Thailand’s Path to Energy Efficiency w/ Stuart Pollington

Stuart: [00:00:00] Energy efficiency is just about reducing the wastage. Making you use less energy and getting the same output.

We gather real time data on the energy usage at an asset level. So we install the equipment. We’re then pulling data second by second up into the cloud.

Imagine if you only managed to save 5 or 10 percent.

10 percent is more than a month of free energy. And that goes on straight onto the bottom line for the company. We typically see that the projects are cash flow positive within six months.

But what we aim for is a sub three year ROI. So within three years or less you will have paid off the investment in the equipment.

Scott: Hello and welcome to Made it in Thailand, the podcast where we learn how to thrive in Thailand from top performers who have found success in the Kingdom.

I’m your host Scott Pressimone. Today I am speaking with Stuart Pollington. Stuart is the [00:01:00] co founder of Easson Energy, a leading energy monitoring solutions company in Thailand. Easson specializes in energy efficiency projects to help companies identify and reduce their energy wastage in order to lower their CO2 emissions and their costs.

He also is the owner of Smart Traffic and Smart Digital Group. So he has quite a bit of business experience under his belt. I think we’ll have a lot to discuss today.

So Stuart, thanks so much for joining me.

Stuart: Thanks for having me Scott.

Scott: Fantastic. So to kick things off, where are you originally from and what brought you over to Thailand?

Stuart: Originally, I’m actually originally from the UK. A nice little place on the Southeast coast called Brighton, which I think people will be familiar with now because we’re in the Premier League, which is fantastic. Yeah, when I was younger, going back 20, 20 odd years ago, I was more traveling. And I was over in Australia for a year and I came through Thailand [00:02:00] originally on the way back to the UK, fell in love with the place, the culture, the weather and the beaches and ended up staying for about a year and then back to the UK for a bit.

And then this was where I wanted to be. So I up sticks, came back to Thailand and Asia. And I’ve been in this region ever since.

Scott: Wow. What was it about Thailand that, that made you want to stick around?

Stuart: I think the same, as for a lot of people. I liked the lifestyle. I definitely liked the weather. I liked the fact that, I could wear my shorts or my t shirts and, I enjoy that more laid back environment. If you like by the beach and that. I’m in the UK from Brighton, but our beach is more pebbles.

It’s a bit more kind of stones and that. So I liked all of that. I don’t like spicy food, but I love the Thai food, which can be a bit strange to some people because I know spice is a very big part of it. But yeah, [00:03:00] the culture, the food, the environment, everything. It was just, I just felt, I think like a lot of expats that, for me anyway, the UK was just miserable, I think, unfortunately. And a lot of that’s due to the weather, not the people. And that, yeah, it’s just, I came through this way and I just fell in love with the place.

Scott: Yeah, as you said, it’s very common for, a lot of us. And when you mentioned things like it’s shorts and stuff here. the attire here, it’s, I’m not going to ask you to stand up, but even in office attire. You want to look, you want to look good, from the waist up, but, a lot of people are going to be wearing shorts, even in the business environment.

Stuart: Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Scott: We’re going to talk a lot about your businesses and your entrepreneurship, but I’d love if you could maybe give a bit more of your background and how you started off your career.

Stuart: Brilliant. We’ll exclude the UK. [00:04:00] I did a few things there, but mainly as I came back through to Thailand. I would got very lucky really, and, met this company who had a website in the UK where they were selling refurbished laptops and replacement laptop batteries. Again, going back 20 years.

And I got very lucky to get a job over here, running the website, all the customer service, the marketing, the sales, etc. And we were fantastic, we were ranking above Dell, IBM, Toshiba for replacement laptops, batteries, laptop batteries. And then the conversation came from the owners, if we can do this for ourselves, why don’t we do it for other businesses as well? And that’s where Smart Traffic originally was born, with the original founders. And then I worked my way up, worked my way across. I ended up in the Philippines for five and a half years. in the middle, helping to run the tech office over there. We had a, had about [00:05:00] 120, 130 staff at one point.

So that was really good. So I had an in, in house, if you like, experience with the computers website. Then I went into the tech delivery. So then get the agency feel. And then when we restructured the company, I moved back to Thailand. I’ve been back maybe now 10, 11 years now. And then, about nine years ago took over ownership of Smart Digital in Thailand and then Smart Traffic in Australia. And they’re both digital marketing companies. Started with SEO and now obviously we do the full suite. And we do also do a lot of white label to other agencies as well. So a bit of a, journey from a bit in and then out and yeah, I’ve really enjoyed it.

Scott: Wow. So when you mentioned the Philippines and you said five years that you were there, right?

Stuart: Yeah. Yeah.

Scott: Was it Manila?

Stuart: No, I was in Cebu or Cebu. Lovely place. Really good. Great, [00:06:00] it’s got nice little beaches nice island, but nice little kind of city environment as well. Staff there were fantastic. I really enjoyed my time there. And that for me was going from being in Thailand running this computer kind of website and then going right, now you’re going to help us in the Philippines. You’re gonna go over to this tech office, and I, when I, landed there, we have web developers, content writers, SEO experts, and I was just thrown in, and, the, what I learned from there was just exponential.

Scott: So for individuals that maybe haven’t been to the Philippines and maybe they are outside of, Southeast Asia today, they’re considering coming over here. And let’s say from the more entrepreneurial or career side. And so if they’re thinking between, maybe starting a local office here in Thailand or in the Philippines, how would you compare the might choose one over the other?

Stuart: I [00:07:00] think, it will come down to, obviously cost is a, factor. But I think cost very similar, from my memory. I think it more comes down to, what you need from your team. Now obviously in the Philippines, English is very strong. So that’s fantastic. Maybe not as strong in Thailand for everybody.

But again, maybe depends where your client base is. I think, Philippines has a lot of positives, especially if you’re in the American market because they, when they are learning their English, very American English. Whereas in Thailand, it can be a bit of a mixture of British English and American English.

I, my office here is split between expats and, local Thais. And we do marketing for the Thai market. But we also then do marketing for Australia, New Zealand, the UK. And for me, I found [00:08:00] locally here in Thailand, there’s, there are great, there’s great resources available.

Sorry, there’s great people available that you can hire. And again, I think the same for the Philippines. So I think, I don’t think there’s a right or wrong choice. I think it comes down to the individual and the business. And then what you’re trying to achieve and where you feel you’ll get the best support from.

Scott: Yeah, and I wonder if this is correct or not, but when you mentioned, of course, the English is a difference, but then also the willingness to work overnight or U.S. hours, I’m wondering if you noticed there was any difference there.

Stuart: I think, yes, I, yeah, that’s a good point. Again, I was there 10 years ago. I’m sure things have changed in that period, but, very much Philippines at that time was very much set up for call centers and outsourcing and it still is, I believe. So there’s already that, I wouldn’t [00:09:00] say expectation of working strange hours, but the willingness to. And the understanding that if you want to do this type of work, then potentially you’re going to be working this sort of hours.

