh Sayers:

I’m a Canva girl, too. I use Canva for all my social media. It’s such a brilliant program and I really only get on Illustrator when I’m designing a new shirt. Yeah. It is an expensive software program to have to use and fortunately I have my Canva and a few of those.

Jenn Donovan:

So your business has developed a little bit since Fish King though because now you have a second label, as well.

Marleigh Sayers:

Yeah. So right back when we launched Fish King, we launched a women’s seating brand as well, which was called Angel Fish. But as we were selling our shirts predominantly at markets and trade events, we were constantly being asked for less fishy designs, basically, our shirts without any fish on them. And it was a little bit hard at first because our branding, Fish King. It sort of felt a little bit of a stretch for us to go there. But it really followed my journey as well as becoming a mum because, realistically, I don’t fish much right now and, unfortunately, for my husband, neither does he. You get so busy with a young family and a mortgage and work and all of those things that you don’t get to do all those things you did before kids as often. So your hobbies get a little bit more stretched out.

Marleigh Sayers:

So, basically, I was still in the sun, living in Queensland and living in Australia where the UV is so high. I was still in the sun, but I was doing things like taking my kids to the pool, the local pool, or heading to our waterpark or our markets, just walking there, the market is on a Sunday morning. You’d be surprised by how much UV exposure you’re actually experiencing. You might think, “We’ll just go and grab a few things.” But it always turns to one to two hours. And in Queensland, it’s like we want to stay cool. So we often wear less and, realistically, probably don’t wear sunscreen enough or properly. I started wanting something that I could wear that was pretty.

Marleigh Sayers:

And I’m not a girly girl. I’m not a pink girl. Even our women’s fishing shirts were blue, a lot of blues and things that probably reflected my MALi design style. Yeah. We wanted just things that were looking great with just a pair of denim shorts or a pair of board shorts, so your swimmer bottoms and just heading to the beach and you could wear it to the beach. You could wear it at the beach, and then you could actually wear it at home again or to the shops or out to lunch, right? Our designs are so beautiful and based on fashion prints. This is our MALi Design print that it is wearable anywhere and it doesn’t look out of place. So it’s very versatile. And even now our Fish King brand has evolved to be less fishy these days.

Marleigh Sayers:

So we have pine designs. We have people that wear them for golf and with the Buy From a Bush Business post, a lot of people were wearing them for quad biking or on their rural properties as a sun shirt. Here with my three and five and a half year old, when they go out down the back of our property to our bottom dam, they’ll wear their Fish King shirt to be protected from the sun and from mosquitoes. So even if they’re heading out to the backyard to play in the sandpit, I chuck one on them because it’s just so much easier than lathering them up with sunscreen when they might only be out there for an hour, and then they come back in and you’ve almost got to wash them off to get all that sunscreeny-sand off. It’s just a very practical shirt.

Jenn Donovan:

So you are an online business, but as with most of New South Wales or most of the east coast, we are kind of experiencing drought. Where you are has there been any impact of the dryness of the last couple of summers?

Marleigh Sayers:

Yeah, definitely. And, strangely, today I just drove around and passed some flooded roads, which is really unusual after this drought. For the last two years and previous. So we’ve been living here for six years on this 10 acre property and so we’re relying on tank water. We’ve had to truck in water, usually three times a season, so that’s averaging close to $200 a truckload every time we get a truckload of water in. Yeah. Our area has been drought declared. But for people within the town or the areas that aren’t on tank water, it hasn’t been as restrictive. They might have some restrictions on the amount that they get water or the days that they get water. But when you’re on tank water, it really affects a lot of things you do.

Marleigh Sayers:

And I often reflect on it when I’m doing my dishes and you’re so conscious of every single time you turn on a tap. And even little things like recycling. You want to be better at recycling. But when you think about how much you need to wash out every recyclable item before recycling it. There are times when I thought, “I can’t afford to use this water right now.” which isn’t probably ideal. And there’s things where it affects if you fill up a little bit of water in a kid’s water table. There’s times when my youngest hasn’t had a bath. Yes, I wash him. But a bath in a bathtub for six months because there was just not enough water to fill up a bath and let him sit in there and wash. We usually just do a quick everyone in to the shower, wash as quickly as you can, then get back out.

