Shameer Unveils FinTech Growth Strategies For Budget Constrained Times | Shameer Sachdev, Founder & MD at Growth Gorilla

[00:00:00] Hello Shameer. How are you? Welcome to the show. Hi Monica. thank you. Thank you for having me on.

[00:00:05] Monica: I'm really looking forward to this conversation because It is very relevant, given where we are in the fintech space and the macroeconomic climate. We all as fintechers, we have a lot of pressure to deliver, especially when it comes to growth, marketing numbers, acquisition, however, our budget, our traditional marketing budget to go and do all these amazing initiativeshas been reduced. So we need to be more creative. We need to be more resourceful to then still have impact and still drive those numbers, but we without the resources or with less resources. So this is a brilliant conversation. Thank you for joining us. 

[00:00:51] Shammer: Cool, I'm looking forward to it. 

[00:00:54] Monica: Thank you. So first things first, this is a podcast about how we can [00:01:00] build more purpose driven fintechs.

[00:01:02] So what's your take? How do we build more purpose driven?

[00:01:06] Shammer: I thought about this question a lot, and I think boils down to two areas really. For me, the most important thing really is, the diversity piece, I think we need a more diverse range of founders. It's no secret that VCs are heavily invested in and behind.

[00:01:29] Founders who, you know, predominantly male, predominantly white, predominantly middle class, it's not a secret. I think we're all aware of it now. And, I think we can openly discuss it. But I think we're going to create more purposeful fintechs. We need to have a more diverse range of founders because.

[00:01:55] Those founders coming from different backgrounds, different socioeconomic backgrounds, different ethnic groups different genders, et cetera, they're going to be able to surface pain points, challenges, problems that the current FinTech archetype has not ever encountered or come across. Another way to put it is, that, they're going to ask the questions that aren't being asked at the moment. And I think the other thing as well is that, we can probably add onto that and just tack onto that and say it's, not going to be solved by, traditional sort of market research, because if you don't know what questions to ask, you're not going to get the answers that,  needs to be given. So Yeah, for me, I think, If we're going to, if we want to start there and you want the answers in summary it's we, need more diversity from the outset.

[00:02:55] Monica: Yeah, I'd like that, and I'm going to build on that.

[00:02:57] I like that you use the definition of diversity very broadly. It was not like women in FITEC. It was like all sorts of founders is with all sorts of backgrounds. And exactly, like you say, it's not that There's something wrong with the current cohort.

[00:03:15] It's more if we open the set of founders to come from different backgrounds, then the lens. in which they view the world is different. Hence, they start asking different questions. They start seeing problems where the other is given that if they are the same cut, the others may have not seen them. 

[00:03:35] So that's why diversity would bring a different angle.

[00:03:39] And then given that it brings a different angle, then it opens up tons of opportunities, actually.

[00:03:46] Shammer: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, I think we I think there's also, there's other elements to it as well. We've seen some of the most successful companies being founded by women. Look at starting back in the UK talk about female CEOs.

[00:04:06] I think the the former CEO of Pepsi, I can't remember her name now. Indian ethnically, but then obviously female as well. And then a lot of the diverse perspective and ethnically speaking, a lot of the tech firms now in, out in the States have Indian CEOs that are leading them, Satya Nadella at Microsoft and.

[00:04:34] Yeah. So many others as well. So I, think, the, proof has been provided now. And I think VCs just need to have a bit more of an open mind. 

[00:04:46] Monica: Definitely. So let's move on to you as such. So you have this term helping fintechs grow without limits. What does that mean? Can you tell us a little bit about Growth Gorilla and your purpose?

[00:05:02] Shammer: Yeah, of course. If I start a bit, you're talking about a greater bit of first and what we do, and then we get on to helping projects grow without limits. We're a great marketing agency. We've been around for about seven years now. We focus Predominantly in an almost up to recently entirely on the fintech sector, we've opened that up now to financial services, or, perhaps better to say, tech enabled financial services. The lines are getting blurred day by day. And that just started out, started off with the back of my background.