I mean, one of the reasons that we opened up an office there originally was we had a web developer that came over from the Philippines, worked in the Bangkok office, and then I believe it was around the time that the USA, clamped down on the online gambling. So there was a lot of local Filipinos who lost their job overnight who were doing marketing and SEO for these big gambling websites.

And that gave us an opportunity to open an office and hire and scale really, quickly with people that were already in the industry, which cut down and sped up the training time as well.

Scott: Yeah, that’s very interesting. I, I have a little bit of experience [00:10:00] in growing and building up a team in the Philippines. I wasn’t one of the people that was over there for several years, like yourself. But, working for a company that was based in Thailand, we began hiring some more people in the Philippines.

And the first time we were doing that, it was using these like facilitating companies that say, oh, we’ll recruit for you. We’ll give office space for you. You just pick what, tell us what you need and we’ll take care of everything else when it comes to work permits or social security. I want to get your opinion on those sort of companies because I do recall at least from our situation it was fine. And maybe it was a good way to get started. But we eventually grew out of that and said you know what? Actually, if we rent an office space then we can actually have more of a company culture there. We can bring people into the fold because people that haven’t been to the Philippines and I know it might be different areas but let’s just say Manila to simplify it because that’s where a lot of companies build up their teams and people are a little interchangeable.

I’m not saying that’s by any means a good thing, but I just noticed that sometimes [00:11:00] people in those call center type environments, they’re basically jumping from one company to the other, and they’re almost sometimes treated as just a person to sit in the seat and, put in a new name tag the next week, a little bit.

So I remember from our situation, we really wanted to make sure people weren’t so interchangeable, right? And we built up more of that company culture. So I’m curious how, how you built up a team when you were more involved on the ground there. If you felt, if there were any challenges, building up the team there, anything you can share.

Stuart: Great. Yeah. No. Great questions. Great observations as well. We were lucky.

We had this developer who came over who was managing a web project, who was from Cebu in the Philippines, who mentioned to us that, there was this thing with the America and the, the, gambling that was then changed.

So we had, there was a big talent pool there locally in the Philippines who already knew about SEO and digital marketing. So we actually, or they [00:12:00] actually set up the first few employees and hires ourselves. And that was a guy from the UK called Simon, who was the technical brains, if you like, and the, SEO guru, if you like, for our company.

So he went there originally to do the initial groundwork. And then I was brought over maybe after it had been set up for a year or 18 months or something like that. So we didn’t go down the route of using a company to help. I think if I was doing it now myself, I would probably utilize some of the services, at least initially, to just help get you through the barriers, to help you deal with visa processes that can take time, like Thailand, to get your head around and understand everything.

But then as you said, it’s very important to build a company culture. Especially, over in the Philippines and kind of Asia in general. And you mentioned about retention. So there was a lot of job swap in and, I was quite surprised from the UK looking at [00:13:00] CVs or resumes in the Philippines and you’re seeing six months, five months, four months, six months, which, normally for the UK, America is probably very similar.

You expect to see a little bit more length of service, three years, five years, four years, et cetera. There does seem to be a lot of job hopping. So we had to spend a lot of time building the company. The company environment, making it a place that people wanted to come. And that a lot of that was just outside of the office and not just about work and what you’re doing, how do we do team building? How do we bring everyone in together and create that kind of bond? Because it is, there is a big bond over there and if you can get the right people in and they, gel, they’ll be friends for life.

And, you can use that within your culture to help grow your business because every time you have to rehire, you start the retraining process [00:14:00] again. So much better. Same with clients, isn’t it? It, it costs you a lot more to win a client than it does to keep them. So it’s always better to keep them. And same with the staff.

So I think a little bit of a long winded. answer, but yeah, there are services available. I would probably look at that if I was doing it today. We got lucky, but at some point, if you are going to be there and you are, you do have a few members of your team, it’s well worth considering opening an office and building, like you said, your own company lifestyle, and helping them.

Scott: Yeah, absolutely. And I’m, curious though about your story, because if you, after about a year of this going on, you were then going over to the Philippines and continuing, the growth of the company at that stage.

Stuart: Yeah.

Scott: Yeah, so you eventually took over the company.

So can you share that trajectory a little bit?

Stuart: Okay. Yeah. So I think it was about a year. It could have been a couple of years before I went over to the Philippines. [00:15:00] Simon was still there, so I worked almost like a number two to begin with, and then I started taking, then I took over and ran, that tech office in its entirety. Then when there was a restructure, and I think the decision was to try and bring the delivery team a bit more closer to where the account management and everything else was being handled and managed.

So at that point we had a restructure, and I moved back to, Thailand. And then I was working, within Smart Digital Group and Smart Traffic kind of managing the delivery and the, supporting the account managers and the sales team from Bangkok. And then the original founders of the company were decided they were moving back to the UK.

They had other, projects that they’d run that were very successful. And so basically the UK company was merged and rebranded with a local company. And at that point I was given the opportunity to take over ownership [00:16:00] of Smart Traffic in Australia and Smart Digital Group here in, Thailand. So I worked my way up, through the ranks if you like, and I’ve got a bit of a background, sales.

I was doing sales, then I, pick up the technical stuff really, quickly and I get it. And that seems to be a very good blend that has served me very well. I think one of the best skills you can have is, communication and selling because it helps you build those relationships. And if you’re not afraid to speak to people and ask for money, then you can grow any business that you want, I think.

Scott: Yeah, I think, each one of those levels can be hard. Some people don’t like to speak to people, right? And then some people like to speak to people, but that extra level of being able to then ask for money, that’s sometimes the hard part too, right? So if you can do those two things, then you’re, you’re doing something good.

Now, I’m curious though, if you thought that you’d ever own a business, right? Because as you said, you worked [00:17:00] your way through the ranks and this opportunity seems to, present itself. I’m not going to say on a silver platter, right? You obviously did a lot for the company to position yourself in the place that you were.

But when the owners at the time were saying, Okay, we’re doing this over here, you were the one that now took the reins and said, this is an opportunity. So did you think that you’d do something like that eventually? Were you planning, I still want to go through the ranks? Were you thinking one day you’d start a company?

Or was this a little bit more of a surprise to you?

Stuart: It’s a bit of both really. I’ve always wanted to do my kind of own thing, but I also really loved working for the company and I really loved SEO. I just fell in love with it. I fell in love with digital marketing. I loved working on lots of different clients and getting them results and seeing them transform their own businesses.

And I loved all of that. I think in the back of my mind at some point I thought I’m going to have to go on my own. I’ll have to open my own agency or start as a [00:18:00] consultant or something. That was always on the back of my mind, but never took any action on it. And then, yeah, circumstances changed. And it was like, like you said, pretty much silver platter, it was like, here’s the opportunity.

Do you want it or not? And at that point it was either, I go and do my own thing, or I try and continue this great business that’s here that I know, but it was still very scary. Looking back, going from high, high senior role to then saying, it’s all on you. There was no backup.

