Why It's Harder to Sell in 2026 (And What's Actually Changed) Part 1 of 2

Business has never been easier to start. So why does it feel so much harder to actually sell?

In part one of this two part series, I'm breaking down what's actually changed in the Australian economy over the past five years, and why so many businesses are getting caught out. I also get personal about my own family's history with debt, because I've lived through exactly the kind of over-leveraging I'm warning you about, twice.

We get into:
 → How the COVID savings boom created a false sense of security for businesses
 → What happened to the household savings rate, and why it matters for you
 → Australia's debt problem, and what it actually means for small business owners
 → The real case study of Stax, and how a $30 million business ended up $23.7 million in debt
 → My own family's story, from a $800,000 failed business to $3 million in debt today
 → Why Betts closed 20 stores after 134 years in business
 → How consumer behaviour has fundamentally shifted, and what that means for your marketing

If you've felt like the rules changed and nobody told you, this episode is that explanation.

Chapters:
0:00 Cold open
1:07 Why business feels harder than five years ago
3:19 What I'm covering in this episode
4:12 The COVID savings boom explained
6:03 How the household savings rate collapsed
8:00 Australia's $1 trillion debt problem
10:07 What Commonwealth Bank's spending data shows
12:00 Why people are craving real connection again
13:38 How buyer psychology has changed
14:42 ANZ's new property price forecast
15:15 A real decision we made about our own debt
18:38 The Stax case study begins
20:34 No one cares about your struggle
21:25 My dad's $800K mistake
25:41 We could never afford school shoes
27:44 Why I'm telling you all this
28:00 The Betts collapse
33:00 A second family business, same mistake
36:17 What NAB's survey says about buyers now
40:00 What's coming in part two

Got a question about your own business right now? Drop it in the comments, I read every single one.

Sources:
→ ABS, Household Saving Ratio: abs.gov.au/statistics/economy/national-accounts/australian-national-accounts-national-income-expenditure-and-product/latest-release
→ ABC News, Australia's $1 Trillion Debt: abc.net.au/news/2026-08-21/analysis-national-debt-hits-one-trillion-but-its-nothing/107058026
→ CommBank, Household Spending Insights: commbank.com.au/articles/newsroom
→ ANZ Research, Property Price Forecast: smartpropertyinvestment.com.au/investor-strategy/28035-capital-city-house-prices-tipped-to-fall-10-as-downturn-deepens
→ Stax Liquidator's Report: news.com.au/finance/business/retail/collapsed-aussie-activewear-brand-stax-owing-17m-to-nearly-13000-shoppers-as-documents-reveal-full-scale-of-debt/news-story/46fe4723596cb0948c213974adbac481
→ Betts Voluntary Administration: smartcompany.com.au/retail/shoe-retailer-betts-close-20-stores-voluntary-administration
→ NAB, Consumer Sentiment Survey Q1 2026: nab.com.au/news/economy-markets/nab-consumer-sentiment-survey-q1-2026-cost-pressures-peak-as-consumers-switch

If you have any questions about the episode, have a burning question you would like me to answer on the show, connect with me and the rest of our incredible community on Instagram:

→ https://www.instagram.com/delusionalwithsammykennedy/
→ https://www.instagram.com/sammykennedyofficial 

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

No one cares when you go through hard things behind the scenes in business. No one cares when you've literally got no money, you're just having to pay all your overheads. No one cares if someone in your family dies. You've just got to keep soldiering on. When I was a kid, my dad decided that he would start this business. We invested thousands of dollars into doing a fit out. My dad ended up building 10 simulators plus a flight simulator, which ended up getting us into $800,000 of debt. We could never have normal school shoes, we could never have branded school shorts because we were just in survival mode. Making the calculated decisions to understand how to safeguard your business during these times, it becomes more important than ever. It's been two decades. This is why we're having these conversations now. So I've got some statistics, I've got some strategies, I've got some case studies to actually talk you through so you can understand this in a simple way as a business owner. If you look back at different peaks and troughs in the economy, you know it's gonna have a big boom. What goes up must come down. And so if you over-leverage during those times, that's where you get so caught out. And they did. They ended up having. Hello and welcome back to Delusional with Sammy Kennedy. Today's episode is part one of a two-part series talking about why it feels harder to sell to customers in 2026 and what businesses need to change. Now, if you have owned a business for the last five to ten years or decades beyond that, you would be able to compare how easy or how hard business feels right now versus back five years ago. And it's a weird time because businesses have never been easier to start in terms of accessibility to tools like AI, being able to use social media for marketing. But when we look at compliance laws, regulations, the cost of being able to actually set up a business, whether it's the fit out, the lease terms, etc., there's so many different challenges that we're trying to face as business owners in today's economy. And what was happening five years ago for our consumers, for the economy, is very different than what is happening today. So I've got some statistics, I've got