The ExChange: Series 3
[Sponsored Content]
The average person spends about a quarter of their life asleep, and about seven years trying to fall asleep. However, finding the perfect mattress can sometimes be just as hard as finding the perfect relationship, balancing hard and soft, cost and comfort. Follow the full exchange between two young company leaders as they discuss innovation, inspiration and their single-minded mission to help Malaysians sleep better.
#The5 #BMWMalaysia #TheEdgeMalaysia #TheExChangeMY
The average person spends about a quarter of their life asleep, and about seven years trying to fall asleep. However, finding the perfect mattress can sometimes be just as hard as finding the perfect relationship, balancing hard and soft, cost and comfort. Follow the full exchange between two young company leaders as they discuss innovation, inspiration and their single-minded mission to help Malaysians sleep better.
#The5 #BMWMalaysia #TheEdgeMalaysia #TheExChangeMY
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
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
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