So that was very, scary. And I know, I made a load of mistakes. I made some really good decisions, but I also, made a lot of mistakes. And I think there’s different ways to run businesses. And, if you start your own business, you can do everything your way.

If you take over a business, I think we’ve talked about this previously. It’s you’ve got this big cargo [00:19:00] ship and you want to go this way, but you know it’s going to take that long to get that to change because you have this whole culture, you’ve got your processes and everything tied up into the current business.

So that’s where Easson Energy came in. And that’s why I was so excited with that. Because that’s an opportunity to do it from day one and zero and shape it the way you want. But yeah, no, i’ve really enjoyed it. Again, you know a lot of hard work. I think you know if you put the effort in then you can get the rewards.

Scott: Yeah, and you mentioned Easson Energy and that’s an interesting story to how you even got involved with them. We’ll talk of course about the founder and everything, right? But, that’s not your last name, right? So let’s, I love to hear the story of how you met Robert and, how you two got together on, and started off Easson Energy.

Stuart: Yeah, definitely. So Easson Energy just came out of a [00:20:00] chance meeting and an opportunity rather than me sat here trying to think I want to start something new. It was just a very similar to taking over ownership. It’s just an opportunity that came along and I thought that looks really interesting and it looks like an opportunity to grow something from the ground up.

Over here, at the beginning of COVID, there was obviously lockdowns. and I met, sorry, I met the founder or the co founder with me, Robert Easson, right at the beginning of COVID, stuck here on a transition back to the UK, where he was going to start an energy efficiency company over there.

So we got into conversation. He started explaining how some of it works. Showed me a couple of case studies. I recognized some of the global brands, and I was like, yeah, that’s really interesting. Leave it with me for a little bit. I’m heavily involved in a lot of the networking in the chambers, so this particular one was AustCham, the [00:21:00] Sundowners networking. And, I spend a lot of time there. I know a lot of people from there. Never always had an opportunity to work with them for digital marketing because a lot of them have their own in house teams and things like this. But I was able to secure a meeting with a global brand for the local franchise here. It’s a well known fast food brand. I think over 1,500 locations in Thailand. Between three franchise owners. And I managed to secure a meeting. Robert and I went to the meeting, that was positive. I then turned around to Robert and said, you’re not going anywhere for a while because the country’s locked down.

How about we try this here? and Easson, obviously being his last name, I, we just felt at the time, Easson and Energy just had a nice little kind of ring to it. And it all started from there really. And it’s grown since then. We’ve got two new partners or two other partners on. So there’s four of us in [00:22:00] total now. You know a guy called Gary Cannon, another guy called Patrick Seal.

We make a really good team. Because one of the things I picked up from Smart Traffic originally there were three original owners of that and they each had their own kind of different strengths. And I think that’s helped with Easson Energy that, it’s not just one person making decisions.

It’s a group of us with all different kind of strengths and opinions. So that was it. So that’s how it all kicked off. Easson Energy, we are an energy monitoring company, if you like. We have a three stack solution. It’s hardware, it’s software, and it’s service. Basically, what we do is we gather real time data on the energy usage at an asset level So we install the equipment.

We’re then pulling data second by second up into the cloud, into the analytic SAP’s platform. [00:23:00] Once we understand the energy being used in real time, day by day, week by individual pieces of equipment – that could be motors, fridges, freezers, air con, anything, pumps. Once we have that data, we can then start making the recommendations on how to reduce the energy wastage.

So a big part of its behavioral change. Things are turned off, turned on at five in the morning, but no one, no customers come in until nine, for example. That’s a hidden cost. Because unless your manager is walking around and someone is senior is checking everything every day, they won’t notice this. So we give that visibility.

So there’s a big saving from behavioral change. The next level would be automation. Okay, this is always, this should always be off at this time or between 2am and 4am. There’s no one ever here. This should automatically go off. You put those two together and you can get really substantial kind of savings.

I think the [00:24:00] global average wastage is around 40 ish percent. So if we can help our clients find anywhere from 5, 10 to 20, 30%, then that’s fantastic for them. They’re reducing their energy costs. But they’re also reducing the CO2 emissions that they’re responsible for. So they’re being a greener company.

And that’s a big part of Easson Energy. It’s, about, the big part of what we’re doing is just trying to make the world a better place. That sounds cheesy because obviously it’s a business. We do want to make money as well. But saving money for clients, we also help with the CO2 reductions, the government targets, cop targets, et cetera, et cetera.

Scott: Yeah, I can only speak from, let’s say the personal view of a household, right? But, we know that one of the biggest costs like water is quite inexpensive here, right? But electricity is quite expensive. So it’s going to be, you’re going to, you’re thinking about your air conditioners. If I’m going to buy a [00:25:00] new fridge or refreezer, I’m going to be thinking about that cause it’s going to be significant, but that’s just on the personal level.

Now I can only imagine when you’re talking about large businesses, large warehouses, you’re talking big, money there, right? That’s, that adds up.

Stuart: No, definitely. And that exactly it. You’ve hit the nail on the head. We’re, looking at it or you and I would talk about it from a household perspective. Scale that up to a factory, maybe that’s spending 5, 10 million baht a month on electricity. And manage, imagine if you only managed to save 5 or 10 percent of that.

10 percent is, more than a month of free energy, if you like, based on what they’re currently spending. And that goes on straight onto the bottom line for the company because all you’re doing, all you’re doing is being more efficient. You still got the same production. So we’re going from, it’s very much and it has been that it’s just the cost of doing business.

So I have an electricity bill obviously here in my marketing [00:26:00] office. I don’t know. I don’t even know what it is. Because it’s just a small office. If we used it, we’re going to pay for it. But when you scale that up to these bigger companies that can have a bit more control, and these areas aren’t open yet, and customers don’t come here until this point, there’s loads of energy saving opportunities.

And it is something that, all the governments are pushing around the world, is to, for everyone to hit these targets, isn’t it, and to be greener, which is for the environment. And the knock on effect for that is that businesses can save money, by doing it.

Scott: Wow. And you mentioned the different layers that this is. So certainly I assume there is a hardware that you’re talking about for monitoring. Okay. now automation, because yeah, I would imagine it being quite difficult, even when you know the data, to train your team to turn this off then and turn that on that.

It’s you use hardware that’s going to allow you to automate that. And I’m imagining what’s that once [00:27:00] that’s in place, now it’s not an inconvenience to your staff. Now it’s it’s automatic. It’s, easy. It’s look at the analytics, see what you need to have done. I assume you’re doing some sort of consulting or guidance along with that, trying to help these companies do this.

And then now it’s, you’re just saving money. And so one thing I’m curious about is the break even. So I, I don’t mean to put you on the spot, but I’m curious if there’s any sort of averages or anything that you can share in terms of when companies, assuming there’s no subsidies, there’s no government incentives, just plain on a plain old, implementing a solution like this, how long might it take until they’re just making money because they’ve paid off everything on the top.