[00:05:42] I was in financial services. I was marketing at a trading platform for a while for about five years. And then I decided that I particularly enjoyed marketing, and then decided to do some consulting, which eventually led into the development of the agency. I  think from a purpose perspective, the reason I always focused on fintech being, begin with It's partly down to my background, which was it was an online trading platform. It was a, an area that I was very, familiar with naturally. But what made it interesting was that the FinTech space, over the last seven years is it's a hotbed of disruption.

[00:06:30] And there's lots and lots of interesting things happening, it's, disrupting everything from, basic technology onboarding KYC. But then also at the same time, it's creating opportunity for, whole array of individuals. And I've we've got some examples of, some of the clients that we've worked with that, that I think, particularly good examples of that, I'll talk about that a little bit later And then yeah helping fintechs to grow without limits.

[00:06:58] I think that's our way of saying to our customers, our clients, our prospects that, we can support them with their growth and not to have a cap on what's achievable.

[00:07:11] Monica: And then just to build on that. Okay. Because exactly, that's a very nice mindset. It's we'll help you grow beyond what you think it's achievable. What was your hypothesis when you started the business? Because there's so many agencies, right? There's so many businesses, whichever it is. So what made you think I'm going to be different, I'm going to help customers in a different way.

[00:07:30] Therefore I'm betting on myself that we'll be able to help them grow.

[00:07:35] Shammer: Yeah, so the hypothesis at the time was, just, was pretty simple I'd left, the, trading platform and, FinTech was not quite a word just yet. It was seven years ago, it was still bubbling around in the background. But. From my perspective, it was more around just helping app based or tech based financial services companies, that had a really simple formula marketing website, online signup journey, and then some sort of app.

[00:08:16] Either way, it's the backend dashboard on the web or a mobile app. That was it, because that wasn't particularly popular at that time. That, that set up now you see it everywhere. You see everywhere from free trade to starling bank to. Everything tech basically has those three ingredients.

[00:08:32] But Yeahlet's bear in mind that when I started working at the, the brokerage, it was a PR event that we launched our app. We were still manually checking KYC. There wasn't Onfido. hadn't Been embedded at all. The applicants were coming in, we will check, put them through world check or whatever, and then we were then going out to them and asking for their, documents and stuff.

[00:09:01] So it was a, it's a really, manual process. I'm, older than I look I I held from back in the days when We were opening client accounts by calling them up and actually receiving paper forms filled out. And then they would have to actually post their passports, and utility bill and all of that sort of stuff.

[00:09:21] So yeah, the hypothesis was just really, simple that, to support those organizations that had that set up and I knew firsthand that there weren't a lot of agencies that were set up for that because. Yeah. Having been on the client side, we had a lot of agencies coming up, we invited in and approached us to, to pitch, to talk about how they can help us in we kept running into, challenges and problems because they hadn't quite a grasped the concept of, trading.

[00:09:57] First and foremost. And then second of all, that time SEO and PPC and that sort of stuff was, a lot more focused around e commerce and, FMCG and stuff like that. It and social media was basically non existent at that point. It's I think, none of our competitors were running campaigns on Instagram and TikTok wasn't even a word that had been had been even thought of just yet. And Yeah.

[00:10:33] I knew there was a bit of a problem there, a bit of an issue there. Yeah.

[00:10:37] decided to just start reaching out to, Yeah.

[00:10:42] FinTech brands and having a conversation and saying look, this is my background.

[00:10:46] I think I can help you. And, it turns out I could. 

[00:10:50] Monica: Yeah, good for you. And it seems like the environment has changed a lot since then, right? Now that you said, yeah, we used to do KYC with paper as such [00:11:00] it feels whoa, that was such a long time ago.

[00:11:04] But then even though technology has changed at a super rapid pace. It seems like the problem statement that we are trying to solve, that it's like helping people have less stress with money and better financial well being, it seems like that hasn't changed, as in improved so much since then.