Marleigh Sayers:

And it can cause a little stress within the home because you’re constantly saying, “Turn the tap off. Don’t waste the water.” Actually, my husband’s probably the worst offender of long showers. And there are times, generally, working at home where I’ve said, “You have to go and do another market because we need to buy water this week. We need more money in our family income because we’re going to run out of water again this week.” And so, actually, we don’t live off our land as far as livestock or agriculture. It definitely affects the way we live our lives on a smaller scale. But, yeah.

Jenn Donovan:

Have you seen any impact-

Marleigh Sayers:

So we’re definitely thankful for the full tanks right now.

Jenn Donovan:

Beautiful. Have you seen any impact on your business side at all, with sales and things like that? Have you felt that people haven’t really got the extra cash so much? Or is that not really [crosstalk 00:23:20]

Marleigh Sayers:

Yeah. They’ve been a lot of times. People have approached me often for things like Afterpay or lay-by terms because of financial constraints. And I really believe that a lot of that comes down to where we are and a lot of our visitors to our local markets come from other areas that are even more drought affected and yeah. So they’d have less funds to spend. Yeah, it definitely affects…

Jenn Donovan:

Sorry, you’re frozen.

Marleigh Sayers:

Oh, am I still there?

Jenn Donovan:

You froze just then.

Marleigh Sayers:

I’m back?

Jenn Donovan:

Yeah. Yeah. So you were just saying it definitely affects business but I missed everything after that, if you want to just repeat that sentence that you said.

Marleigh Sayers:

Yeah. I was just saying that I think a lot of the people that access local market that we do here are often visitors from areas that are even more drought-effected and often they have had not enough money. And I’ve been approached a lot about offering discounts or lay-by or Afterpay and those sorts of things that sometimes as a small business you can’t always offer because they do take even more of your… Your profits aren’t that high. But we always try to make sure that we look after people where we can and do discounts and sales where we can.

Jenn Donovan:

Beautiful. So I guess you and I have… I love the fact that we have these technology because you’re in Queensland and I’m in the Riverina, we’re chatting over Zoom. I know that everybody else can only hear the audio, but we actually do have a video running, as well. But we have met through my group, Buy From a Bush Business, to which you have put in a couple of posts in that group. Can you tell us a little bit about your experience through the group and maybe how you initially found the group?

Marleigh Sayers:

Yeah, sure. So I initially found the group through my customers. Well, originally, a friend suggested, a friend from where I used to live in Yass, which is really a drought-effected area. I’ve got a fair few people down there who have won our shirts and bought shirts for family members to wear on their rural properties. A friend from down there messaged me and said, “Look, I’ve got a lot of people asking me about your products and they always head to this Facebook group, Buy From a Bush Business. I think it’d be really worth you putting a post on there and seeing if you can drum up a bit more business in that way.” And then another customer, he mentioned it to me and a friend tagged me in a post on there.

Marleigh Sayers:

I joined the group first and did a bit of scoping around, checking it out. And then I did a search in the group to see, obviously, what areas were encouraged to post and what the rules around the group were and if there were other people in my area. Because, obviously, you never feel like you’re the worst affected in those types of things. There are people that are actually posting on there because they’ve created something on their rural property on a cattle property somewhere that the cattle are having to be sold or all of these things that, obviously, are much more extreme effects from the drought. Yeah. I did my research on the group just to see whether I was eligible to be a part of the group and to post on the group and found that being in a smaller area and being drought declared that we that I could. And so I did.

Marleigh Sayers:

One day back in January, I was at home with two sick kids and not feeling great myself, just a general cold, but watching some G-rated kid’s show and trying to still try and put a little bit of something into my business where I’ve canceled another days of actual work. And I put a post on at about 2:00 in the afternoon and at midnight that night I was hacking a crazy amount of orders. So that one post has been shared over 350 times, which I wish I’d posted it from my business page because I’d love to know the reach on that post because I love the analytics. But the comments is what was amazing to me, was over 400 people who’d never seen or heard of us before, which at first you’re like, “Oh, I’m really bad at marketing. Where have I been all these years? People have never even heard of us.”

Marleigh Sayers:

But then you get over yourself and realize that there’s a group there of people that are really loving our product and thanking us for creating it because it’s something they’ve been looking for. Yeah, the comments were amazing. I, literally, was just glued to reading these comments and responding to every single one of them. Yeah. And 350 shares, 400 comments and sales within minutes of that post. And the first sale came through and I was like, “Oh, wow. Sale coming.” And then by the time my husband came home, sorry, from work that day, it was maybe 20 sales and that’s the most I’ve ever sold, I think in one day, then. Yeah. It’s nearly $10,000 of revenue I believe from that one post.