some strategies, and I've got some case studies to actually talk you through so you can understand this in a simple way as a business owner. Because there's nothing worse than seeing all these financial terms thrown around and you're sitting there going, but what does that mean for me? So together, we're going to talk about what's actually happening in the economy and then what you can actually do to safeguard your business and set yourself up for longer-term success, even if there are going to be more challenging times in business. So five years ago, we were in a very different economic time. It was the COVID era. We had more money because we weren't going out and spending it as much. If you're forced into lockdown, if you can't go out and eat at restaurants, if you can't go out clubbing, if you can't go on holidays, of course, it's going to feel like you have more savings because you're not actually spending as much money as you normally would on a day-to-day basis in the pre-COVID era. So back in June 2020, household savings sat at 23.2%. Now by December 2020, that had reduced back down to 13.9%. Now, if you want to compare that to the pre-COVID time before, it was sitting at 6.2%. So to go from 6.2% up to 23.2%, that's a massive jump. And we can see that so many businesses did start to boom during this COVID time because people were at home. What do you do when you're at home? You spend more time on social media, you see more ads, you're more likely to do online shopping. People were so bored that because they had government handouts, stimulus money, things that weren't normally available for them, they kind of went on a spending frenzy. And a lot of these businesses started to boom. We saw e-commerce become incredibly successful. But at the same time, what that did do is give businesses this false sense of expansion at such a rapid rate that as they started to implement the infrastructure, so whether it was scaling store locations, going and maxing out on higher amounts of inventory, hiring more staff, as the recession and inflation and the cost of living started to finally catch up, that's where a lot of businesses did get caught out. So COVID era consumers had enormous savings and access to really cheap money at the time. Like your money could get you so much more because inflation hadn't quite hit yet. Now, if you look at what happened post that era, inflation rose, interest rates went up, there were enormous increases in household expenses, which meant that the savings rate for households significantly dropped. And this is where we see a decrease in discretionary spending. So people start to read the media, they freak out, they cut back, their interest rates go up, so they're paying more on their home loan. And a lot of the time, people who were used to spending that high amount of money really struggle to pull it back in because they're used to that lifestyle. And when that lifestyle creep happens, you might get a pay raise, your business might start bringing in more money. It's very easy to get caught out spending more and more money. And so people are getting credit cards out, people are getting all these loans out. And without having increased cash flow to be able to service those, that is where you start to get in a really sticky situation. So coming back to the household savings rate, when you look at June 2020, it sat at 23.2%. So this is when people are spending like crazy. But by June 2024, it dropped to 0.6%. So that would have been one of the toughest times for families because they literally had no savings. They were struggling with the cost of living. Inflation was eating away every single dollar. And all of a sudden, their household income is just put towards their basic human survival needs. And when you look at food went up, you look at rent, you look at loan repayments, you look at insurances, you look at cars, like every single thing went up. And what does that mean? Well, when people have less money to spend on all of these discretionary things like food, entertainment, beauty, any kind of technology products, things that just aren't a necessity to survive, all the businesses that boomed off innovation and were a nicety to have, but not a necessity, those are the ones that really start to struggle and feel it the most. Now, fast forward to today, the interest rate hikes and then holding those positions and then the cost of living going up. There's been so many different factors that still have not slowed down consumer spending. And so this puts us in a really bad situation because despite everything costing more money, we're still having to spend more money because it costs more money. But then the banks see that and they go, we need to put interest rates up, we need to stop consumer spending. And it just creates this really toxic cycle where everything keeps going up in price, things cost more, we spend more. So then they put the interest rate up again and again. And there's no real solution to it because we are in over $1 trillion debt that it makes it near impossible to ever repay that back without taxing every single dollar that every person makes until the end of the time. Like it's really frustrating that the way our economy is currently running is not set up for small business owners to succeed anymore. The tax is insane. And I really do feel for a lot of small businesses who have put their house on the line, who have taken significant risks, who have gone without a wage, who put all their staff, their team, their suppliers, everyone else's pay before their own, and they've just got to keep showing up because there is no room to fail. There is