[00:11:24] On the contrary, like just in the UK, the average person today in 2024, they only have 11, 000 pounds in savings, while 16 percent of people have no savings at all. That is That's like bad, and 25 percent of people only have 200 pounds or less. 

[00:11:45] Shammer: Yeah. 

[00:11:46] Monica: technology has grown, fintechs have grown, but the problem statement has grown as well.

[00:11:53] We haven't solved it that well. this is a very important question. How are [00:12:00] you as Growth Gorilla actually having impact on customers financial lives? Silence. Silence. Silence. 

[00:12:19] Shammer: answer because to a certain degree, we're at we're at the behest of the, industry, right?

[00:12:26] If the entire industry is. You know having an impact then naturally we will have an impact by helping them communicate their message but I think you know the direct impact that we had and I was thinking about this you know prior to recording we worked with you know I about 40 different fintech brands to today It might be a little bit more than that now and the one that always comes to mind is we were working with a [00:13:00] It's a company called Way Home they've got great investors, Anthemis and Augmentum FinTech.

[00:13:08] And it's, the product's about disrupting traditional home ownership. So they call it gradual home ownership. I think the nearest thing akin to it would be something like Helped Buy, but it's actually a little bit better than that. And that, that's a really unusual proposition.

[00:13:29] No one's no one's really been successful at. Disrupting the mortgage market. And the direct impact there was we've supported them with getting over 250 families into homes. that they otherwise wouldn't have been able to purchase via the traditional infrastructure.

[00:13:55] When we look at direct impact, that, that's what you see [00:14:00] was really cool. And we've got the first one the first sort of family in and be like, Oh, okay. It's a really long process buying a property, right? It's not short. And then suddenly 10 to 25 and 50 and yeah, now they're well over a couple of hundred.

[00:14:14] But also things like, for example we worked with a Indonesian based trading app very similar to like free trade of Robin hood, but based out in, in, in Indonesia and out there the, problem is slightly different. You've got either the choice as an investor, you've got the choice of either Indonesian stock market, which is.

[00:14:36] A bit choppy at best and mutual funds, which are the, management fees are ridiculous. We're talking sort of 5 percent plus it's crazy. Here was this app go trade that allowed Indonesian investors to access global markets. For free basically, they did that monetize FX fees, et cetera, and stuff.[00:15:00] 

[00:15:01] There it was it's thousands upon thousands of users and there's as I said, we work with 40 different brands. So there's so many more examples, but all of those things it's I think I did sit down at one point and worked at how many signups we or accounts we've opened across all of our accounts as well into the millions.

[00:15:22] Monica: Oh, 

[00:15:25] Shammer: just to know that we've impacted millions of people, being the conduit and supporting our clients Yeah.

[00:15:32] it's pretty cool actually. 

[00:15:34] Monica: It is. And I was really genuinely looking forward to what you were about to say, because many times we think, Oh, I'm a fintech, I'm a B2B, B2C fintech, right? So it's like the impact is very clear because I have a product with the customer directly. But for everyone who's behind that fintech, supporting that fintech do their jobs, basically, it's sometimes a little bit.

[00:15:59] Not that direct, a little bit ambiguous, a little bit behind the scenes, but it's super cool to be like, yeah, even if we are, part, anyone that is part of the ecosystem is still having impact in people's lives. Therefore, all of us need to think of ourselves as people who are having impact in the main 

[00:16:21] Shammer: Yeah. 

[00:16:22] Monica: solving.

[00:16:23] Shammer: And then you've got you've got, and you've got an active choice as well, right? I don't think, we don't necessarily turn around and say we're only going to work with impact work with FinTech. So we're going to have a material impact. But equally at the same time, we do say we're not going to work with.

[00:16:43] Brands or organizations who frankly speaking, are having a negative impact we think that they especially timing when crypto was really bubbling away and that was a crazy period and we were getting, contacted, [00:17:00] every other day, by the latest platform with the latest, can I say shit coin?

