Relentless - S07:E26 - Episode 140 -Tamas Szabo

Take calculated risks

Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJkuXaD7_0JPNzYKMuIaMeZxA-F16YgzN

From commission housing to leading a global financial services powerhouse.

The final episode of Season 7 of Relentless: Life On Your Terms — and our 140th episode — features a very special guest: Tamas Szabo, Group CEO of Pepperstone, an international financial services company.

This one is different.

It’s raw, honest, and full of perspective from someone who has built success not just in business — but in life.

Tamas’s journey is built on:

🔥 A “fire in the belly” forged from humble beginnings
🌍 Scaling a global business across multiple continents and regulatory environments
📈 Leading in an industry where uncertainty is the only constant
🧠 Making decisions in high-pressure, high-stakes environments
⚡ Executing relentlessly — even when the plan changes

But what stands out most is his mindset.

No shortcuts. No “get rich quick.”

Just discipline, patience, and the ability to take calculated risks.

In this episode, we explore:

💡 Why execution will always outperform ideas
📊 The reality of financial markets — and why most people get it wrong
👥 Hiring lessons: why it’s better to wait than settle
🔄 The importance of adapting fast when plans inevitably change
🧘‍♂️ Managing pressure, health and performance at the highest level

One of the most powerful takeaways:

“Execution is everything… you don’t need to be the smartest person — you just need to do it.”

And another that hits just as hard:

“Take calculated risks.”

Because whether it’s business, investing, or life — playing it safe rarely gets you where you want to go.

This is the perfect way to close out Season 7.

A conversation for leaders, founders, investors — and anyone serious about building a life on their terms.

🎧 Now live on Relentless: Life On Your Terms

#RelentlessPodcast #Leadership #Entrepreneurship #Execution #BusinessGrowth #Investing #Mindset #LifeOnYourTerms

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

The classic trap that people get into is that they'll be profitable for a bit another mini bucks that they make, and then they'll lose that within a week. Don't follow it.

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Super excited bringing you the final episode of season seven, episode 140. Our next guest from Humble Beginnings has built a global empire in fintech space, taking over the crypto space, one of the best providers in Australia. Built a company with a team of over 850, turning over close to half a billion dollars. Cancer survivor, amazing father and philanthropist, and an avid cyclist. I cannot wait to share this episode with you. I would like to welcome Tamazaba to the podcast.

SPEAKER_01 0:49

Oh well, thanks for having me on, first of all. It's a pleasure.

SPEAKER_00 0:52

It's been an honor having you here.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

It's good it's good to be here. Um I mean, so so how how how what started the business?

SPEAKER_00 0:58

How are you started in the journey? So from starting in the commission flag from humble beginnings to building a global empire. You can touch one of the because obviously I want to get I want to ask you about scaling, recruiting, because that's that's very interesting.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

I mean, you go right back to the beginning. Um, you know, my parents, uh my father a refugee. My mother ultimately met my father um in in Belgium and and and uh I suppose she was a refugee as well, and they started with nothing, like nothing, nothing. Um, and uh I was born in born in um born in 1974 in Belgium. We moved to the UK when I was very, very young. I was one year old or something.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

Hence the accent.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

Yeah, hence the accent. Um but I consider myself an Aussie. I've been I've been here since 2004 in Australia, so I'd I'd I'd say I'm probably more Australian than I am anything else. I'm a pretty pretty mongrel in terms of all the places that I've been. Um so and then yeah, so we moved to the UK and we lived in commission housing for most of my childhood, to be totally honest. Um in fact, all my childhood, um, and and I ended up um going to university um at the age of 18, and uh then that's sort of when when things changed, and I was no longer living in the butt you know there's nothing wrong with commission housing, but it's it's just I suppose the reason um I guess you asked me the question is because to come from that background to being, you know, um whatever sucks you know, you can call successful lots of different things. It's you know it's not different things for different people, but it was quite a journey, I suppose.

SPEAKER_00 2:21

Well, look, I'm I'm referring to financial success, but I actually know you on a different level because you're a good friend of my partner, and I know you're a successful husband as well, you're a successful athlete, you're a philanthropist as well. So success is a number of things. Yes. So and I know you tick all those boxes, so it's very, very good to see that. But uh when I read that it gave you a sort of hunger and a drive to get out of there, do you think that was a big reason why you built such a big business?

SPEAKER_01 2:48

Yeah, I I think it is. I mean I look back to say, you know, how how did I get here? Because you know, I look back to my school friends and my my people at uni and and they've all been very various degrees of success. And and and uh and I and I think, well, how how did I get to where I've got to? You know they've got to certain places and I've got to to where I've got to now. And and it and it's I think it boils down to uh what I call a fire in the belly, um, where you you you want to you know do better than ever other people because that's ultimately how you succeed. You've got to, you know, it's a bit of a competition, you're gonna do better than someone else. And that can be in you know athletes, it can be um, you know, i in any career, and and it doesn't necessarily mean you know wealth, it doesn't mean a whole lot of it, it just means being very successful at what you do. Um, and that requires a drive, and I think that drive, um I got that drive from um you know having having the hunger to succeed from from a background where I think it was probably tougher than it may have been for some other people.

SPEAKER_00 3:45

And you mentioned as well, um, I see certainty is a luxury. You say that comment. What does that mean?

SPEAKER_01 3:50

Certainty is a luxury. Um I'm not sure what how I what I meant by that, but um certainty.

SPEAKER_00 3:57

Is that in the markets understanding?

SPEAKER_01 3:59

Oh yeah, so I think I know where that yeah, so certainty is a luxury in that um when you're running a when you're running a business like like mine, you you don't know um, you know, you can come up with a plan, but that plan can change, you can pivot, and there's no certainty in in in in business, I think. If there's certainty in business, then good luck, because um, you know, you that that's that's very rare to have something that's that's certain. You have different different probabilities of um of things happening, but a lot of the time I find ourselves uh Pepperstone coming up with a plan, great plan. We spend a lot of time on a plan, we we start executing the plan, and then something changes, and then the entire plan pivots to something completely different. And a lot of people can't handle that environment because it it it requires constant change, constant pivoting, um, and it's difficult.