Stuart: Great question. It can depend project by project, but I can give you some kind of ideas or examples. Part of it will depend on how they want to finance the project because obviously there’s the hardware and that hardware needs to go in before anything else happens. So typically companies will either look at CapEx, [00:28:00] pay that outright, or they’ll look at financing.

And we have green financing options as well that tick all the boxes. So if they go for the financing, we typically see that the projects are cash flow positive within six months. So when we start a project, we’ve got to install everything, and then we’ve got to baseline before we can do the first set of recommendations.

But typically within those six months, they’ll get to a point where they’re saving more than they’re paying out on that monthly. So that’s cash flow positive. When it comes to CapEx, or actually how long it will take to pay off the equipment investment, again, that all depends on the size of the project and how much equipment we need to install, because two factories are not always identical.

This, they might look similar from the outside, they might have the same energy consumption, but actually we need twice as much equipment here. Because of the way it’s spread out or the type of equipment that’s being used. But typically what we aim for is a [00:29:00] sub three year ROI. So within three years or less you will have paid off the investment in the equipment.

Now, if we compare that to similar sort of solutions, let’s say solar, I believe that’s still 10, 15 can be 20, 25 years, return on investment, paying off that initial investment. And that those projections, so when we do, a project proposal, we’ll put in there, so we have a global database of projects around the world in over 70 countries.

We can tap into that. We can tap into data from projects in Southeast Asia. And we can make a very accurate prediction or target of what the potential energy wastage is. So we, can take a type of business, we can do some research, we can come back and say, for your business in this area, 28% is the average or potential saving.

Then when we put a solution together, we’re typically building it off of just 10%. [00:30:00] So we’re looking at, we, probably wouldn’t do a project if we didn’t think we could identify at least 10 percent. And with that 10 percent we’re then based that on, a three year or less return on investment.

If we manage to identify 25 percent of savings, and the client can implement 20 percent of those, then they’ve pretty much halved that ROI period. There are projects that will just be paid off the return on investment within 9 months, 12 months, like that. So it’s it’s really good for companies. The data that they get is unbelievable and just so so powerful that it’s not just about energy monitoring and saving.

You can make proper business decisions off of this. You can tie this into your sales system and you can work out exactly how much energy it costs to make this when you, so you know how much you’ve sold, You can see how much, so [00:31:00] there’s a lot of stuff we can do with the data. Data is king, as they say.

Scott: Now, when you mentioned solar panels, I’m just thinking how this doesn’t at all compete with something like solar panels because, you need both. And I’m going to take it back to a household. My, my parents live on the East coast of the US and sometimes we’d be considering should we put solar panels on the roof or something like that, but guess what one of the first things is that you should do before thinking about where the energy is coming from? It’s sealing the windows. It’s sealing the doors. It’s essentially reducing the waste that you have.

And then if you can get cleaner energy or you can get energy in a different way, then, they’re going to work well together. and so I can just imagine, a company maybe starting with, thinking of how to reduce their energy costs.

And then either at the same time or a little at a later date, then thinking about how they can get the energy in a different way, because, both work together.

Stuart: [00:32:00] Perfect. Would you like a job? No, you, pretty much described it perfectly there. There’s a path to net zero. And typically the way we look at it, the path to net zero starts with monitoring. Where are we today? How much energy are we using? Where’s it going? Then how can we reduce that?

And that was behavioral and automation. Then once you’ve done a lot of that, then you can look at your green energy like solar, hydro, et cetera. Solar is a, it’s a source of energy. We’re not supplying energy. You’re always going to need energy to get things done. What we’re doing is reducing the wastage as you said.

So we work, we can work very well together with companies that already have solar installed. We can tell them exactly how much energy is being used, where it’s going, we can help them balance the loads, they can take advantage of the solar pricing compared to the off peak, on peak, electricity costs.

[00:33:00] Ideally, you’d be more efficient first, but at the same time it’s quite difficult for a company or businesses to get 100 percent solar anyway. So most of them are still pulling from the main grid. So if we can, even if someone has solar, It doesn’t mean you don’t need energy efficiency. Energy efficiency is just about reducing the wastage, making you use less energy and getting the same output.

So we can work very well with the solar, companies and we can help, like I said, work with all of that. In an ideal world you might want to start with energy monitoring, but don’t dismiss it if you’ve got solar. So again, solar is a source of energy. What we’re trying to do is help businesses use less energy. But exactly how you described it is exactly how we talk about it when those sort of questions come up.

And it’s about that path to net zero. If we want to get the targets of 2030, 2040, 2050, then we need green engergy, but we also need to be more efficient. [00:34:00] Waste is waste at the end of the day. And even if you think you have solar and it’s free, and it’s not free energy, You’ve invested in it.

There’s a payback period or you’ve got a buyback period. And what we’re trying to do is make sure if you’re using less energy, you don’t need to invest as much in solar today. Maybe you can postpone that for another six months. So there’s again, you know there’s no you can do it either way, but it would make more sense to start with the monitoring and the efficiency, yeah.

Scott: Yeah, it’s a good point. You shouldn’t write it off just because you’ve started to go down the path of solar. I’m just thinking about all the things that are involved when you’re thinking about energy system. If you’re thinking about batteries, if you’re thinking about the panels, if you’re thinking about all that stuff, and to your point, I think that those numbers might change if you’re able to reduce the waste.

And so I think it’s great. And now I can’t help but tie these things back to marketing because I know your background being in marketing. Marketing [00:35:00] also relies on data, right? Can you imagine trying to say, this is your SEO plan, or this is how you should do this or that, to market your business if you don’t know where things stand? It’s one of the first things is assess where things are. Figure out what you have and you don’t want the leaky bucket, right? You don’t want, let’s just throw stuff in and see how it works. No, see where things are going, make sure that you’re actually capturing in the case of marketing, capturing the leads effectively, then maybe ramp up ads and other stuff like that.

But you have to, in this case, make sure that you’re not wasting energy, then you can ramp up and, maybe spend in other areas in the ideal case. I get that it’s not always, lined up that way, but.

Stuart: That’s exactly it. Yeah, the more you know, the more you can do. I think one of the, one of the sayings we have is, if you can, measure it accurately, you can manage it efficiently or effectively. And again, it comes down to the data. At the moment, electricity, you get told after you’ve used it, how much you’ve [00:36:00] used, but only what came to your door.

What happened afterwards is on you. I go to the supermarket or 7 Eleven, I buy a few things, I get an itemized bill. I check out of the hotel, I get an itemized bill, everything, room service, everything. Electricity, you use that, you need, you gotta pay for it. It’s on you as a business or a householder to work out where the energy is being used and try and make changes yourself.

And that’s what we help with.

Scott: Now, you being involved on the sales side, from my understanding, I’m curious of what objections you or your team get when really explaining these solutions to individuals that are considering Easson Energy. And, maybe of the one or two top objections you get, how you overcome those objections and how you’d explain why maybe it’s, there’s more to it.