Jenn Donovan:

Wow.

Marleigh Sayers:

So it’s really big and I’m still kind of pinching myself that… Yeah. I actually keep going back to that post and rereading it and thinking, “I need to replicate this somehow and get this happening again.” Because, obviously, it does tie down. I’ve been back in China studying what I did so right. Because I was off the cuff that day. It was, literally, just me giving a little brief insight into us, our business and where we started and what our product is and a heap of photos that I’ve found in my camera reel of our shares. Yeah. I’m very, very thankful for the tribe of people that you’ve grouped together. They’re amazing.

Jenn Donovan:

And I think I keep thinking on my other podcast, my Small Business Made Simple Podcast that I need to do an episode about what’s involved in something going viral. I’ve had two things go viral in my business journey and with that going viral, I don’t think there is necessarily a formula. I can’t seem to come up with this formula. I think all of a sudden, it just hits you that this is going to go viral. And I think my biggest thing with that is look at the group. We’re recording these at the end of February, 2020.

Jenn Donovan:

At the moment, I think it’s clicked over 210,000 people. I remember putting the post in there when it was like, “5,000 people. Yeah. That’s so awesome.” And now I giggle at those posts. Oh my God. I just had no idea it was going to blow up and do what it has done and credit to everybody who’s on there to build that community. And $10,000 worth of sales is amazing, Marleigh. But the compliments to your business and just giving you that push, “Wow, you’ve got a product that everyone loves.” It’s going to be worth so much for the soul, as well.

Marleigh Sayers:

Absolutely. It really builds you up and after we didn’t have a massive Christmas with sales and then being a sun shirt, we always kind of worry about the seasons a little, too. So you’re always sort of thinking about the longevity of your sales period and that creates anxiety in your business because you’re worried about if more sales are going to come through. And when you do rely on it as part of your family’s income as a major part, when something like that happens, when the amount of extra social followers that you feel that you can market towards them in the future, but the sales straight away are just phenomenal. But the amount of networking or spread of that product is what I find is amazing.

Marleigh Sayers:

I, literally, was so amazed by what came through that I started mapping, physically mapping, where my orders were being sent from that post. And I’ll have to send that through to you. When I finish it, I’ll post it on the group. The furthest points of this country and the most central points of this country and every state and territory. And it’s amazing to think that one, that those people are going to be wearing those shirts and, hopefully, telling their friends in places that I could never physically reach myself without packing up and selling up and hitting the road again, which is tempting. Yeah. Just to know that they’re there. And being a product that promotes sun awareness or sun safety, it’s just knowing that those people, and that we sell kids shirts, are providing that extra level of protection to themselves and their children is also amazing.

Marleigh Sayers:

80% of skin damage happens before you turn 18. So even as an adult or a grandparent, you might start covering up once you’ve had a skin spot found or removed. But most of the damage is already done and, obviously, you’ve got to protect yourself at every point. But protecting your kids from the sun and making it easy. The kids love our shirts which really helps. We know that kids when they unwrap one of our for a birthday or a Christmas, that they’re going to light up. Because one, that if it’s a fishing shirt, it might be a shirt like dad or the matching shirts in our women’s range. Girls and moms matching in our leopard print or our beautiful magnolia print. They’re excited by that. And to think that it’s actually protecting them is amazing.

Jenn Donovan:

I’m not quite sure that my 16-year-old would appreciate having the same shirt as her mom, but I could give it a try.

Marleigh Sayers:

But the thing is, we’ve got enough options there for one age. So it’s not the same. That is the thing that’s really one of the most… Well, I find it a challenge at times because everyone always says in business, “You’ve got to define your market. You’ve got to know who you’re targeting in all of this.” And our audience is so widespread and we literally fit. So our youngest little Fish King at the moment just went on his first family beach holiday. He’s seven months old and he’s wearing a Fish King shirt already.

Marleigh Sayers:

My kid’s great grandma has a beautiful magnolia print sun shirt that she wears bowling. And we have boys, girls, men and women. We’ve got people who are golfers who’ve never picked up a fishing rod in their life. We’ve got people that don’t frequent the beach, but live on rural properties and are out there [inaudible 00:35:13] around herding cattle wearing our shirts with their thumb holes over their hands feeling comfortable and lightweight. Yeah. And then we have our beach goers and our regular fishing market who think, “Wow. This is pretty cool to have something different, too. You can still wear them fishing.”