SPEAKER_00 4:49

But when you're dealing like Pepperstone, you're CF Pepperstone. If you were to explain to us in a concise manner for our listeners understand, what exactly do you do, Pepperstone? Now I know you're trading and stuff, and you're give me give me a give me a breakdown. Sure. So you've got eight eight hundred thousand clients for people listening, you've got offices around the world, one in Limusol, which I grew up in Cyprus. So it's that's incredible, it's an incredible story. But what what exact what exactly would you say you do, Peppersley?

SPEAKER_01 5:16

Yeah, sure. So I've been in in this industry that I'm in uh my whole working career. So I started a company called IG, IG Markets, IG Group, IG, um back in 1996. Um, and essentially it's um leveraged uh speculative trading on financial markets. That's essentially what it is. Um we also offer crypto, um but the and we and I've uh previous um at IG we also talked about share trading, but the the main product is leveraged trading. So you can you can take a view on pretty much anything that that that moves in financial markets. It can be oil, it can be gold, it can be the NASDAQ index, the ASX index, it could be BHP, anything. And you take a view on that market and it's leveraged. So what means is that your gains are leveraged. The flip side, obviously, if you lose, your losses are leveraged, um, you know, magnified. Works both ways. But what you can do is you can, and when I say leverage, so what happens is you put an amount of money in your account, and when you open a position, the position can be multiples of the amount of money you've got in the account. So it can be, you know, a hundred times what you put on the account is a sort of exposure you can take to certain markets. And the way we manage that risk is if if you if the market goes against you and you lose the money that you've got on your account, we'll be asking you to put more money on to maintain your position. If you don't put more money on, or if you close it out, then the position gets liquidated, we call it, and then either the money's wiped out or you've got some of that money left. But so it's just your deposit that's at risk, not the full of course, because you can put stops as well. You can put stop losses, you can put limit orders, you can things call trailing stop losses. Whereas trailing stop loss, which is quite used quite a lot, is you have a position on a market or whatever, and as the market moves, that stop loss moves with you. So you'll be a point in time when you're in profit, you'll be a point in time where you've you've you've already doubled the money you have in your account, and your stop loss will be sort of covering that. So you're you're basically you're sort of locked in in the you know, you you've locked in that profit, and you can just keep going, can keep going, you can make you know, you can make some good money. But it goes both ways. I don't I don't ever want to get it across to anybody that there's a there's a such a thing as a get rich quick scheme. They don't exist, and and I get very frustrated when people get involved in our products and try and claim that you can get rich quick, you can't. It's it's not easy.

SPEAKER_00 7:39

You know, it's so nice hearing that because I I'm in real estate, I have been for 21 years, 26 years, but the company for 21, and I always say to them, these are great returns, everyone loves property, yeah, it's the most reliable asset class, but this is not a get rich with a quick scheme. This is planning better for tomorrow to build your wealth, yeah, brick by brick or in time. Now, I really love people saying that because trading people think I can jump in the market and maybe make a ton of money, yeah. But it goes both ways as well, and it goes like that in crypto and everything.

SPEAKER_01 8:09

Because I and everything. You just just you know, I'm not I wouldn't I'm I'm not trying to warn people against trading because I think it's it's a fantastic thing to do. But you know, if you have no experience and no understanding, be very, very cautious.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

If you have lots of experience and lots of understanding, still be very cautious because it's going to professionals that have been doing this for many years, yeah, that trade so much, yeah, they understand volatility in the market a lot better than an average person like myself would.

SPEAKER_01 8:35

Yeah. I mean the the the classic trap that people get into is that they'll be profitable for a bit and they'll feel feel that they have some amazing skill and they'll just get like I don't know, they'll they'll make a whole lot of decisions that are not above their pay grade. Above their pay grade, and they'll lose it all very quickly. I see it all the time. With people with, you know, they've they've they've put a I don't know, 10 grand on the account, and like I'm not joking, they'll have a million bucks that they've made, and then that they and then they'll lose that within a week, gone, all of it.

SPEAKER_00 9:02

And then they're gonna top up to try to get that million and then go down.

SPEAKER_01 9:04

And then and then they go, yeah, so it's it's just sometimes frustrating to watch. I mean, we don't pride provide our clients advice, so we don't tell them what to do. It's all self-directed. So, you know, it's and and that's how it has to be, I I believe, because it's it's it's difficult to advise people in derivatives trading because it's very hands-on, very, very um, you need a lot of focus to do this. You either give someone else your money to trade in derivatives, um yeah, it's difficult to provide advice on the products.

SPEAKER_00 9:32

Now, I I read as well on one of the books that you liked and learned to like James Collins Good to Great, which I think is amazing. It's one of my favorite books, yeah. I love that book. Yeah. Good to Great and Built to Last. He's he's written a lot of great books with a long-term view on companies, which I think is incredible. Yeah. Now, and you mentioned for the people interested in scaling, hiring staff, why that's so important. Yeah. Now you said you never particularly hired bad people, but you haven't spent that time because you and I've done that many times while nowhere near the business size of yours, where I'm trying to fill a hole so I quickly hire someone, and then I reflect back and say, Would I have hired them if I wasn't needed right now? And when the answer is no, it always bites me in the ass. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

Yeah, it's look, it's it's one of those things that um you know hindsight's always very helpful. But when you need to fill a role, the general thing and you have to do it quite quickly, you have a bunch of people that you're interviewing, and I don't want to mean about anyone that I've employed because I've employed lots and lots of amazing people. But sometimes the quality of the people that you're employing might not be at the right level, and you'll still pick one of them because you have to fill a role, and that's the mistake. You you you if you don't find the right person for the role, don't hire any of them. Keep looking, keep looking, be patient, and that's that's the mistake that I've made time and time again is that I need to fill a role. I've got five people that have gone around to you know first interview stage, and second round you've got and they and they're just not of the right caliber, and you end up picking one because you're filling a role, it's just it sort of makes sense, but it's actually the wrong thing to do.

SPEAKER_00 11:02

It's uh it's funny, it's ironic, I don't know what it is, but I think everyone does it, and we know that I know this is gonna bite me, and you do it.