Stuart: Brilliant. So one of them was actually would have been solar. So we come up with that quite a lot. Were we planning solar or we already have [00:37:00] solar installed and we’ve talked about that already. We can help before you invest in solar. You should definitely invest in solar. We’re not saying not to or some other green energy.

But let’s make sure that you’re more efficient first before you do, or if they’ve got solar, no, we’re okay. We’ve got solar. Okay. Does it cover everything? No, it’s about 20 percent of our overall cost. Waste is waste. And even if they were a hundred percent solar, if you’re still wasting energy, we can help with that.

And then what can you do with that excess energy? Potentially, at some point, you might be able to sell it back to the grid. You might be able to store it in the future, so you can use it, later yourself. So there are definitely things with solar that, that come up a bit. Other things that come up, I think, we started this again during COVID.

There were positives and negatives. the positive was there’s no real competitors coming into the market. The [00:38:00] negative was, it was very difficult to do onsite meetings and things like this. Some of the objections we have around that is, I know it works in the UK.

You’ve shown me a case study in the UK. You show me a case study in Malaysia. In the Philippines, in Vietnam, in America, how do I know it works here? Or how do I know it works for my business? Very similar with marketing in my opinion, because my answer is we don’t know your business inside out.

You do. We understand energy. We understand where it goes. We understand where waste goes. In the UK maybe they spend a bit more on heating. Guess what? It’s similar over here, but it’s the cooling, So the technology works around the world. And a lot here is about, and when we started again four years ago, I think it was about trying to save money.

That was the message. You’re going to, we can save money. And luck, thankfully over the [00:39:00] last three or four years, that’s changed now. And a lot more companies are talking to us because of the environmental impact. Saving money is a bonus, which is great because they’re the conversations that have been had in Europe and America, 10 years ago. So we are, if you like, a little bit behind here.

Part of that could be that the cost of labour is just so much less here. When we go into a, another objection we might have, we go into a factory and we’re like, you’ve got your metering, how do you manage it? Someone walks around and writes down the readings every hour. That is the way that it’s being done.

And, all we’re doing is introducing technology to achieve that. Doing it in real time. That’s some of the typical ones we might get. And then obviously once we get to the project stage, the questions then come around the financing and, how does, it, how is it put together?

How [00:40:00] do I know that I’m going to achieve the savings? Again, we’ve got this global database of projects in 70 countries around the world. We know what that potential saving can be. We always do our return on investment on that smaller percentage because we know we can find and identify a hotel here compared to a hotel in Phuket or Koh Samui, they’re all going to be set up fairly similar. And that’s another beauty of what we do. The projects around the world. We’re getting the information from that, and if something works here, we can then try it over here. Yeah, I think that was a few of the objections, yeah.

Not objections, maybe hurdles and, and I think it is quite new here, like I said, but we’re seeing that change now, which is fantastic.

Scott: Oh, absolutely. Now, I think you mentioned, are there four partners at Easson?

Stuart: Yeah. Yeah, so it started with two, and [00:41:00] then we brought in Gary, and then we also brought in Patrick. Patrick is our tech engineer guy, if you like. He’s the, real kind of pulling everything together, designing the projects and everything like that, and operations, the, whole caboodle really.

Scott: Well, you’re kinda getting ahead of me on this question, but what I, was hoping to do is put you on the spot here and say, if you were to say the strength of each partner and what they bring, to the table that helps you become more successful. Because again, this is a challenge with, businesses is that sometimes as a solo entrepreneur and when you deal with partners, you deal with struggles, but it sounds like you’re relatively happy with these four partners.

And so what are the strengths of each?

Stuart: I’m happy at the moment. They might not be happy if they, when they listen to this, but. Okay, so let’s go for this.

So Robert business, the vision, where we’re trying to go. Super [00:42:00] connections with the UK government. We’ve, had their support signing MOUs at the British embassy with, Chapman Taylor, Global Architects, PCS over here, which is OCS in the UK, one of the Thailand’s largest facility management companies that we’ve done an MOU with them, partnering with them, which allows us to offer energy monitoring and saving solutions to their client base. Robert brings that to the table. Like the overall business structure. He does a lot on the green financing, putting together things for that. So that when we win a project, we’re able to offer, the green financing, if you like.

Gary Cannon. Wealth, of industry knowledge in, hotels and F&B, and has a very strong background in that. And I know him, I knew him very well from the chambers, chamber events, specifically Sundowners and [00:43:00] AustCham, but also a lot from BCCT, the British Chamber as well. And both of those have been very supportive with us. So Gary, brought in a wealth of connections and contacts and experience from that industry. And one of our, our solution works really well with hotels. You know because hotels you’ve got you there’s two parts to hotels. You’ve got your guest rooms, but then you’ve got everything else. All the public areas where it’s turned on and it’s left, isn’t it? It’s a well, it’s just left in the lobby and that. So real good potential savings for hotels. So again, Gary brought all of that with us into the business all the connections. So he actually spearheads a lot of the initial engagement and that sales process if you like, yeah.

Then we have Patrick Seal. Now Patrick is, again, our Chief Operations. But he brings a wealth of experience. I hope I don’t misspeak, he’s worked around the world in oil and [00:44:00] gas and nuclear. He, is our kind of technical guru, if you like. So all the technical questions will go through him. All the project designs will go through him. He will then also manage all the projects, the operations and everything that goes with that. So he brings a lot of that strength to the table.

And then for myself, I’ve obviously got to say marketing, because that would look really bad if not. Marketing and at the moment, because even though we’re nearly three, four years old, we’re still very much in the startup phase. It’s a very, long sales cycle, as I mentioned. And we’ve spent a lot of time educating the market and getting it to a point where the markets catching up. And guess what we’re here, who we are. And that’s where a lot of our efforts been. So a lot of the marketing I’m involved in, and will be involved in a lot more heavily, as we grow. I also help support on the sales side and deal with some of the partners, [00:45:00] like I mentioned, PCS, from the MOU signing, et cetera. And yeah, that’s where I sit into it.

So we’ve got four similar, but very different people, different strengths and weaknesses, if you like. And I think, and yeah, of course we clash sometimes and we disagree on different areas. But actually that’s good. It’s healthy. I think again, just pulling it back to my own personal experience with Smart Traffic, I think, and I said, I made some, mistakes and some things went well. I think looking back in hindsight, it worked really well when the previous guys set it up because they very different strengths. You had the, the very business minded, very sales and very technical. And maybe that’s, maybe looking back, that’s something maybe I should have thought a bit more about.

How could I try and carry that forward knowing that they’re not here now and it’s just me? And Easson’s given me the opportunity if you like [00:46:00] to do that. I have a fantastic support team, don’t get me wrong. Smart Traffic, Smart Digital, the team are amazing. We do really well with our clients. But I’m just thinking for myself from the top level, whether maybe there was something I could have done, or, maybe a bit of mentorship back in the day, afterwards, I. But it was all new to me, it was all a surprise. But what I’ve learned from that is invaluable.