[00:17:08] Is that all right? That, or they wanted to do an ICO or whatever it is. And we we just stayed away from them because it was just it's not something that I want to be involved with. And I think there's a there is an ethical piece behind that. But I think by and large, Yeah.

[00:17:27] if you're working with brands and companies and products that you believe in, and support them, then yeah, you can have a, you can have a material impact. 

[00:17:36] One of the questions that I referred to at the beginning of the conversation was, we fintechs as an industry, we've been around for 8, 10, 12 years, roughly. There is a ton of money that has been invested in the industry.

[00:17:49] Monica: We, we have proof of concept. It's been 10 years. We have some very successful fintechs as such, but like I said the, yes, we have had impact [00:18:00] in customers. Yes, we have, but people still have a ton of stress. When it comes to money, the rising cost of living the layoffs retirement planning, there's still many, pain points.

[00:18:17] So if we continue to have the impact we have today at that rate, by the time we retire, I think we have had an impact, but not massive. So what do you think we need to change in our mindset so that we're like, Hey, in the next five to 10 years time? We have radical impact and we change genuinely, not marginal impact, but we genuinely change the lives of many people because they are financially sound.

[00:18:46] [00:19:00] You

[00:19:02] Shammer: that's what I mean by that is, is that I I think it's all well and good trying to educate your late twenties, early 30 year old and, having a nice friendly tone of voice about, financial products and stuff like that.

[00:19:17] And that's helpful. But that's not going to have a material impact because by that time people's habits have formed, their opinions have formed. And 

[00:19:27] Monica: Yeah. 

[00:19:31] Shammer: money related stuff, then you're not going to be able to influence them that much.

[00:19:39] So you need to go. 

[00:19:42] I think we need to go all the way down to primary school, elementary school, and, teaching financial education and making people financially literate needs to happen, at school, [00:20:00] and they need to understand, the impacts of the decisions that they are making with their money.

[00:20:09] Now, and how that will impact them in the future. They need to understand how taxes work. They need to understand that need to save and they need to understand how investing works. They need to understand risk. I think, on, on, on online or social media platforms I've never used Pythagoras theorem but it would been helpful to work out how tax works and I do think that's a genuine issue.

[00:20:38] Not knowing the difference between a fixed rate and a variable mortgage is just it's not acceptable and it's not the individual's fault. It's frankly, in my view, I think it's the government that has then let people down. So I think, Yeah.

[00:20:53] That needs to happen as grassroots grassroots level.

[00:20:56] I think it's as FinTechers. What can we [00:21:00] do? I think there's probably two things we can do. I think the larger organizations need to lead by example, and they need to get in there and build these programs with schools directly, and help educate young people around money. And, you want some incentive, there's a very good reason why HSBC, Barclays, NatWest have child accounts.

[00:21:25] It's because they know that the lifetime value, once someone signs up, they're going to just it's, for decades. So Monzo, Starling, there's some incentive for you there. The other thing that needs to be doing is working directly with, the government, and having those conversations with them and lobbying them and putting pressure on them in order to do in order to, make it a priority in schools.

[00:21:58] And I think until that happens [00:22:00] then we're not going to see that impact. But then the problem is, that we have to always work out, in these sorts of things whose interest is it in. For people to not be financially educated, and then that's usually the person who's or the individuals or the body that needs to be, highlighted.

[00:22:22] And tasks for doing that. And then, Yeah.

[00:22:25] I think again, it goes back to also that piece around diversity and inclusion as well. If we invest in more diverse founders more diverse range of founders we're going to serve those services problems that we don't know exist, therefore then we're going to have products.

[00:22:43] Features, and all the stuff that goes with that, to support the, the, I would say not the individuals, but perhaps the, communities that have a tendency to, suffer from lack of financial education. And that, yeah that'd be my view in terms of, yeah, if you want to have a 10 times impact that needs to happen.