SPEAKER_01 11:11

Yeah. But the bit that I I guess that has given me comfort with that, because it's easy for me to say, because someone will say, Well, that's fine, but I need someone to do the role. I'm in trouble, I need help. I need it done. You know, we haven't got, I don't know, um, a head of sales, right? I can't run this business without a head of sales. I'm I need to hire someone. You'd be surprised how long you can run a business without that position in place.

SPEAKER_00 11:32

I've Why do you think that is, can I ask?

SPEAKER_01 11:35

It's it's really bizarre. Like we currently don't have some senior roles in the business. We haven't had them for quite some time um because I've been looking for the right person and we've been looking for a very long time. And we've managed to run the business very successfully without these key roles because we have you questioned getting them then? No, I haven't questioned getting them because we still need them. But what what happens is that some very capable people, if if I don't have any if you don't have any capable people, you can't do this. But if you've got very capable people, the they're they're very, very good at doing lots of different things. And they chip in, I chip in, we all do it together. So you carry the weight, you carry the weight across if you've got a good team of people, you can do it, and it's quite amazing how and I've and we've managed to do some pretty amazing things without some key roles in the business by that sort of you know, really good collaboration, but also just a skill. I mean, I'm sort of a mini CTO at the moment, right? I have no, I can't, it's not my role, it's not my background, but I'm learning about all this stuff. Um, and it's and it's becoming, you know, you could question we don't need that role in the business, but you absolutely do. But we've just taken a long time to hire it, and I and I think um that's been the right decision.

SPEAKER_00 12:43

Do you think there's benefits in that too, because you have a better understanding of the incumbent that's coming in to take that role on?

SPEAKER_01 12:49

Totally. Like do it do it, you know, get get yeah, getting understanding of the discipline, under and just re understanding what the job's about, how it all works, it just makes the interview process of the of the CTO much more effective because now I really get what that role's all about.

SPEAKER_00 13:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:03

Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:04

Because I remember when I started in real estate, when I was 19, I was obsessed in real estate, but I realized that finance was a very, very key, important component. Yeah. So I went for 11 months and got my full finance license so I can understand that process out in front of clients. So when I built a finance arm, which was that 13 years ago, I wanted to know that price was such a key, intricate part of my pro. I never wanted to be a broker. Too much paperwork, yeah, wasn't as uh hands-on with clients. Yeah, but I I I saw that point as so important. So I learnt every part of the sequence. Yeah, I did a six-month or 12-month hiatus in each of them, yeah, so I can become better at selling real estate.

SPEAKER_01 13:40

Yeah. That that's that's a real discipline. A lot of people don't have the patience to do that. So yeah. And it it's a great investment in your education, just you know, doing doing the role and understanding it rather than you know, you can't learn to ski from a book. You gotta try it. You know, there's certain things you can't get out of a book.

SPEAKER_00 13:57

Well, I'll take your word for that because I've never tried. I used to skateboard, which I loved. Now, speaking, I understand that you you're an actually beside running businesses globally, I know you've got a wife and two kids as well, and you're also an avid cyclist. Yeah, I am. Yes, you cycle every day and on the weekends as well.

SPEAKER_01 14:13

Yeah, well almost every day.

SPEAKER_00 14:15

It keeps you sharp in the mind.

SPEAKER_01 14:16

It's fantastic. I without cycling, I think I'd I'd struggle mentally um just with everything that I do, because you know, running a global business and running all the things that that I have have in my life um creates a level of stress. Um, and it's an amazing way to clear the clear the mind because all I all I focus on is you know getting from A to B and enjoying the process of of doing that. Um so it just it just simplifies the the everything. And you still enjoy cycling? I love it. Yeah, I absolutely love it. And it's all and also the fitness that it gives you, I think. I mean health is so important, you know. If you haven't got your health, you haven't got your business, right? So people talk about business, business, business, you know, all these your health is is almost as important as understanding how to run a business because if you haven't got if you're not healthy, you you you you can't run a business. So it's important, and I it gives you that as well. So it gives you a few things, I think.

SPEAKER_00 15:13

I think ultra-high net worth individuals like yourself or people that are really dialed in now, uh, you're seeing a much more prevalent focus on fitness. They're seeing it as such a key component to their to their business or to the longevity of it. You're seeing it more in sports people going longer as well. You've seen Federal playing so long. There was a friend of mine who's Snooker plays 52, one of his the greatest is 52, and they're going longer. And people got snooker, but he runs every day, Ronnie Sullivan. Yeah. My other friend, who's uh number three in audio, is a vegan, he's very focused on his health, and it's helping the longevity of his career.

SPEAKER_01 15:47

People have figured it out, and I think the the the the big change has been um smartphones integrating with devices that monitor your body. That's been a massive change. I've got a Garmin watch, it tells me everything about my body all the time, and I look at it and I look at my stats, and and I think a lot of people are doing that. That's that's been a major change from where we so I think that's really woken people up to and I'm not against drinking, I love drinking alcohol, I'm not against it at all, but I realise what it does to my body when I drink it. So I monitor it, moderate it, and I wouldn't have probably understood that a few years ago because I never realized. So you wake up in the morning, look at my sleep score, and it's not as strong as it was. Oh, that was the the wine that I drank last night. So I don't avoid it. So, but you know, I I don't avoid it completely because I actually do enjoy um having a drink. But it it but I think that's that's that's what's been a huge change in society, is that and is that whole understanding of of your body and how important you know looking after it is because you can actually see the effects of the of not looking after it.

SPEAKER_00 16:51

I think it's very important, and I have a very similar philosophy. I don't judge or preach, but I think it's important to make conscious decisions. I like a drink every now and then as well. But if you understand what that's doing in your consciously doing it, go for it. Yeah. But if you don't understand what you're doing to your body or your career or why it's impacting it, I think it's important to get that knowledge in that data set because you make a better decision.

SPEAKER_02 17:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:13

And I think that definitely helps. Yeah. Now uh you've obviously had a lot of business setbacks. What were some of the the main challenges or turning stones before launching or purpose then? I know there was an acquisition as well.