no option to fail because there's nothing else that will either repay the debt that they've got themselves into or be able to allow them to live a normal life without going bankrupt. This is something that is so real and why we need to talk about this in the business world. Because if we don't stand together, if we don't actually understand this, we're just going to see more businesses going bankrupt. It's going to completely kill any level of innovation in the country because if there is no reward for taking all these risks, what's the point? And when you have a whole country that is feeling really frustrated with the way that small businesses are being treated, the governments are not going to step in and go, hey, let's replace that hair salon down the road or the nice pottery class thing, or, you know, the guy who does all these upgrades for four-wheel drives. Small businesses bring something different to the table. And without actually having them, the government is not going to replace them. So why would you not support them? I just don't understand it. Now, Commonwealth Bank collected data from over 7 million customers, and they saw that the spending is up 0.6% in July 2026. Now, 10 of these 12 categories where the consumers are spending was led largely by discretionary spending. Now, the categories where they actually are spending it the most right now are experiences, despite this pressures on the family budget, hospitality, recreation, and household goods. Now, one of the biggest categories that people are spending money on right now as well is transport. They're buying new EVs given the fuel situation. So it's really interesting to understand where people are actually prioritizing their spending. And it's clear to see that experiences are a huge one. So anything that has an experience attached to it, people are investing in because they want to feel good. When you're stressed out, when you're burnt out, when you're overwhelmed, when you're feeling exhausted, when you're bored, what's one way to overcome that? It's to go and do something. And so we're seeing a lot more of connection through events. They're starting to become more popular. We're seeing people who are going to cafes, getting a coffee, going for a walk. We're seeing more socializing and community longing right now. With social media, it's easy to actually feel quite isolated, even though you may feel connected because you're following and seeing everyone else's lives. I do believe that people are seeking more in-person human connections. And so if your business has some kind of experience attached to it, a level of entertainment, or something that is going to shift the emotion and make them feel something, that is worth investing in for them in today's world. Because we've kind of gone through the whole era of online shopping and people having all this money to just spend on it. And what I'm talking about is the COVID stimulus money. You're getting that in and then you're just going and spending on whatever. But also because people have less discretionary money, they still have money coming in. No one is broke. It's just that more money is having to be allocated to living costs. And so people are getting more intentional with what they're spending on. So back in 2021, you would see something on an ad and you go, oh yeah, I'll just get that and I'll see. But now people are more critical about their decision making behind purchases. So they're going to be asking themselves, what will this do for me? How much does it cost? And what is the value of it? Is there someone who does the same thing that is cheaper? If this one's more expensive, is it better quality? What are the reviews? How often am I going to use it? Do I need to buy it right now or could I buy it later? And that whole thought decision making process behind a purchase is really needing to be reflected in your marketing. So when people are coming from this awareness to consideration phase, you're actually addressing all the questions that they have in their head. If you continue to just post photos of your work, your offer, your service, your product, but you don't go deeper into things like storytelling or creating a sense of community and connection or explaining the behind the scenes process, your strategy, what made you want to create this, what makes this different from what else is out on the market? Like the businesses who intentionally craft their brand and marketing around that, not just selling all the time, they will thrive during these times because people are more intentional, they're more deliberate, and they want to ensure that whatever it is they're spending their money on, they are going to get the best return on investment. So the common denominator here is that people are going to invest their money into things that feel like they have the most value. And so this becomes a game of like how much value can you provide and how are you communicating that value? Now it's quite interesting as well when I was looking at the statistics, ANZ forecasts that capital city prices are going to fall by 4.3% this calendar year and predicting that they will fall a further 3.4% in 2027. So this is interesting to have a look at because if you have loans, if you have decisions that are going to require you investing in your business, taking out more money, or needing to pay debts down so you're not over-leveraged, this is a great time for you to have these conversations because now we've just had the end of financial year. You'd be getting all your tax information together. We recently had a meeting with our financial broker. We had the option to