And, so again, with Easson, I’m very, happy with the different dynamics. It keeps us on our toes, and it’s good. And it’s never gonna be 100 percent perfect, and it shouldn’t be. Because then I think, you take your eye off the ball, you think everything’s great, and next thing you know it’s a train wreck. I think it’s good to have a bit of friction and, I think you end up doing the right thing.

Scott: Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. I, I. to be honest in my type of work, I am also on the marketing side, but I’m a fractional chief marketing officer. So when I come into a business, I’m not [00:47:00] coming in as an employee. I’m not quite coming in as a consultant. I’m coming in to really coach and guide the owner and potentially the team to help them build that internal function.

And one of the things that it reminds me of what I sometimes do with, I think you all have naturally in the business, given the four partners is that you have that friction and you have someone to yeah, disagree with. And I, personally, I’m reasonably disagreeable because I think that sometimes it’s very lonely at the top.

And when you’re an owner, if everyone, especially in Thailand, where your employees sometimes they won’t speak up as much. And sometimes they’ll tell you what you want to hear. And I’ve seen that really hurt people because if you are susceptible to building up an ego, you’ll essentially be the person who’s preaching to your team and saying to do this and saying to do that and coming up with all the ideas and having them all say how great of an idea that is for you. And I think that if you’re not having anyone push back on those things, that can be dangerous, right?

And so I sometimes like to be that [00:48:00] somewhat uncomfortable individual to come in to help an owner because, it’s, a balancing act. No single person can have all the key information they need to make all the right decisions.

So friction I think is incredibly powerful. And that’s great that you have that dynamic, at Easton with the four partners. Cause you each bring your own strengths and can rub shoulders a little.

Stuart: So we get I just to be clear we all get on really well, but it’s just like you said, it’s nice to have that difference of opinion because it makes you think things through and, and things like that. And, I think that was very important what you said. it does get lonely at the top.

It’s good to have this pushback. You can build a fantastic team. My Thai team and my ex pat team are fantastic. My Thai director, Nat, I’d be lost without her and some of the rest of my Thai team. But still you do need that clash. And sometimes here, culturally, it [00:49:00] takes a bit of work to get that out. And sometimes that is like you were saying about in the Philippines, building your own culture, within your office.

That takes a bit of time. You can break the barriers down, build the trust. And you’re not, I mean it’s important to, to understand, we’re not, we’re not dismissing or saying anything bad about the culture. It’s just, that’s the way it’s done. And it’s very relationship building.

And we’re not, whereas from, our side and the clients we deal with in the UK and Australia, for example, it might be a bit more to the point. And it’s then trying to get that balance so that the team here understand that. And we’re saying, look, we’re not asking you to, we’re not asking you to just completely ignore your culture, but I’m asking you to step out of your comfort zone and challenge me and try and do it this way within the business, because that’s how the business grows. Because our clients are here, and [00:50:00] here. Now when we’re dealing with Thai clients, we sell in a slightly different way than if we’re talking to someone in Australia or the UK. It’s the same service. We’re going to do the same delivery and the same results, but the conversation and the sales process is slightly different. So here, Thailand, it will be more face to face. It will be relationship building and then you start talking. Whereas maybe in Australia, you’re booking in a call and people just want to get to the point. I had an email earlier today. Someone had been referred to me. I gave the lady a call. She was busy.

She called me straight back. I thought I was going to have a 30 minute call to just ask a load of questions about the business. Within five minutes, the conversation had finished. She basically told me everything she needed and said, can you get back to me? And that was it. Whereas here, that’s not going to happen.

We’re going to have meet, we’re going to build a relationship, we’re going to have, we’re going to get to know each other first before we start talking about the [00:51:00] details of what we’re trying to do. And again, exactly the same delivery, exactly the same solution, same services. Slightly different ways to win the business and manage the business with the relationships.

Scott: Yeah, I think that’s really important for people to know when they’re starting to do business here is that you cannot treat your foreign clients the same way that you treat your Thai clients. And as you said, maybe the results are going to be the same, but the way that you work with them is going to be different.

And you’re going to have to know that, you mentioned with marketing, let’s say it’s marketing services. You have to say, guess what? In one case, you might be doing a pitch deck and doing a zoom meeting, but for the Thai local clients, you’re probably going to have to go to an office or they’re going to want to come to your office.

And so I’ve seen some companies that actually said, not that it’s bad to work with the Thai market, but they have actually said, we can’t commit that much time to changing our operations to work in the Thai market. So you’ll have some marketing companies here even that won’t work with Thais, not because they don’t want to, but because they’d have to almost transform a portion of their business [00:52:00] to make that work.

And so I think just go in with your eyes wide open and say, it’s different. It’s a different culture. It’s a different sales process. It’s different client communication potentially, right? And, and you have to adapt to it and it can be beautiful if you make it work. And it sounds like you’ve been able to make it work for both types of businesses.

Stuart: Yeah. So far, which is great. Yeah. But you’re always learning. We’re always changing. And I think that’s another thing as well with business, isn’t it? Just being able to be adaptable, especially if you’re going to be in a different country. Because there’s everything else that goes along with that, yeah.

Scott: Now, do you have any other words of advice to entrepreneurs that are specifically building up those businesses in Thailand? And I know that we’ve talked about a few of them already. Obviously you learned a lot when you, came here and you mentioned you probably made some mistakes, but is there anything you can share either when it comes to recruiting, hiring, team building, team culture.

You mentioned people standing up and speaking up more, which is not [00:53:00] necessarily, built into the typical culture, but I’ve worked with some Thai people that are just great at speaking up now once they found that balance. So I’m curious, any lessons that you’ve learned or advice that you could share?

Stuart: I think that last bit about the barriers and, once they understand that it’s okay within a certain environment, they’re not being disrespectful. They’re actually helping you by challenging you. That’s very important. And that, that then comes back to how you build that group culture, which I do think is very different to what I grew up with in the UK.

In the UK, yes, you’d have friends at work, you might go and have a drink. Here, it’s very, different. It’s, almost like you become a, mini family, if you like. And so the work becomes an extension of your family and becomes part of your friends and family. Family circle. So you have to think about that when you’re thinking about the culture in the office and what kind of incentives you’re trying to put together. Because retaining staff, it can [00:54:00] be difficult.

We’ve done fantastically well. Natt, who I mentioned earlier has been with the company 18, 19 years. And more than half of my staff have been with me over 10 years. So we have fantastic longevity, but you talk to somebody else and they’re like, it was every six months, nine months, 12 months, 18 months, turnover.

So I do think that’s very important. Again, a lot of that will have been just come from us building this family and culture where people want to they’re not looking for that next opportunity because they want the opportunity with you and then it’s your responsibility to provide the opportunity for them so they can grow.

And that can be tough, especially, depending on the size of a business, there might not always be somewhere to go. So I think, always have a think, if you’re going to put all of this together, think about those career paths for your staff. But also think what is your long term [00:55:00] plan?

You asked me before about whether had I thought about starting a business and, yeah, now I have Smart Traffic and smart digital and I have Easson Energy and I’m now I’m thinking, what, is my long, what is my five, 10 year, what am I doing with these? And there’ll be different for each one.