SPEAKER_01 17:27

In terms of um, you know, um issues and and and problems.

SPEAKER_00 17:33

Yeah, and what would you say some of the biggest learnings were throughout your career?

SPEAKER_01 17:37

Um I it I I you know I do I do get I have been asked this question before and I struggle always struggle to come up with like big things that have a big learning experience. It's just for me, it's just it's constant. Like the amount like I you know, I I screw things up all the time. I mess stuff up, and I I in terms of my biggest screw-ups, you know, um whatever, I I I I'm I'm sure I've got plenty of them, but I don't sort of have a bank over them that I that I can't I think about. You and dwell, you just move forward. No, I just move on. Um I learn a lot from from from you know I I try to learn a lot from some of the mistakes I make, but it's just a constant process. Um and I do you know it's a lot of talk about this about you know learning from mistakes is really important. I I don't want to sound like a broken record as everyone says it. Um but you know, uh at work at Pepperstone, um there's there's different types of mistakes. Like if you try something and you've put some good thought into it and it hasn't worked, um that's absolutely it's in it's needed. If you're experience, yeah, if you're if you're pushing yourself to the limit, like athletes and whatever else, I mean look at the Grand Prix, a great example. Like how many Grand Prix cars right now are just you know not performing, whatever. The reason is because they're pushing it to the absolute limit. They could play it safe and just be in the middle of the field, but they're not doing that. They're looking at the biggest thing. Because they want to be the very, very best, and they're taking risks, and those risks are not paying off. Um whereas some take risks and they pay off. It's the same with business, you know, you gotta you gotta take take risks for it to pay off. But we it's a bit more nuanced sometimes in in financial services, for example. Um you know, we're regulated by eight different regulators. We can't take certain risks because we can't, we can't just, and I've heard, you know, I just you know launch stuff and fail quickly and blah blah. There's certain things we can't do like that. So we have to be quite careful.

SPEAKER_00 19:27

Look, it's um I weck and I laugh because of financial services. I'm in the financial, you're in fintech as well. Financial planning, all these things are so regulated. Yeah, and I think it's actually a good thing because it gives opportunity for people that that want to do the right thing by their clients, by themselves and their business, but it is made it does make it so so hard. I can't imagine going into different countries and different continents. I mean, I'm just in Australia and I find the challenging throughout these things. When you're going into different countries, the regulation, well, different states, the regulation, different when buying real estate. I can't imagine the complexity when going into different countries.

SPEAKER_01 20:02

Yeah, I mean, just we've got a a really good team of people that manage all that really effectively. And I'm I'm heavily involved in um understanding all the regulatory you know risks and stuff, but regulation changes the whole time. The whole time. There's always new regulation coming in. So it's getting people to understand how that affects the business. It's not always totally clear because it's again doing new things and learning new the new new ways of doing things. Technology um you know changes the regulatory landscape, and the regulators, quite frankly, can't keep up. Like right, AI, AI now, like all regulators globally are going, well, what on earth do we do with AI? Because in Australia, for example, and other jurisdictions, providing advice is a very high bar to providing advice to clients. You've got to um you've got to have everyone's gotta have the right training, you've got to um, you know, give clients all these risk warnings, and it's quite complicated. Right now, you can go on to AI and just and it can provide you with financial advice. And technically speaking, if that was done by a firm, they'd be breaching a whole lot of licensing regul restrictions because you can't do that. Whereas it's just and I I don't know the answer, but the regulators are trying to understand all this.

SPEAKER_00 21:10

But uh it's it look, there's a lot of disclaimers that are coming out when Chat GDP does things in real estate because uh this is chat, but people take it as gospel. Yeah, it's spat out of a computer from now, it's got to be right, but yeah, no one's actually stress testing where that information's coming from. A lot of companies that uh well, one specifically, I find very clever, they're coming up with vital software and they're putting all their reports into that. They're creating, I think, the butt, I don't know what it's called, and it draws information from there.

SPEAKER_01 21:37

Yeah, so that's that's the that's the lower risk correct way to do it where the AI um is referencing a data set that you've created really carefully. Like when we we have um you know chatbots at work where you know clients ask questions, that doesn't go to the internet to find the answer, it goes to a database that we've spent years building that um that you know is is argu arguably Correct. So, but if it went to the internet, it would come up with all sorts of stuff that might not be correct.

SPEAKER_00 22:04

And at least you guys can vouch for the data that you've done and put it in this. So when um when I heard my friend started that, I go, That's a very clever concept. Yeah. Because you go, all the real estate that you're looking at now, it's got there's all these warnings on the bottom, but no one reads them because the Chat GDP said it's got to be correct.

SPEAKER_01 22:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:20

Like that's a very smart way to look at it.

SPEAKER_01 22:22

Yeah. Yeah. It's it's a different approach.

SPEAKER_00 22:25

So I know now that you that you mentioned to me off the podcast that you're looking at uh sponsorships and that to get your brand out there. Yeah. So I know that you sponsored uh AFL, Formula One with Aston Martin, which you're traveling, um Aussie Millions, which I love poker.

SPEAKER_01 22:41

So that's on right now. It's recent.

SPEAKER_00 22:43

It's on now, is it? I know it's used to be in Jam, but they brought it on now. It's the first one back in a few years.

SPEAKER_01 22:47

Yeah, it's on As We Speak. Um, yeah, I was down there for the launch event. It's the main and they've got they're getting record numbers, it's fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 22:53

Oh, that's I've got to check it out.

SPEAKER_01 22:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:54

So how how does that all work? And how do you um research where to invest the company's money?

SPEAKER_01 23:00

Sure, it's a really good question. So um we we try to get really close to our customers as close as we can. I meet the our customers on a regular basis, and it's just understanding what resonates with them. Um and there's a very high affinity with people who are very actively trading and and poker, for example. So we felt that that was a good a good association. Um Formula One again, um, you know, if you go to the Formula One, it's now actually very female male balanced, but um there's there's a sort of the type of person that likes Formula One. Okay, it's a very broad audience, but I think it has a high affinity with um, you know, with with traders again, or people who are really active with the financial markets. Um so that's how we've done so we do our research. Um we we we we ask our customers, we we use external research, we use a whole lot of different data points to understand that what what to do.