[00:23:14] Monica: I love that because  especially like now towards the end. You're focusing on the communities as such. So it's not hey, how can we help people save more or we find like financial education only, but it's more of a, hey, what's the impact to the wider community? And then let's identify those communities.

[00:23:35] Maybe we start with that. With that, right? Rather than, Oh, we need to educate all the children. We start with a pilot. Like you could, that's it. Awesome. I want to change the conversation a little bit because of course, if we want to have ton of impact, we need to reach to these people. We need to put our [00:24:00] products and education programs and whatever we're doing in front of people.

[00:24:03] And just like we said at the beginning of the conversation, Resources are very tight at the moment. We do have diversity within the fintechs that we have, right? So we have the unicorns and super hyper growth fintechs, people in between, and the ones that are just getting started. So it's different maturity.

[00:24:27] What do you think are the current trends and challenges that all these FinTech companies are having specifically when it comes to scaling and growth? Hello. 

[00:24:42] Shammer: like you mentioned, obviously budget is a big one. All right. That's the biggest challenge, right? Yeah. There's a lack of budget. And that, that's going to be the, main issue. I think the, other challenges as well is that the landscape has changed as well in the sense that [00:25:00] it's no longer growth at all costs.

[00:25:04] It's now about profitability. That's, that is, that's, what business should have been about from day one, in my view but there's a lot of unlearning that needs to be done. And and I think we're now towards probably I think we're at now towards this end point with.

[00:25:26] This kind of, shock or this, this changing landscape we've reached the point where money started to dry up interest rates started to rise, cost of living, all of that sort of stuff started to happen. And the fintechs, the founders of those fintechs that made those decisions to start cutting costs, focus on profitability, look, they're still here.

[00:25:54] Those that didn't, they're not getting funded, but the ones that are still here, they are going to get funded. So yeah, so there's something I'm learning to do there. 

[00:26:04] I think the other challenges are going to be as well is that, previously, a lot of the traditional financial services companies tried to enter the fintech market and done a bad job of it.

[00:26:15] There weren't there's some real clangers there, not to name any names. But now, they've had time. They've spent money. They've seen what's worked, what hasn't worked. And they're in a pretty favorable position. They've got very, deep pockets. They've got ailing companies that they can acquire to, to, enter a space and there's talent out there that's been let go that they can bring on board.

[00:26:46] I think one of the biggest challenges is going to be for a lot of fintechs is off the incumbents, as they enter the space with new propositions. Good example is [00:27:00] Zinc. I know Wise has been doing their PR and they've been doing a great job of it. But I'm not being funny, HSBC has incredibly deep pockets.

[00:27:12] It's, they're going to be they've got a lot of staying power. 

[00:27:17] Monica: Definitely, just today I wrote, a piece in the newsletter just about that, that it's like, Oh, Hong Kong but, this is not our traditional fintechs as such, but it's more focusing on the blockchain and these are the other, right? So Yeah, Hong Kong bank, what a bank in Hong Kong is doing like first, World first doing this, the other, and then as I was analyzing the piece, I was like, so what's the biggest takeaway here?

[00:27:45] The biggest takeaway here is now the banks are becoming the disruptors because they have a ton of money. The fintechs were trying to survive and then it's like the roles are reversing to

[00:28:00] Shammer: a good, there's a good saying That I like, which is when the center collapses, the periphery becomes the center. And we're, on our way there, but these things go full circle, right? I it's, banks will start to lead the way they'll become the disruptors. And then on the back of that, people will break away and we'll have new companies and all it will start all over again.

[00:28:23] So yeah, so I think those are the biggest challenges for the moment. 

[00:28:26] Monica: cool. Cool. And then. So those are big challenges, right? I'll focus more on the, answer, like the strategy as such. How do we solve those challenges? What's your recipe for growth?

[00:28:40] Shammer: Yeah, no, I think so picking off some of those challenges. 

[00:28:44] I think that if you've got a budget issue, then, I, think I've got some two responses to that. So I think one is that come to terms with it very, quickly. It's not, it's going to be like that for a little while, accept it make your peace.