pull out $100,000 equity, or we could leave it there and just focus on paying the debt down. And we made the decision that instead of over-leveraging ourselves, that we would focus on just smashing our loans for the next 12 months or so. We do have a second story expansion in play. We're talking to city council, we're figuring out what's the best way to do this, how much is it going to cost? Like you've got to get all these quotes and things together. But based on where we are at with our debt and how much equity we have and what kind of position we want to put ourselves in from an emotional perspective. Like, do you want to be stressed? Like you could definitely take that money out, but what would that mean? It's important for us that we actually look strategically of like where could we do this fit out? Could it be within the next three years? And so the goal is to focus on building as much profit into the business, getting our margins there, being able to save up a nice cash buffer of four to six months worth of expenses before we actually go and invest in doing a project like that. And when you go and blow your complete budget out of the water and it takes three times the amount of time you initially projected, it's important that you don't make careless mistakes that just put you in that position again. And so we have had to have the conversation with our accountants, with our financial broker, and figure out what the best way to go about it is. And if this is something that you are also considering, like, do I expand? What does that look like? It's important that you have your conversations with your professionals because they understand your unique position of like how much money you have, what the business could potentially bring in. And I think another thing that's really great to have as a conversation as well is what is your plan if everything goes backwards? Like if your sales, your profit, if it decreased by 10%, what would you actually do in order to figure out how to either get that money back up or stabilize so you don't continue going in a decline? So we've been doing a lot of scenario planning in the background, and that gives us peace of mind for if things go really well, this is where money will go and this is what we'll focus on. If things get worse, this is what we can do to make sure that we get ourselves back up to a good position. Because it is so easy to get caught in the day-to-day of business and all you're doing is trying to survive. But the more preparation that you do, the easier it is for you to make decisions when those hard times or those exciting times come up because you've got an idea of what your options are. But when you're trying to make up a plan on the spot, you're really under pressure, you're scared to have those conversations, or the people that you need to have conversations with, they're busy or unavailable. That's when those reactive decisions get made, and things can get really bad really quick. So let's talk about a case study that we are seeing in real time. If you haven't already heard about this, just type it into Google and you'll be able to see the news articles that have been coming out. Stax was scaling at such a rapid rate, especially during COVID times. At its peak, it had a $30 million turnover, 140 employees, and 14 physical stores. Now, what happened is they had seen how fast their business was scaling during these COVID times when people had all this money. They did really well with their sense of community. They had incredible marketing campaigns, and it was clear to see that their business was a success. They made it into the Forbes Bridge list. They weren't just some small activeware company. Like they had really nailed their operations. And so with that, they started to expand. And what naturally happens then is you have more stores, which means more leases, more wages, more inventory. And essentially, you're getting yourself into more and more debt. There's more liability, there's more on the line. And as much as everyone thinks that when you have these really successful high-revenue companies, the profit margins tell a completely different story. And debt isn't a bad thing. Borrowing the bank's money on an idea that you know could actually have the potential to generate more profit than the money that you're borrowing and get you ahead. It is better to borrow someone else's money than use all your money up and then you've got nothing left. So I'm not anti-getting into debt. I'm not anti-getting loans out. I just believe that the hardest thing that happens, and it's always easy saying this looking back in retrospect, but sometimes when you see a business booming in an economic time where historically, if you look back at different peaks and troughs in the economy, you know it's going to have a big boom. What goes up must come down. And so if you over-leverage during those times, that's where you get so caught out. And they did. They ended up having a collapse. They were a total of $23.7 million in liabilities. So $7.34 million owed to NAB, which were business loans. Then they had a further $1.88 million owed to BizCap, so that's small business loans, $1.71 million owed to $12,927 customer orders that were either unfulfilled or partially fulfilled. And then they had a further $450,000 owed to employees and super. So it's a pretty tough situation. And coming from the lens of understanding how much is on the line, no one cares when you go through hard things behind the scenes in business. No one cares when you've literally got no money, you're giving all your dollars away to your staff, to the bank, you're just