SPEAKER_00 23:53

So where they're hanging out, where your ideal clients are, and obviously I know you you I've another UFC is another thing that I love, so which is a it's an aggr it's an amazing sport, it's globally going bananas. Yeah. So um now another question because I always think about this how do you manage or measure the return on such an investment?

SPEAKER_01 24:12

Yeah, uh it's difficult. It's very difficult. Um we track uh again quite a lot of data. So we track simple things like how many people visit our website. So we'll run an event or we'll sponsor something and we'll just see what what has been the uptick on people literally just coming to the website, and then we look at how many people have started at converted because we could go and put our name out there on something that attracts all the wrong audience. They go to the website and go, oh, this is not for me, and they disappear. That's a that's not an effective use of of brand. So we look at we look at website visits, we look at conversions. Um, and then we we you through mathematical modelling you can usually associate the the the return on events.

SPEAKER_00 24:56

So basically, if the Aussie millions are now, you see if there's a spike of people visiting your website, you see the conversion, you know, if 20 visit your website, one converts, and so on and so on.

SPEAKER_01 25:06

And we also talk to our customers as well. Um, you know, if we get Where did you hear from us and stuff? Where did you hear from us? But you know, we we particularly track our high value clients as well. Because Pepper Stone, I guess if you work out how we're different to everyone else in the market, I mean, we we we like to think that we offer the best service in the industry. We've got some of the highest net promoter scores um in all the research that we do across all the competitors and external research. Um, but also we we we like to think that we service high value customers better than anyone else. We have a team of people that service our high value customers and we talk to them a lot. So if someone you know heard of us through Formula One, for example, we would know it and we'd be able to know you know who that client was. And so yeah, so we we we speak to our clients as well.

SPEAKER_00 25:50

And obviously it's it's interesting because I always when you we do marketing and we run marketing events, I always try to attribute how successful it is. Yeah. And that's a very good way to do it. And events are obviously always different times of the year, so they're always different. There was your millions, then you've got Monaco, you've got the Grand Prix. Yeah. Is there one more successful than the other?

SPEAKER_01 26:10

Uh yeah, oh look, uh, it takes time, that's the problem. Um you you can't just sort of run an event and how many people have visited at end of story. Over two, three years. It takes it takes two, three years. The other bit that's really important, which I think a lot of people miss and we miss this when we first started um doing uh quite large sponsorships, is that you have to spend a lot of money on activation. You can't just you know sponsor an event and hope for the best. You actually have to activate it. What does that mean? Yeah, activation means you follow it up with um you know, maybe socials, you follow it up with out-of-home advertising. For example, during the Grand Prix, we had obviously we sponsored the Aston Martin team. Um, we also had uh adverts on the Uber app every time you booked an Uber, we were there. We also had big billboards around the Grand Prix, and we had some out-of-home display site you know, billboards and stuff like that, and we also did socials. I I we sponsored um one of the helmets as well, Lance Charles Helmet. I I there was a an article in the press about that. So all these things together drive that. And if you don't do that bit, it doesn't, it you don't get it, it it maximizes the investment more than the money you're spending on it. It's sort of multiplier of it.

SPEAKER_00 27:23

But and and of course, I think that's effective because it takes people 10, 12 times to notice something. Yeah, so when you're hitting them on every angle, they can see one, two, three, they're starting to notice, notice, notice, and then they finally act. Used to be three, four times people would notice a brand. Now it's ten to twelve and increasing because our attention spans becoming totally.

SPEAKER_01 27:42

So it happens the best analogy I give you is fast food. Like McDonald's do this amazingly well. You'll be driving somewhere and you'll see a McDonald's ad, you'll see a burger, and it will go, oh, yeah, I like that burger. And then you'll be sitting at home watching TV, wanting to get some food, and there'll be a McDonald's ad, and you'll go and you'll buy the McDonald's. That is exactly that happening. It's seeing it, sticking it in your brain, and then the action of when you're actually going to plant that seed. Plants that seed for why am I eating this burger? What am I doing? I don't even know. It's junk food. What am I doing? But uh yeah, it's just very clever. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:15

It is clever, yes. So um now, you know, you've had a little bit of a house scam when you're early 40s, yeah, where you diagnosed it with early prostate cancer, which you beat, which we're very grateful and happy about. And now you do a lot in that space to help people for awareness. Can you tell us a bit about that?

SPEAKER_01 28:30

Sure, sure. Yeah, so I you're absolutely right. I I had prostate cancer very early. My my I'm probably a real outlier in terms of the probability of someone at my at the my age having it was very low. So I um it was just through a a standard health check at work, just the blood test. It had a high P, it's called a PSA. I don't know what it stands for, but um uh it's um it's a marker that's that indicates that your prostate's inflamed. It doesn't, it's not always done, it's not not always from prostate cancer. So I got tested, uh sorry, got some tests done and whatever else, and they said, look, it's very unlikely to be that. But you know, so I got a ended up getting a biopsy done, and it was confirmed that I had prostate cancer. And I obviously completely freaked out thinking I'm gonna die, I'm never not gonna see my kids grow up. And like it was it was the usual, I think with the usual process someone would go through when when they when they diagnose with cancer, it's really awful. Um, and then as soon as you start calming down and learning about whatever's going on, there are the chances, particularly getting things early, are very, very good. And I was very lucky, I got it really early, I got treated really effectively, and fortunately I managed to you know get through it all. Um But what what what I got out of that whole experience is is I felt that God, if I hadn't got that early, I wouldn't be alive. And it was a really big deal for me, thinking that little blood test and nothing, like it was that saved my life. And I'm thinking everyone should be doing this because um it's not that big a deal.

SPEAKER_00 30:02

That's why you're raising awareness around.