[00:29:04] And. Align yourself with your, CFO, is now your best friend as a CMO. And I think you've got to do two things there so much as two sort of responses. One is any activity that you're doing, any marketing activity that you're doing. I think you've really got to ask yourself, are we is this going to drive results, tangible results, or are we just doing it for the sake of doing it?

[00:29:33] What is the thinking behind it? Cause we all look, we all get into, to, to. Autopilot sometimes and but it's worthwhile just breaking down all, of the. channels you're focused on and all the activity you're focused on and really interrogating it, seeing and going, what value is this driving?

[00:29:49] Why we do it? If we did half as much, would it have the same impact? And then just really, going through your, strategy piece [00:30:00] your, all your channels that way. And then I think then from that, also thinking about creative and being creative, And then going back to that speaking about just do things for the sake of it, is that ad that you're putting out there?

[00:30:19] Is it going to have cut through? Is that content piece that you're pushing out there? Is it really going to turn heads? And the answer is, if it's not, then just don't do it. You're just wasting time, energy and budget. You're better off doing one piece of activity. That's, amazing and gets eyeballs on your brand, then trying to do five or six things.

[00:30:41] The game is not volume anymore. The game is quite it's the game's not, quantity anymore. The game's quality now. And then the second thing I said about see if becoming the CFO is best friend. I was talking to a CMO on Monday and, I said that one of my clients has cut a deal with a CFO and he started laughing and he said, cut a deal.

[00:31:09] And I was like, yes we carried on talking as he goes I too have cut a deal with my CFO. And it's, a common thing that the senior CMOs are doing. They will come into the CFO and they're saying, look, 

[00:31:33] Shammer: Okay. Cause you, you need to have your CFO on side because he's sitting there or she's sitting there and thinking marketing is an expense. I don't want to spend it. have these fixed costs. You need to demonstrate to your CFO you are a profit center, not a cost to the Silence. 

[00:31:54] And I think if you start doing that, thing about that is, is that you'll become a lot more focused on your numbers as well.

[00:31:59] You can't afford all the unnecessary stuff, and then when you start showing profits, you then have that cash back to then start doing the more interesting, sexy stuff that you wanted to do in the first place. 

[00:32:09] Monica: Yeah. I like that as an approach, because it's very. It reminds me of sales, right? I don't work in sales as such, but it's more like as a salesperson, you're driven by results because basically your income depends on those results. So now we're saying, Hey, us as FinTechers in the product marketing departments, as such, the growth departments, we say, okay, no money, but don't worry, I have enough to go and do my work, show results.

[00:32:41] And then basically, if I have the results as part of the payoff of that is I get some budget to then 

[00:32:48] Shammer: Yeah, 

[00:32:49] Monica: go on the market. 

[00:32:50] So, it's a conversation from no resource to being resourceful. To then start getting traction

[00:33:00] Shammer: yeah, exactly. And look I had a similar deal with my, my CEO when I was client side and that deal stayed in place for the five years I was there and we turned a 300 grand a year budget, 300 grand a year into a couple of million. And my department showed profit year on year, because of that.

[00:33:24] It's, and I think it aligns, the marketing team with the rest of the company then as well. 

[00:33:31] Monica: Yeah, I like that because exactly, because at the end of the day, it's, we need to be online, especially now, like there's no more silos. It needs to be as a company. building on that. So we, okay. finally got budget from the CFO. We made a deal teamwork. And we started acquiring customers. 

[00:33:55] So one of the challenges is.Are we acquiring the right type of customers? Because that is just a symptom of a very important pain point, that is, how do we retain them? Okay.

[00:34:11] Shammer: Okay. So how do we retain them? My, my, my view on retention is, I think, it's really, straightforward to be honest with you. I think it's about providing, impeccable customer service. I think if you're listening that covers a lot of things, maybe customer experience is a better way of terminology, but providing impeccable customer experience from the moment that they touch your brand to signing up to do the KYC piece and getting through onto your platform or whatever, the emails that you then follow up with and send should be, again, should be valuable, should be purposeful, should be helpful.