Easson Energy could be whatever that is. Is that an exit? Is that a global domination? What, could it be? And that could be slightly different to what I’m trying to achieve with maybe Smart Traffic and Smart Digital. So I wouldn’t be scared to open a business here. I would be, it’s important to have your eyes wide open when you come in. Find people you can trust, nurture them, look after them, and then have that think about, what is your plan?

Are you just going to run the business forever? Or are you looking to exit? Are you looking to sell, merge, whatever. And I [00:56:00] think for me, they’re the kind of. I didn’t do that. I just went, wow, I wanted to start my own business. Now I’ve got one, I’m just going to keep it going. And that’s had its own challenges.

But so now I’m at the stage where I’m thinking, what is my five, 10 year goal now? I’ve always very much, and not a great way to do it for business, but I’ve always pretty much taken each day as it comes. I’ll plan ahead for a few months. I might think, oh, I want to do this next year. But, I’ve never really thought longer than that, and that really is something I need to think about myself, 3, 5, 10,

And I just wanted to mention one more thing. If you are coming over to Thailand, you are looking to set up a business, get involved in the chambers and then also see how the embassy can, your embassies might be able to help.

Okay. me personally, with all of my businesses, very active in [00:57:00] AustCham. A member of the digital subcommittee there. I’m also helping with the SME, committee. So very, active with AustCham. They have great events like Sundowners. British Chamber, like I mentioned again, BCCT. They, are really supportive.

They have great functions as well. They’re getting a lot busier as much as all the chambers are in the Eastern Seaboard. They also have Phuket events. And then on top of that, your own embassy. So we’ve had fantastic support for Easson Energy from the British Chamber and the Department of International Trade.

They’ve witnessed those MOUs, they’ve created introductions for us, they invite us to events to give us exposure, which is fantastic. And then obviously, the Australian, Embassy as well, very supportive with what we do in Australia. So yeah, definitely, if you’re coming over, have a look at some of the events.

Don’t be afraid, get out there, talk to some people. You’ll make great connections. That’s how we originally spoke face to face, wasn’t it? It was, [00:58:00] at one of the events. So it’s a great way to grow your network and get support for starting your business.

Scott: Yeah. Great piece of advice. I think some people write it off a little bit. They don’t number one, they might not attend a chamber events outside of their own country. And you and I obviously do. And sometimes those can be the best opportunities. And also some people go to an event and they’re handing out business cards and they’re thinking they’re going to get business right away. But I love your story too, because you just mentioned how you have multiple businesses and maybe you didn’t make a lot of deals with some of these, maybe the Australian chamber, because there’s a ton of marketing companies that work in the Australian, chamber.

That can maybe a little more tough, but then you fast forward a few years and that, then those connections that you made at those events now are, obviously helping when it comes to what you’re growing in, Easson Energy. Don’t ever think short term, like the longterm, is where it’s at.

Stuart: It’s all about relationships. And that’s what you get from the chamber. Yeah.

Scott: The one thing I just [00:59:00] want to, to, settle in a little bit. It’s something that you said about the tenure of some employees. The fact that you’ve had people that have worked with you for 10 years, 18 years, that says something. And you made that comparison to some companies that might have a turnover where people are leaving every three months or six months.

And I think that there’s a pattern there because some expats, the forums and stuff can be really negative, but some expats are going to complain about the weather, are going to complain about the heat, they’re going to complain about the speed, they’re going to complain about the traffic, right?

They’re going to complain about everything. And I think they might be forgetting that’s on them, right? If they’re still here and they’re still complaining about the same old things, that’s on them. And then, so the question is if, you have. employees turning every few months and you can complain and say, Oh, Thai people, this or Thai people that, or you could say, hold on.

Maybe you haven’t adapted to Thailand very much, right? You have to, at some point you have to look in the mirror, right? And you have to say, some [01:00:00] companies are able to do it. My company is struggling in this area. Maybe there’s something I can change because this isn’t destined to be this way. There are things in your control.

Would you agree with that?

Stuart: 100%. It’s your choice to come here. You’re not going to change the weather. You’re not going to change the culture. You’re in a different country. You need to adapt. And it’s the same for business. And I think that’s probably one of the quickest lessons you need to learn, which we talked about earlier.

Okay. You might be selling the same service here and overseas, but there’s going to be different ways that you’re going to have to manage the staff and the clients to to achieve that. You’ve got to be adaptable, and again, like you said, yeah you know if you’re here and you’re complaining about the weather and other things like that then maybe you shouldn’t be here.

The weather’s not going to change. The culture is not going to change overnight. But what you can control is the culture within your office. [01:01:00] I’m not saying don’t follow anything you’ve learned in the UK or America, but try and work out what works and what doesn’t and try and get that nice healthy blend.

Don’t be afraid to challenge your staff and try and get them out of their comfort zone and work with them to get them to challenge you. But don’t expect that from day one. You work with the culture, identify the, good employees with the potential. Invest in them. You’re always going to get a fairly high turnover in what I guess we would call rank and file.

And it’s about your management and your senior people that you probably end up investing more time in. And some of those will come from the rank and file and work their way up. I did that. A lot of the guys here and my Thai team, they started in one role and now potentially do something completely different because we identified the skill set.[01:02:00]

Scott: Absolutely. Now, I think I read somewhere that at least one of the businesses that you’re working with or that you own is a board of investment business. Is that right?

Stuart: Yeah, so we’re BOI here for Smart Digital and we’re also BOI for Easson Energy. And there were, the reasons are similar for both. It was to, because of the business we’re in, especially with the marketing, it was, it enabled us If we needed to access to more work permits with a slightly different and a more, I wouldn’t say simpler, but easier process.

Your standard Thai business, I believe is still four Thais for one work permit, handled in a completely different area where we get to go down and deal with the BOI. And depending on how much, initial investment is allows us up to, number of work [01:03:00] permits. As a business, it just, it gives you more comfort and control over your own growth.

So if you’ve got a plan that when this area grows, I need two people here. You already know that you can get those people when you need them. Whereas otherwise you may think, I need to hear that means I’ve got to grow my Thai team first, I’ve then got to do this, I’ve then got to do. So it helps a lot.

There’s lots of, good incentives with being a BOI company. But it’s not simple. It doesn’t, it’s not like anyone can just turn around and do it. That was a conscious choice for us. But for some businesses that, just setting up a, standard Thai businesses is the way to do it. Especially if you have a local Thai partner, because they’ll take the majority share of the business.

Okay.

Scott: Yeah, obviously the work that you’re doing, it is still about investing in Thailand. I know that’s what the Board of Investment cares about. And yeah, so obviously [01:04:00] you’re employing Thais, you’re having an impact on Thai businesses, helping them save energy and things like this. And so you’re helping the Thai economy.