SPEAKER_01 30:04

And I for me it's about raising awareness. I also raise my I donate my personally to prostate cancer. I also run events. We had a big um event in Melbourne every year called the Biggest Blakes Lunch. Amalgamated that with the EJ Witten um the grand final lunch. We had I don't know how many people, 700, 600 people, like it was a big event. Um and you know, we're hoping we have a bigger event this year. It's a great event. I mean, it's fantastic. It's it's not it's not too serious, it's meant to be fun, you know. Because you go to some charity events and and you know, you you actually do want to have a bit of fun at these things. It's not meant to be preaching and about everything, but for me, a lot of I've got a great opportunity for me to push awareness. Um, so yeah, that that's the reason why I got I wanted to get involved.

SPEAKER_00 30:50

I I'm looking forward to coming this year. Um I was very I I've run an event called Lead with Kindness, and it's about raising awareness for the homeless. Yeah, I'm doing my ninth Vinnie CO sleep out on the 18th of June this year. Yeah, and I wanted to run an event before the before the sleep out to raise awareness, and there was it was a very fun event. The last one was at the Melbourne Glasshouse, I think it was a total sellout. And all the events that we run are super fun. We have an auction, yeah, people drink, people partying at the end of the day. So we had fun, yeah, and we now know about this course because I think it is a serious cause, but there's got to have a fun element to it. Yeah, there's got to be education around it, but it's got to be it's got to be in a way that's memorable.

SPEAKER_01 31:30

Yeah. And I think the fun element is important because then you get repeat business, you get the same people coming back every year. If you look at our event, it it grows because people go back and they bring their friends because it's fun.

SPEAKER_00 31:40

Um it is memorable.

SPEAKER_01 31:42

And it's not just, yeah, whatever, I'm not don't want to have a go boring events, but like I I think that fun element is is what makes people, you know. And you can always say, Oh, you know, I'm off to a charity event on a Friday and you don't come back to work, no one really cares because that's all good, you know. So it's a bit of an excuse.

SPEAKER_00 31:59

I remember we were like we were when people were auctioning off the items, I were writing their addresses down. Yeah. And the delivery guy was um, I would actually personally deliver the people who bought the items with a thank you card. Oh, that's right. And they'll see me next week and they go, Chris, we didn't expect you to be. I said, Why not? If you came to my event and you were kind enough to donate money, I'm gonna be here. And they always remembered that. So I've done that for the last few years, and I did my fifth and final lead with kindness. And the amount of people that came up said, Chris, surely it's not the last one. Come on. But I emptied that up, so we're probably gonna do a John Farnum and do a comeback tour. So we'll do one more before my tenth years, but every year it was getting bigger. People were coming and we're trying to lift the bar in after every event. We would sit down with the team and say, What do we do well? Yeah, what can we do better?

SPEAKER_01 32:46

We do exactly the same.

SPEAKER_00 32:47

And the last feedback was uh two, we need to do a black tie event, sit-down event. Right, okay. So done. So what started is an event which had to turn virtual because of COVID.

SPEAKER_02 32:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:58

We did it. The first one was a mud and you're then we did two others, then we did a black tie event for fifth and final. But I want to come back. So I love going to other events because I always go, What are they doing really well here? I want to take an idea and I want to put it into my event.

SPEAKER_01 33:10

Yeah, so we I've go I go to a few charity events and I always pick up things like you know, because if you've done charity events, you you you you do that naturally going, right? Oh that that's done really well. That's done really well.

SPEAKER_00 33:19

We're gonna that's boring, that's not green.

SPEAKER_01 33:21

We'll we'll steal those bits. But yeah, um, I I think a big part of it that you need to get right is the charity part. That's right, the auction part. Um so we we we we did the auctions really well at Biggest Spokes Nights, like they were fantastic. Having a fun person auctioning off and having a engineer, really good items, and just just make it easy because you have those um, you know, the silent auction stuff, and sometimes they're just a pain in the ass, you know, or you get the timing wrong, whatever. I it's boring, but yeah, you can what you can get get those things right, um, and you can make more money.

SPEAKER_00 33:49

Yeah, I believe so too, and getting the right heads in the room is important. People that care about the course. Yeah, so there's a good mixture. So um obviously there's a funny story like um uh when you first you came to Australia because you met your wife Jo.

SPEAKER_02 34:03

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 34:03

And she asked you, uh tell me what you do. Yeah. So you said you probably you thought it was easier to take her to your office and show you.

SPEAKER_01 34:10

Oh, I did, because it you know, it's quite difficult to explain what I do. I'm sure I explained it earlier, and I'm I wouldn't put it past some people, the guys still don't understand it, which is perfectly normal. A lot of people don't. So the best way to understand it is actually just do it, right? Um, so my whole analogy with skiing, like you can't learn skiing in a book, you just gotta you've got to do it. So I took my wife into the office and I said, like, open my Bloomberg screen, which is a financial thing, all the different markets moving around on the screen. And I said, Well, these are all the different markets. Uh let's pick a market. So we picked, I'm actually don't know what it was. I think it might have been the US Dow Jones Index or something. Um and I said, Do you think it's gonna go up or down? There was a chart, and I said, Oh, she said, I think it's gonna go up. And and I said, Okay, well, so I put a trade on and we waited maybe watched the market move and watched the PL move, and then I closed it out within I think about 15 minutes, and we made just over two grand, which is a lot. Um, and then I said, and I said, That money's yours, you can do whatever you want with it. So she bought um a little Louis Vuitton handbag, and that's her sort of you know, trading is good handbag that she that she walks around with.

SPEAKER_00 35:16

It's probably the best way to describe it, but I think um watching my friend, who's one of my close friends who grew up with, understanding your risk tolerance and how to be disciplined, he's one of the most disciplined people I know. Yeah, does he does Virginia Jiu-Jitsu? I interviewed him in London and is very, very proud to see Kid come from humble beginnings being super smart, has a massive house in Hadley where all the soccer plays, the fourth biggest backyard. Yeah, and just such a disciplined, good human being. I stated his house, he wakes up, he's on the things. And I know that when, especially now when the markets are really crazy, when global things are going on, it creates great opportunity, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_01 35:53

Yeah, yeah, volumes. So um we were talking earlier about we track um when customers come to us when we're running sponsorships, right? The problem with that is that when the markets are moving around, we get huge interest. So sometimes it's very difficult to work out was this sponsorship deal really successful? Because it coincided with something happening in the world and that everything all spiked at once. So that's that's the challenge with that. But again, you can model that mathematically if you if you get it right, it's difficult. But yeah, there's there's if if then if the financial markets are on the front page of papers, we're having a very, very busy time.