having to pay all your overheads. No one cares if someone in your family dies. You've just got to keep soldiering on. And I think that's probably the hardest part is realizing that no matter how hard business can get, other people do not care about your sob story. And you have to find a way to keep soldier on. Otherwise, you end up having to go bankrupt when you've got that much on the line. And we experienced this in our own personal business as well. Like looking at what happened with stacks, I can really feel for them because when I was a kid, my dad decided that he would start this business and it was called Simworld. And so we had these racing car games on motion simulators, and he took it across to Bathurst, where everyone loves racing. And so naturally, if you have a racing simulator and you have people who love racing, you're going to get this false sense of security and confidence that your idea is great. And so we invested thousands of dollars into doing a fit out. And then we had four simulators set up. Then we had Westfield Carousel come down and scout us from the Albany Plaza and say this would be great for Perth. So then my dad ended up building 10 simulators plus a flight simulator, which ended up getting us into $800,000 of debt. So by the time we had all these simulators, we'd done our fit-outs, it was at this point where people weren't actually interested in what we had to offer. The everyday person who isn't obsessed with cars would just walk past that in the shopping center and not be interested. And so we had over-leveraged in terms of the amount of money we spent developing this product that wasn't necessarily going to generate the ROI that we needed it to. We had to spend over $110,000 a year in just being able to keep the rent, the marketing fees that Westfield would charge, having all of their shopfront conditions, being in a shopping center, additional security because you're operating out of normal hours as well. So there's just so many hidden costs that you just can't be prepared for. And then the idea of, oh, let's buy more and scale more and hire more stuff and make it bigger and better, that is where we went wrong because the business was not doing incredibly well to start off with. And we thought if we go bigger and better, things will make more money. And the truth is, if you can't nail your operations of the first business and keep those margins there, then if you decide, okay, I'm just going to keep scaling, do more stores, get more equipment, whatever it may be, you actually put yourself at more of a liability than if you were to just focus on the first thing and get that running well and at a higher margin. So coming back to understanding different economic times, that happened to us during the global financial crisis. And so the cost of everything suddenly went from being here to here. We had purchased an investment property that ended up losing over $200,000 in value. And so having lived through that as a kid, I didn't understand it as much, but I remember what it felt like being at home, the level of stress, not being able to buy anything other than just basic necessities, food, getting those mortgage payments covered, we could never have normal school shoes, we could never have branded school shorts because we were just in survival mode. And so I can understand that these times for business owners are so hard because everyone thinks you're killing it and they see the success, they see the scale. But unless you have safeguarded your business with a strategy that allows you to still continue to run well sustainably at a good profit margin and then handle the harder times. So if there's less consumer spending, you're not just going to crash and burn because you're solely relying on everything consistently growing. I think that is the biggest thing. Like revenue sounds impressive. We over-glamorize how impressive it is to have a six-figure business, a seven-figure business, an eight-figure business. But what really does matter is knowing the profit margins. Because if you're making $3 million and you have $900,000 of profit versus a business doing $10 million with $200,000 of profit, like business A is going to actually make you wealthy. Business B may sound more impressive on paper, but it really comes down to like what kind of stress levels do you want? What kind of debt do you want to hold? And the reason why debt has been such a big part of my life and it's been really hard to break through money mindset ceilings is because I've grown up in so much debt, it's not funny. Like there's obviously people who have way more debt and way less debt. But as your average Australian family in small business, to see that by the time we got to where we are now, having $3 million worth of debt, that $800,000, it doesn't actually sound like that much now that we've got $3 million. And so making the calculated decisions to understand how to safeguard your business during these times, it becomes more important than ever because when everything's on the line, you can't afford to make mistakes and spend money that you don't have and then lose it all. You just cannot. It's been two decades, and this is why we're having these conversations now. So we can all understand okay, what are the things that I can do myself as a business owner? What are the things that I need to do in terms of reaching out to professionals and getting support and a strategy in place? Now, Betts is another business that is really interesting because they aren't a business who just boomed during COVID. They have 134 years in the game. They're an established retailer. So at their