00:00To inspire is very very difficult, so I won't say like how I inspire my team, but how to keep them alive.
00:07There's one quote I read somewhere, it's about good leaders.
00:10It's, good leaders don't set out to be leaders, they set out to make a difference, like what Melissa said.
00:16I have no idea what to expect and all, I believe it's very similar for both my parents,
00:22but what we all knew is that we want to make Malaysian proud.
00:26So if you create content that aligns with that, and then you share it in your social media, they're going to love you.
00:35My name is Melissa, I'm the CEO of Geta.
00:38Well, it's a family business, so I started since I was young, even as a kid.
00:42During holidays, I like to help out with my parents, and I build the interest throughout the years.
00:49Yeah, it's a calling, natural calling.
00:51My name is Vincent, and I'm the founder and the CEO of Joey Mattress.
00:56Well, I started Joey Mattress because I thought that the mattress shopping experience in Malaysia
01:01was a little bit confusing and a bit difficult.
01:04So, I started the company with Joey, my partner, to make mattress shopping easy.
01:08So far, we've been in operation for two years, and we have around 10,000 customers, happy customers,
01:14and they have left us quite an amount of raving five-star reviews on our website.
01:31There's two main things that really changed.
01:34One is, we realised the importance to diversify.
01:38Our local business really suffered because we are in the shopping malls.
01:42So, we're talking about pavilion, mid-valley, that have to be totally closed.
01:46That means zero income for us.
01:48So, retail-wise, we literally have zero sales turnover for more than a month during the whole MCO.
01:54So, to diversify it outside, let's say, the export businesses which we are in,
02:00it becomes more important, and we really need to know how to do this in order to keep the business sustainable.
02:06And secondly, the biggest change is digitalising.
02:11So, when I say digitalising, it doesn't only mean bringing the business to an online shop or e-commerce platforms.
02:20It also means digitalising internally within our team.
02:24I'm sure not many company users Zoom or Google Meet before that,
02:27and because of the pandemic, everyone has to learn.
02:29No excuses.
02:31I personally really enjoyed that because it brought me so much closer to my team that is outside Klang Valley.
02:37At first, I wanted to move into an office when we just started the business.
02:41Like one year, I wanted to move into an office and get our team together.
02:45But the pandemic came and then we couldn't move that plan forward.
02:49We were forced to communicate online.
02:51So, we started using Slack for communications and Google Zoom meetings for communications.
02:58And right now, our whole team basically has adopted the whole remote thing.
03:04Our team is completely remote from day one until now.
03:07We have never met before people in our team.
03:11Definitely, I would want to meet my team.
03:12Every single person in my team, I want to meet them.
03:15But there is also the benefit of not meeting that often.
03:17You know, there's not that much drama.
03:21Okay, I'll make it a little bit more one-on-one.
03:35To inspire is very, very difficult.
03:38So, I won't say like how I inspire my team, but how to keep them alive, feeling not like sluggish.
03:45It's by always including them in what we are doing to make them feel that they are a part of it.
03:50Because identity is something really, really important.
03:54You can have a high salary.
03:56You can have a lot of good remuneration packages and all.
04:01But if you don't feel that you belong to the company, you work eight hours a day,
04:05that's more than half of your time if you exclude the time sleeping.
04:09So, you are literally with your family.
04:11If you don't feel included, you don't feel part of it, you don't have an identity in the company,
04:15then I don't think any form of inspiration or motivation works.
04:25There's one quote I read somewhere. It's about good leaders.
04:28Good leaders don't set out to be leaders.
04:31They set out to make a difference, like what Melissa said.
04:34They should just try to find a better way to do things.
04:39So, it's never about the role, it's about the goal.
04:43Yeah, it rhymes.
04:44I think there are certain leadership qualities that leaders would have that make people want to follow them.
04:50Such as being collaborative, leading by example, being human and admitting to mistakes.
04:57And understanding the value of listening.
05:07I have no idea what to expect and all.
05:10I believe it's very similar for both my parents.
05:13But what we all knew is that we want to make Malaysians proud of this brand
05:19and to bring it internationally.
05:21That's what our dream has been from day one.
05:24Like my dad said, bring the national treasure outside Malaysia.
05:28Shout it to the world.
05:30We are a very proud Malaysian brand.
05:32And we know that latex, rubber trees in Malaysia are the best quality.
05:36So in Malay language, getah means rubber.
05:39And we want to name it in a Malay language, getah.
05:43So we tweaked the spelling a little and still call the name getah.
05:54At first, it was because of money.
05:56Because I wanted to make more money, some extra pocket money.
05:59But when I started to do more and learn more about business,
06:03I just fell in love with it.
06:04Because there's just so much aspects in the business that I could learn.
06:09Management, marketing, branding.
06:11So all that really captured my interest.
06:14And I just continued to do it after my uni days.
06:19Oh man.
06:20I have to.
06:22There's no way I could take one out.
06:24Okay, so.
06:30Alright.
06:36What I envy about their business is that
06:38they're very focused on the products that they have.
06:41You have quite a few.
06:43You can focus on them.
06:45So when you grow bigger,
06:48your customer will expect you to have more variety.
06:50And you're forced to have more.
06:52And then you will have the problem of having more and more and more.
06:55And you will slowly lose the touch of having a single product focus.
07:01But when you have that one single product,
07:03you can create so many things about that.
07:05But when you have so many, it becomes very, very challenging.
07:08That is actually what the challenge that we have.
07:10So I do envy very much that you have this product
07:14All your effort, all your focus and dedication is on one.
07:18Yeah, so don't lose that.
07:21Alright.
07:23What I admire about your business, Geta,
07:25is it's a completely vertically integrated mattress company.
07:29From getting the latex from the harvesters
07:31and processing it using your own in-house technologies
07:34into blocks of latex.
07:36And then assembling all the components together
07:38into a mattress.
07:39Branding, the marketing.
07:40And then distributing it via all the sales channels
07:43like exports, dealers, retail shops.
07:46All that is a huge aspect in itself
07:49that you are managing.
07:50So I really admire that about you.
07:52Thank you.
07:59I believe the importance of social media.
08:01I'm sure everyone in this room uses social media.
08:06Either Facebook, Instagram or anything else
08:09at least once a day.
08:11At least.
08:12So definitely it's important.
08:14Definitely it's not like just a complimentary.
08:17I have a lot of respect for our social media team
08:21who churns out the work and all.
08:23It's not easy to keep the customer engaged.
08:27There's so many news out there.
08:29So many KOL.
08:30So how to make our social media interesting,
08:32that is very challenging.
08:34But we will keep going and we will not stop.
08:37Social media allows us businesses
08:40to be in the pockets of our customers.
08:43They could see us whenever they open their social media.
08:45So I think of it as an outlet
08:47to connect with our customers.
08:49What's important I think
08:51is the content creation part.
08:53How do you relate to your customers?
08:56Like what Melissa said,
08:57showing the behind the scenes video.
09:00What materials go into a mattress.
09:02Consumers are really interested in this kind of stuff.
09:04So if you create content that aligns with that
09:06and then you share it in your social media,
09:08they're going to love you.
09:10www.microsoft.com
09:12www.microsoft.com
09:14www.microsoft.com
09:16www.microsoft.com
09:20www.microsoft.com
09:22www.microsoft.com
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