[00:34:59] The content that you're [00:35:00] then putting out on your socials is it's not just for attracting new customers, but for keeping your existing customers engaged. And again, they should be valuable. They should be purposeful. They should be helpful. And then every contact with your customer service team customer service team is, now, the customer retention team.

[00:35:18] Because in a market where. You've got limited budget and customers are hard to find. You've got to make sure that you're getting the most from your existing customers and pushing up lifetime value. So to me, that's what it's all about. Customer experience. And then I think it's just the usual things of making sure that you're listening to your customers.

[00:35:40] Feedback and then obviously product improvements, et cetera. And I think you can go you can get an add to that. I think once you got that baseline in place and you've got that nailed, I think instead about building out communities. With your existing customers and that creates brand affinity and brand loyalty and kind of all of those good things as well.

[00:36:00] But you need you can't go out there and start building communities and with your customer base if, you're providing a rubbish customer experience, because you're just going to create a stick to be beaten with at that point. Yeah. 

[00:36:15] Monica: You use big words in there that I want to unpack a little. One 

[00:36:20] Shammer: Okay, sorry. 

[00:36:21] Monica: experience, but I think we've covered customer experience as such. But then the other one is brand loyalty because at the end of the day there's, many FinTechs right now. Customers have a lot of choice at the moment and many of them are really good.

[00:36:37] So why should, if both of them are really good, why choose A over B? So part of that in my mind is, there's this brand affinity, brand loyalty plays a big difference. I may be wrong, but I think 

[00:36:53] Shammer: No I think, it does massively, right? I think, in the UK, there's, I think there's some really good examples of brand loyalty in the UK. One example is British Airways, they have a diehard customer base. And, why is that?

[00:37:19] Cause British Airways aligned themselves with the British public by calling themselves British Airways and Virgin tried to disrupt them. And disrupt that position. Yeah, for a while, they haven't taken off their top spot for that. And I think that's kept them in, the market and kept them alive so far today.

[00:37:44] I think that brand loyalty piece is massive for, I think scale ups to, to establish fintechs financial services companies. And I think that then that kind of goes, it circles all the way back to, being purpose driven, being impactful and resonating with your target customers.

[00:38:07] I think that, the. The audiences now that we're trying to acquire, so you're millennials, your Gen Xs and your Gen Zs they're very, different from the boomer generation. 

[00:38:26] Monica: Yeah.

[00:38:27] Shammer: They're very, much focused on a brand's purpose and a brand's impact and does it align with their beliefs and all of that sort of stuff, and, there's an opportunity there to, open up an entire market.

[00:38:43] If you can align your brand with your target customers Beliefs not just their needs and wants 

[00:38:51] Monica: Okay. That opens up a whole new conversation because then now. 

[00:38:57] Shammer: brand marketer, by the way. But I do have a few views 

[00:39:02] Monica M: Yes, but that's cool because then now we're saying, I think it links really well. So that now we're saying, hey, millennials, Z's, they are. They are looking they are having like these introspective view of life as well, and then they are applying that to everything, not everything, but some of the things they consume.

[00:39:27] So also, because of that, we've also seen the race of influencer marketing. And what I find fascinating Fintech specifically. I don't know, like this week I've seen this like at least twice on LinkedIn. Formula One, the future of Fintech. I'm like, what? And now we are Formula One and all these famous people into Fintech, 

[00:39:53] Which is very interesting.

[00:39:56] It's not related to purpose, it's related to something that the audience relates to it's, a really interesting space at the moment. So I think first thing to say is, that FinTech financial services are so far behind on influence marketing. They're almost not even off the start line just yet.