SPEAKER_00 36:29

So, what do you say to people that are looking and getting into the financial markets? What are the some of the things they should be looking for?

SPEAKER_01 36:35

Um well, try and understand what you're investing in, number one. Um, you know, it it and and sometimes it's not what you're investing in, it's what's affecting what you're investing in. Great example is oil. Just the environments. What's what's pushing the price of oil around? You can do some research. Like, what is it? Is it and and then if you start understanding world events, that's the bit that you can maybe get a bit of a um you know better understanding of. Like, what do I think Trump's gonna do next? What do I think Iran's gonna do?

SPEAKER_00 37:02

I don't even think Trump knows what he's gonna do next.

SPEAKER_01 37:04

Well, I don't think you know who knows what he thinks he I don't yeah. Um and then if you think you've got some you know view of what's happening next, you can actually back your view in the financial markets, either through you know, buying an index or the other thing you can do with our product, which I didn't mention, is you can short. Um so shorting is very unique to our product. So if you think that something is too high, you can bet against it. You can you can benefit from it falling. Um so you can do that on any product.

SPEAKER_00 37:31

You prefer one particular strategy or depends on the in the at the moment.

SPEAKER_01 37:34

Most people generally like going long because psychologically people don't still struggle with going short on something.

SPEAKER_00 37:40

Because of the because it's dropping.

SPEAKER_01 37:41

Yeah, people just don't think like that, you know. But you know, if you think something's overvalued, um you can benefit from it falling.

SPEAKER_00 37:48

Because we're hardwired that way. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:50

And people criticize short shorting, and the people say it's a really bad thing. It's absolutely not a bad thing because if you think about it, if something's too overvalued, what happens? It collapses. But if you've got the checks and balances in place as it goes up, you can control that bubble, they call it, so it doesn't get too overvalued. Because things that get too overvalued create absolute disasters. So it avoids that happening.

SPEAKER_00 38:13

You know, I look at every market and I always think where there's chaos, there's opportunity.

SPEAKER_01 38:17

Oh, that's a saying I use all the time.

SPEAKER_00 38:19

You just need to have a level head and you need to lead with data.

SPEAKER_01 38:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:23

And if you can be uh level headed, you're gonna make great opportunities. And I say that even in real estate when you know, when people are worried and people are flooding, yeah, that's when smart money's busy. Oh, look, that's when people are active.

SPEAKER_01 38:35

I mean that that that is absolutely how to make money in financial markets is that's the same in real estate. Yeah, it's basically there's a herd mentality in in human nature, and sometimes betting against that is is very profitable. Um where you know gold is a great example, although gold is also a very bad example because gold has rallied more uh it's unbelievable the price of gold, how what it's done, right? And you and there was a period of time where you had to jump onto that rally, and there's a point in time where you sort of would have benefited from it ending, and that's sort of about now. Um but it's it's that herd mentality where you see people queuing up on the street buying gold, that's probably when you know it's time to sell, right? Because it's getting to that hype phase.

SPEAKER_00 39:18

Um, so that's when smart people get, you know, and I and I love it, and I say to people when you're seeing certain suburbs and areas boom, you're too late. Yeah, you need to forward indicators to understand why they're gonna move, where's the infrastructure, when's it getting spent, when's cost getting built, when's the schools, the shopping centers, the jobs being created, these indicators are gonna show you when the property markets will move. Yeah, and if you're looking at a proven track record, I'm I don't know about the share markets, because I'm not in that game. But with real estate, it's like that. I imagine it would be the same.

SPEAKER_01 39:50

I I think it's it's exactly the same. I just think it's it's it wouldn't say it's necessarily slower. Maybe it is a bit slower, but you don't have the price of a building written on it every day in real time. That's the difference. It's very real. It's it's constantly moving, constantly changing. Um, I mean you have real estate indices that you can see where things are tracking, you can get obviously reports on property prices and stuff, but yeah, it would be equivalent of your your house having a ticker on the front of it with its price moving in real time. I mean, that that is financial markets. That's the difference. And if that was happening, people would behave differently because they'll be going, oh, this is worth a lot of money. I might sell it. But you know, they they don't they don't might not know exactly what it's worth because it requires a sale process, an auction, whatever. It's it's not the same thing.

SPEAKER_00 40:33

It's a very good and an easy analogy to understand. But you you understand how people will be freaking out. Imagine walking past your house, it's a million dollars, and then the next day you walk past is 800. Yeah. Or subsequently 1 million, it's 1.3. I'm out.

SPEAKER_01 40:48

Or you look at your neighbor's house and it says 700,000. It's like that's cheap. I'm gonna buy it.

SPEAKER_00 40:52

You know, it's but I I love these things. For me, I always loved trading. I've never got into it. I said to my friend Andy, this is a this is a game that I would love to get into and know in detail because being very left-brained and analytical and being obsessed in numbers, yeah, it's something that I would love. But I've been in real estate for so long, it's what I know. But I've always wanted to go in there. Now you're meant you're launching crypto now as well. Tell us a bit about that.

SPEAKER_01 41:16

Yeah, so we launched our new crypto exchange in February. We've been working on that for about a year and a half now. Um, we built all our own technology. It's very proprietary. It's all proprietary, it's very good. Um, we got some really smart people together to build it. We peeled some people out of existing offshore exchanges to build it. So we we spent a lot of time hiring the best people. Um, and it's it and I and I will go out as far as to say it is the best crypto um offering in Australia in terms of particularly on pricing, it's very, very good. We we've track across all our all the other crypto providers, and we're just better than every cheaper than everyone else. And and the bit that I think people are missing, and this is critical, and I think the easy again, I'll use an analogy that I think everyone will really understand very easily, is that if you go to the if you go and change foreign currency, which you're going abroad on holiday or whatever, um back in the old days, you look used to look at who's paying the lowest commission, right? But then you people got smart to the fact that that's not commission free, there's a trick here, and then you realize what they're doing is they're giving you the the currency for a much higher price than the person next to them. So people then looked at how much currency they're getting for the for the dollar rather than the commission. So this is exactly what's happening in crypto. At the moment, there are people advertising low commission rates on crypto, but what they're doing is they're hiding all the all the commission, the markup in in the price that they're paying. So there's no one price of crypto. Everyone offers a different you can you can track it. They all offer different prices to crypto. So we offer the best price and the lowest commission combined. So if you work work out how much crypto you're gonna get for your dollar, not just what commission you're paying, but also what price you're paying, we're tracking everybody. Like we are constantly all. We don't like we don't just say this. I mean we track it to make sure that we are.