peak, Betts had 220 physical stores. And just recently they went into voluntary administration as well. Now, by June 2026, they had reduced to 35 stores. And now that they've had the administrators come on board, they've actually decided to close a further 20 stores, which means they are only left with 15. And they're primarily focusing on expanding their online retail side. So essentially e-commerce. Now, the reason why the administrators believe that this business has struggled a lot more recently is because the retail conditions had changed. So back when they were doing business before online shopping, consumers were going to shopping centers. They were spending that money and they were happy to go in and have that experience. But now with people going online, the shopping centers are not getting the same amount of foot traffic as they used to because shopping has become easier. It's more accessible. You can order something online, you can get it sent straight to your door. And this is where if the businesses who were solely retail didn't adapt to having some kind of online presence, an online store, they actually fell behind because they were missing out on opportunity for people to scroll online, see their catalog, purchase products, and have them sent straight to their door. Now, obviously, it doesn't mean everyone stopped going to shopping centers. It doesn't mean that these stores are going to all fail. It's just understanding that there's been a shift in the way consumers are purchasing. So having less foot traffic became less sustainable for these businesses. And as all of this economic stuff has happened throughout COVID, throughout the post-COVID era, we're also having weaker consumer confidence with their own finances, which means that when you've got higher fuel costs and you've also got rising business costs, so things like your lease, things like your inventory, and then having to pay for shipping to get that all sent across, wages going up, super being increased, all of a sudden, having all of these shop fronts is not something that is bringing in the revenue it used to and it has high expenses. Like if you've got three different stores and one is doing incredibly well, but two are doing pretty average, then by the time the first one is doing well, it injects all of its profit back into the average ones and all in all, you're still breaking even. And so sometimes going back to having that like one key store that is doing incredibly well, it can potentially generate more profit. And these are conversations that when you talk to different business owners about how fast and how big they scale more times than you would like to admit or think, their first business was their best one because they were still involved in it. They were pouring their heart and soul into it. But by the time they scale up to the point of having so many that it loses that level of the founder being involved, the culture being curated as much, and the strategies being unique to that business. It's just kind of like become a plug and play, and then different franchisees have come and board or different managers, and it just the brand is still there, but it's not as potent. It's almost as if it's been like slightly diluted because the founder isn't heavily involved. And that's what people are leaning towards now. They want founder-led brands, they want someone who they can connect with and is ultimately so passionate about building the offer, the service, the product, the community. So coming back to like, okay, what are we seeing with bets? It's that a business model was designed for one consumer environment, and that consumer environment changed. And without being able to pivot and adapt with those times, the business will fall behind. Now, another business from my childhood that experienced something similar but in a different way was we, our very first business was actually a arcade game hire jukebox, pool tables, pinball machines. So we called that Southwest Amusement. So we actually bought it off someone else, and we would put all of these games and pool tables and jukeboxes into pubs around the Southwestern Great Southern region. So when we first took over that business, people still wanted those things, right? They loved playing games with their friend, they'd go to the pub, they'd put some money in, and they'd play a song, and so much has actually changed since then. We had PlayStations come out, Xboxes, DSs, our phones, things that weren't available before. And now, why would someone go into a restaurant, a holiday park, a pub to go and play a video game when they can do it in the comfort of their own home? Now, a similar thing happened with music. We suddenly had iPods coming out. People were listening to their own music. They didn't have to have a CD player, they didn't have to go into a venue. They just had access to be able to do it anywhere, anytime, any way they wanted. And when your business is running off something that was great in the past, but it's not pivoting with the future, that's where you start to put more money into it. You pray it's gonna work, and it's just a dying industry. It's just a dying business. And we saw that once again with doing drive-in cinemas. You know, to go to a drive-in cinema, it's such an experience, and that's something that we created with the Central 70 drive-in. But the downside of trying to revive something that worked really well in the past but isn't working today, is that you could have a drive-in cinema, but people aren't always going to want that. They might just want to sit at home and watch it in their own comfort of the lounge suite or