Jenn Donovan:

Oh, good. Good. Just before we wrap up, I would like to sort of ask you just one last question and really it’s about where you started. I love hearing people’s stories that they’ve started these businesses out of a thought or an inspiration or whatever that looks like with really no experience in what you’re about to head into. So for anyone who’s listening who has an idea that they think would make a really good business, what advice would you give them? As perhaps someone who’s standing back going, “Oh, but I couldn’t do that because I don’t know what I’m doing, or I don’t have the skills.”

Marleigh Sayers:

I think the biggest thing is to be willing to learn, if you’re willing to give it a go. And in this day and age, it is so easy to learn for anyone anywhere. So the access to technology on our phones, the amount of time we spend just scrolling regular bits and pieces. You can put that time into learning and it’ll still be interesting to you. If it’s an area that you love, jump on YouTube or, literally, Google, “How do I do this?” That’s how I built my last website. It was, “How do I build a WordPress website?” And I followed, I think it was a two-hour tutorial. And I paused that many times and followed those steps and I built a website that is selling well. Yeah. You’ve just got to be willing to learn.

Marleigh Sayers:

And the other piece of advice I think I would say is push yourself out of your comfort zone and be willing to try things that freak you out a little bit. For me, one of those areas is getting in front of the camera. So that’s why when you put that call out for interest in being on the podcast, I thought, yes. I don’t do Instagram video or Facebook lives or any of that at the moment because it freaks me out just being in front of a video. But whenever I do, I get a great response from people. And I think that every time you do it, it gets that little bit easier. Yeah. I think just have a go and network, meet people. Yeah. Try. Just give it a go. You’ll never know if you don’t try.

Jenn Donovan:

No, that’s right. That’s right. I totally, totally agree with you there, most certainly. Yeah. What’s that saying? Everything’s hard until it becomes easy.

Marleigh Sayers:

Exactly. Yeah. And the other thing just to remember is that everyone that is killing it right now that you’re inspired by, use that. Be inspired by them. Don’t be envious. Look at them and think, where did they start and what have they overcome to get where they are today? And then, you follow in their footsteps. You don’t have to go alone. Yeah. You’ve just got to make sure that you’re following the right footsteps and giving it a crack.

Jenn Donovan:

Yeah. Yeah. Beautiful advice from one small business owner to perhaps potentially another one. So thank you. Marleigh, it’s been a great pleasure to have you on the podcast today. I have really enjoyed your story. I love your passion for what you do. And I think that emulates the success that you’re having. I truly believe in business, it’s the passion that keeps you going and it’s the passion that keeps the drive. So it’s been really interesting to have a chat.

Marleigh Sayers:

Thank you so much for the opportunity and for creating the Facebook group and being willing to give it a go when others haven’t. So thank you.

Jenn Donovan:

No worries. Thanks. Keep smiling. Oh, actually I should say before we go, goodness me. If someone wants to get in contact with Fish King or MALi Designs, where do they go to get in contact with you?

Marleigh Sayers:

So we’ve got Facebook and Instagram for both our businesses. So Fish King on Facebook, MALi Designs on Facebook and then with the AU on Instagram, MALi Designs AU. But our websites are just www.fishking.com.au and malidesigns.com.au. So we’ve got the two websites and there’s contact us linked on there, as well. But if you jump on our Facebook page, you can usually find links to everything as well, or flick me a message.

Jenn Donovan:

Beautiful. All right. So now I really will wrap it up now that I haven’t forgotten to say that. Thanks again, Marleigh for coming on. It’s been really great.

Marleigh Sayers:

Thank you. Thank you very much, Jenn.

Jenn Donovan:

I really hope you enjoyed that episode of the podcast. The lesson for us all is if we see a problem with no purchasable solution, then it’s time for us to do it ourselves. What an inspiring business and a story with a difference. I can’t thank Marleigh enough for giving up her time. But thanks to you for taking the time to listen in to this story about business and life in rural Australia.

Jenn Donovan:

If you haven’t checked out our marketplace, Spend With Us, then head to www.spendwithus.com.au and go there and support all the rural and regional small businesses that we have on that marketplace. Of course, don’t forget to hit subscribe to these podcast so that you never miss another episode. And if you’ve got time, we would love a rating and review of the show as well because we love sharing these rural stories with you. So we hope that you enjoy listening to them, but I’ll see you next time for episode 10.

 

 

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