SPEAKER_00 43:03

When you add all their fees, it's always different. But it's the it's the um, I don't know what to call a clickbait, but it's what gets people attention from. Yeah, but when you analyze that figure, the from is an extra 40 grand for the side cost, it's an extra da da da da da.

SPEAKER_01 43:17

Totally. It's you look at the hidden costs, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:19

And you analyze them both to give people the best product at the best price. Correct. Yes. That's fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 43:26

And the part of the reason why the edge, I guess, we've got is that we've got a very large derivatives business in crypto. So we're doing about eight, eight billion dollars a month in crypto already. So we're using all that leverage that we've got in our in our business to be able to offer that product, the the spot product, really cheap. Like we can we can do it. It's it's it's it's actually profitable for us to do it like that. Whereas if we look at a lot of the existing exchange, they don't have a derivatives business, so they can't afford to offer it s that cheap because they have to make all their money from that that product.

SPEAKER_00 43:56

So that's where scaling capital's effect is scale capital, everything.

SPEAKER_01 44:00

That's where that all comes that we're leveraging all that scale and capital.

SPEAKER_00 44:02

And then the purchase of the client, being the client and the customer, receives all that benefit of that knowledge, that data, totally the best possible rates with the sharpest of the customer.

SPEAKER_01 44:12

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 44:13

Um Thomas, I've really enjoyed this episode, and I hope people have liked the season five as much as me. As it's become a custom, I've got some quick fire questions for you. Ready?

SPEAKER_01 44:23

I'm not very good at these. Go on. I always had to think, but I was right.

SPEAKER_00 44:32

Usually I've got them on a quick on a card, but here we go. These are now, I think I know some of them just from knowing you briefly. Um early mornings or late nights. Look, I'd say early mornings. A song that always lifts your mood.

SPEAKER_01 44:49

Song that always lifts my mood. Um Okay, one of my favourite songs is um uh She Sells Sanctuary by the Cult. It's an old song. It makes me feel really old, but I love that song.

SPEAKER_00 45:01

One word that describes your approach in life and business.

SPEAKER_01 45:05

Take calculated risks.

SPEAKER_00 45:08

In the short period of knowing you and they said you're laid back and relaxed, I can f I can actually see that in the two, three conversations that we had. Um biggest edge in business strategy people or execution.

SPEAKER_01 45:20

Execution.

SPEAKER_00 45:21

You can have the best people without without a planning trouble.

SPEAKER_01 45:25

Everything. It's I know I talked a lot about people, but um I say all the time. Like it's you can see it all around the world. You know, I've got this great idea, I'm gonna make a whole lot of money. If you can't execute it, you can't make any money.

SPEAKER_00 45:37

People always back the person other than idea because they know that they're gonna get it. Yeah, they're gonna make money.

SPEAKER_01 45:41

You don't need to be the smartest person to be successful, you've got to just do it. I mean, there's so many examples. Like Facebook's a brilliant example of this. I remember if we go back, there was MySpace, there was the one where you found your friends at school, car was school finder, whatever. There's a whole load of them. Who why did Facebook succeed? Because he executed, did it very well. So it's not about the idea, it's about execution, which people miss all the time.

SPEAKER_00 46:00

It wasn't first to market, but he just delivered it.

SPEAKER_01 46:02

No one, all the hugely successful companies, none of them are generally first to market. You don't even hear about the ones that were because no one cares about them. So, you know, if you look at Apple, I mean Apple, I don't want to mean about Apple, it's an amazing company. They pinched and borrowed everything from everyone else.

SPEAKER_00 46:16

Mainly from Sony. His biggest uh Acumarita was Steve Jobs' biggest ins inspiration. Even the iP the little the what do they call the iPod, the pods, iPod thing. Sony Walkman. Yeah, iPods. Oh, his biggest thing is Acumarida. One habit that keeps you performing at a high level.

SPEAKER_01 46:35

Oh, recycling. I was about to say, we know that one.

SPEAKER_00 46:37

If you weren't in finance, what would you be doing?

SPEAKER_01 46:40

I wasn't in finance. Uh I would love to be in hospitality. I I love, I think, I really enjoy hospitality.

SPEAKER_00 46:47

Because you enjoy people so much?

SPEAKER_01 46:48

Oh, I enjoy people. I think it's just if if you can create a really fun environment that people enjoy I I a running, I would enjoy running it. I don't know, maybe I wouldn't be good at it, I don't know, but it's something I love. I love going to a really nice restaurant, a really good pub. I'm part of a private members club. I love it. Like just little things like that that I that I enjoy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:11

Now you you mentioned Good to Great is a great book that you've read. If there's one more book or piece of advice you can give our listeners, what would you say? Here, read this book, or here's a here's a a piece of advice that I live by, what would you say? As a final send-off.

SPEAKER_01 47:26

Um I think cal taking calculated risks is something that I think is really important. Um and I think I think sports people do that really well. Um and I can't think of a book or I can't think of anything in particular to hit that one. But um, you know, just take inspiration from from successful people. And I think um, you know, there's a there's a lot of people out there you can take inspiration from.

SPEAKER_00 47:55

I agree. Now, on a speak a scale of one to ten, how much have you enjoyed our podcast? It's been awesome. I've absolutely loved having you on the show. It's been a pleasure. Whenever you want to come back, thank you for closing off season seven. It's officially a hundred and forty fortyth episode filmed around the world, but definitely one of the most enjoyable. Thank you for being here.

SPEAKER_01 48:12

Thank you. Appreciate it, Chris.