their own home cinema, or they might want to go to the actual cinema where they don't have to have someone's boot up and the light on, and someone's got their foot on the brake pedal and it's showing up and distracting you, and having to tune into the radio and it's crackly. And so, in some ways, convenience has actually killed so many businesses. If you really think about it, Uber Eats, people are just too lazy to go out. They just want to order it in the comfort of their home. They're just gonna order food, they're not going into these physical stores and restaurants. And I think this is why it's really hard for me to watch because knowing the costs of operating a shopfront business, understanding the costs of commercial lease, counsel rates, electricity bills, like there's just so many costs involved. If those consumers are enjoying everything in the comfort of their own home and they're not coming in and supporting these businesses, they're doing all these DIY home kits for beauty, for hair, like there's just so much that has now shifted where people are doing it at home. They're doing it themselves, they're getting it delivered straight to your door. So it almost makes you question like, what's the point of investing in these shop fronts? Unless you really are honing in on your point of difference, you have a unique experience to offer, and people can't get that anywhere else, then it's worth doing, right? But if the options for them to have it in the comfort of their own home are actually better than going to your store, then you've got a really big problem because there's no point having a store at that stage. Now it's really interesting because I had a look at the Australian Bureau of Statistics data. And like I mentioned before, they are seeing an increase in household spending. So, particularly the areas where people are spending more money is restaurants, traveling, buying clothes, and paying for experiences. So, within all of that, if there's a way that you can adapt an experience into your business, you will probably find that it will be more beneficial than not doing it at all. Because whether it's buying clothes or it's going in for a haircut or it's ordering something online, the best brands are curating a customer experience. They're looking at the whole client journey, not just from the moment that they walk in or they get the product in their hands, but actually, how does the whole online side work? What are you doing in your marketing? What are you running as ads? How are you having conversations in the DMs? What does the website experience look like? All of these smaller intentional elements really do make a big difference for the entire consumer experience. And the brands that are average are just gonna fail. They can't afford to be fine anymore because fine is going to become a financial risk. Just being average, not putting in the effort, the brands who really go above and beyond, they will do well. Whereas the ones that don't, people will either just look for a cheaper option because they don't understand why it's worth paying more for the same thing if they can get it cheaper and it's the exact same experience or quality. But if you do offer something that is more superior, more valuable, a better experience, a better feeling, a higher quality transformation, if they are the right kind of customer who values that, they will be willing to pay more. Now, NAB also surveyed Australian consumers in Q1 of 2026. And 53% of consumers said they were more mindful or careful about where they spent their money. 46% are shopping more during sales or discount periods, and 37% are researching brands before purchasing. So it's a completely different purchasing environment than what we're used to. And this is where if we don't have the information, if we don't have the marketing available to really draw in those customers and then the client experience the results, the quality of the product, the offer, the service, whatever it may be to back it up, it's going to be really difficult to be able to sustain having a customer base and consistent cash flow long term. So right now it may feel a lot harder to run a business because the tables have turned, the times have changed, and it's really important that we understand what's going on in the economy and what people are choosing to value and prioritize so that we can look at what we can improve in our own business, what do we need to focus on in terms of the brand, the marketing, the client experience? What conversations should we be having about our money with our trusted professionals? Like being able to plan ahead of this and have proactive options rather than be stuck in a really dark place of debt and financial hardship. Like we can be proactive rather than being reactive. So I hope you found value into today's episode. I am going to be releasing part two next week. So please make sure you've hit subscribe, you follow along and tune into that because I will be covering the things that I believe are most valuable for you to focus on as a business owner so that you can be the person who wins in these times. You can be the person who stands out from the crowd. And your business can be something that actually has this financial reward and success for it because I know how much hard work you put in and the sacrifices that you've had to make to get to where you are today. There would be nothing worse than to be stuck in a period of burnout, give up all hope, and just burn everything to the ground. So we're gonna get through this together. I will catch you next week for episode two, and I hope you have an amazing week. Bye.