And, so I’m just, but I’m always just curious about the Board of Investment because I know a lot of companies go that direction. There are benefits, as you said. The one stop service work permits, renewals and stuff are easier. But would you say, and you mentioned that it’s not simple, but how would you rate the difficulty of that process, if you were involved at all in that?

Stuart: I was for Easson. I wasn’t for Smart Digital. I believe it was fairly smooth. We didn’t do it all ourselves. We hired, lawyers that helped previously and we helped a company to help facilitate all of the setup and that. I think before jumping in either way, I think you just got to think what is your business going to be?

Is it a business that can qualify for [01:05:00] BOI? And then, what are the benefits of you doing BOI compared to another way? There is, there’s the Eastern Seaboard now. There’s the corridor and the areas they’re doing down there. And there are, other ways to qualify to benefit from that instead of being BOI.

So there’s, there are all these different ways of doing it and opportunities that I think you just have to decide what, works well for you. That works for me, worked for Easson Energy, but for someone else, it might not be what they need. What do you need for your business? And it could be, what do you need at this stage?

Or what do you need for two years? And it could be that you decide to look at BOI in three or four years. and you establish yourself first and then you decide you need it, which is a very similar path again, by the original owners. We weren’t BOI immediately. It’s something that made sense a bit later on for that business.

But for Easson, we decided at the time it made sense for us from day one because there were certain, [01:06:00] exemptions and advantages that It gave us, and that’s why we went down that route.

Scott: I told you I was going to bring back a kind of hard question for you. I’m going to tie two questions together. So first is what sort of things do you do outside of work, that, whether it’s vacation spots or anything like that, that you really enjoy that you could share since you’ve been here for so many years and you understand Thailand so well, but I also want to tie that into, you said it’s hard for you to think of these three and five years. What do you hope is going to come out of these businesses in these years? So how about we push it even further? So now you fast forward to, you’re in your eighties, right? Where do you see yourself there? Are you still running a business until the day you die?

Or are you sipping mojitos somewhere? What’s your, what’s your end goal?

Stuart: Wow. Tune in for episode 2.

I don’t think I can even think that far ahead for 80. I’m 46. I don’t know how [01:07:00] old I look. So that’s nearly double my lifespan again. At 80, I mean by 70, 65, maybe 70, I’d love to, you be involved in different businesses, but maybe at more of a board level, a fractional level.

If I need to get my hands dirty because of circumstances and I do need to still work a bit more than the fractional model, I think would be really, interesting. I don’t think I’d be want to be working full time at that stage or even trying to grow a brand new business. I’d like to be involved in the businesses.

I’d either, I’d love it if Easson was still around and we’re doing different countries and, that I would love, but I don’t think I’d want to be starting a new business at 80 and knowing everything that goes in the background that you have to do. So that would, I think, would be the answer to that one.

Outside of work. Golf, I’m quite interested in [01:08:00] golf. I mean I haven’t played much in the last 12 months previously I was probably playing at least three or four times a month. So I enjoy that side of it I do enjoy a bit of traveling. There’s quite a few places you can drive to that are not too far from Bangkok.

So that’s good to get out. Maybe i’m showing my age and where I come from, but I quite like sitting and having a coffee In a nice cafe, let everyone else do the Instagram and I’ll enjoy, the coffee, yeah.

Scott: Any golf courses that you recommend?

Stuart: Oh, wow. I mean I’ve played quite a few down in Hua Hin. I’ve played a few and up in Bangkok. I’m trying to think now. Probably, It’s difficult. There’s the oldest golf course in Thailand is down in Hua Hin near the railway track and [01:09:00] it’s not we’re not talking like live golf all the greens are shiny, but it’s a great course and it’s just got history. So that for me was a great course because I remember you’d go up to the front line, and then you go in the trees a bit and as you’re coming there’ll just be monkeys everywhere running across the greens and it’s just It had the history side of it.

So I like that. I liked that course. There was another one in Hua Hin called Sea Pines at the time. I think it’s still called Sea Pines. Right on the coast. It was an army green Golf Course, I think, at the time. And again, you play your last few holes and you’re literally just walking down and you could just put, hop over the a little wall and you’re on the beach.

So that, that was really good. And then for, quality and, the, and kinda like condition and that, then of course you’ve got the big ones like Banyan, which I think is now called Pineapple Valley or something and, Black Mountain sorry, Black Mountain is now that, then you’ve got Banyan, [01:10:00] I think.

There’s a lot on it. They cater to everyone. You can go and play some of the army courses really cheaply and have a great time. Or you can spend a lot of money and almost get treated like a, king. if you like, playing golf on the most amazing greens and fairways ever. And then, of course, if you’re playing on those courses, it’s on you if you hit a bad shot because you can’t blame the condition of the course.

Scott: Yeah, absolutely. I think that actually summarizes it quite well because Bangkok and Thailand in general, you’re not short with options, right? There, there’s a, there’s just something for everyone, whether it’s the golf or whether it’s, places to take holiday or it’s, you don’t like the smog, you can live somewhere else, or you don’t like this chamber event, you can go to that chamber event or some other networking event. There’s, tons of options out there.

Stuart: No, definitely.

Scott: To close, things out, I would just love to hear of the [01:11:00] best way to get in touch with you anyone that’s interested in Easson Energy, interested in any marketing. I understand you do some white label as well in the marketing front.

So you want to share the best way to get in touch with you?

Stuart: To directly get in touch with me, possibly go to LinkedIn and search my name. I, think I got lucky and that my actual, URL is Stuart Pollington. So I got quite lucky. I got that first one in. So go to LinkedIn, search for Stuart Pollington. It should come up. You should see my, face. I wouldn’t say hair. I haven’t got any, but you should see my face. You should see the mention in the company. So you can ping me a message on there. I’ll also, Scott will also share my contact details. I’ll, what I’ll probably do is give you the details for all three. If you’re interested in marketing in Australia, you’ve got Smart Traffic. If you’re an agency, Smart Traffic. If you want help with marketing in Thailand or you just want to chat, it’s Smart Digital. And then of course, if you’re serious about reducing your energy costs and reducing CO2, that’s [01:12:00] Easson Energy. And I’m happy to, connect with anyone and talk to if anyone wants to talk, it’s fine. Yeah.

Scott: Perfect. it sounds like maybe even grabbing a cup of coffee since that’s your go to thing to do, right?

Stuart: I don’t mind, I don’t mind a coffee. Yeah, I love a coffee.

Scott: Perfect. Stuart, thank you so much for taking the time today. I really enjoyed it. A lot of lessons learned. So, thanks for joining on this episode.

Stuart: Awesome. Thanks, Scott.

Scott: Well, I hope you enjoyed the episode. A big thank you to Stuart for sharing his Thailand success story with us. If you run a business in Thailand and you’re spending a lot on electricity, definitely reach out to Stuart and his team at Easson Energy to see how they can help. I’ve also included links to Stewart’s digital marketing companies, Smart Traffic, and Smart Digital Group in the show notes.

If you got value out of this episode, please subscribe, share, and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform. I hope you learned something, and I’ll catch you on the next [01:13:00] one.