[00:40:29] Consumer goods, fashion, Been doing it for years. It's almost not a, it's almost not even a, point of discussion. But it is in, in, in FinTech and financial services. And why is that? I, it's for a couple of reasons. I think one is down to, regulation, because FinTechs financial services companies have regulatory hoops to jump through.

[00:40:57] There are very, there are a lot of very concerned compliance people on how. How to manage and adopt influencer marketing. But they're definitely warming up to it. We've been offering sort of influencer activity for, over a year now, and the climate has definitely changed within that year.

[00:41:16] It's gone from. We're absolutely not even going to consider this and I'm not going to get it passed by compliance person to yes, we can do it, but we need to take these things into consideration. And I think the second, reason why it's such a thing In In the financial services, FinTech spaces it's, Finfluencers. You don't, really get that in, other, sectors. And Finfluencers are individuals who are talking about offering financial information.

[00:41:55] Not quite financial advice, but financial education and financial information. 

[00:42:05] Shammer: or trying to educate other users on social media about whatever it may be, whether it's pensions or properties or whatever it is, and I think the reason for that is and why we have that in, in, The financial services space in the fintech space is that it's quite simply, there's just a vacuum. And whenever there's a vacuum, it will be filled. And, it will be filled by people who, are, who have some knowledge, now how much knowledge that is varies because there's obviously a quality quality aspect here. And then that goes circles back to what we talked about there being a lack of financial education in schools or whatever it is and stuff.

[00:42:51] So that that's, probably the two sort of core reasons why it's now starting to become very, noticeable these thin filaments of peace [00:43:00] compliance people are now getting, warmed up to the idea. And I think what's interesting and why it's particularly interesting in the FinTech space is acquiring customers is very expensive, in our early days, when we used to work with a lot more sort of startup brands, we tend to work with more sort of scale ups and larger organizations now, but I think there was a huge amount of, let's call it optimism as to what founders markets thought they were going to bring in users for. And I've. I've lost business by, saying the truth. Many a time, just, cause it's just unreasonable. They're just, they're never going to bring customers for a 10 or a user, it's not going to happen.

[00:43:59] It is very, expensive. And the reason for that is, is that financial services is big business. Silence. you're having to compete with the cost of media at their level, not at your level, at their level. So they're doing all of the out of home stuff.

[00:44:24] They're doing all the TV stuff social media, Google search, et cetera. So influencers present a really good opportunity for FinTechs because larger organizations, and I can categorize I can name names here, but think of. All of the large banks that you bank with, ETF providers, they cannot get influencer off the ground.

[00:44:48] They just, struggling to, and they're only able to do it at really, small levels. If they are able to do it, it just doesn't get past the compliance team. I'll tell you offline. Some of the names that I've got, it's a whole list. [00:45:00] You're, slightly smaller financial services companies are more able to do it, but they're entrenched in the ways that they're doing it for.

[00:45:07] But for FinTechs, this presents a great opportunity because it's a great way to get in front of audiences. That's not crowded with incumbents. And I think when you are a challenger and you partner with, one or a handful of creators, influencers, subject matter experts, whatever you wanna call them, and you develop a, long-term relationship with them you, then end up taking affinity with their audience as well.

[00:45:37] And that's the bit That makes it so attractive. Yeah, 

[00:45:41] Monica: is so interesting because like you say it's, filling the gap that we discussed at the beginning and they are having impact because there's, I don't remember the research but lately you've seen this trend of customers are asking for Financial education. And now [00:46:00] the trend in Instagram and TikTok that it's it's cool to say, it has a specific name that I forgot, but it's basically cool to say, no, I don't have enough funds to go to the party.

[00:46:11] It's like open budgeting or yeah, lines. 

[00:46:15] Shammer: the, yeah, it was open budgeting. Yeah.

[00:46:17] that's, the latest one. Yeah,

[00:46:18] Monica: Yeah. 

[00:46:19] Shammer: something that comes up. Was it quite quitting a while back? And then it was rage quitting and then yeah, now it's open budgeting or something like that. Yeah. There's always something like some sort of Yeah. Yeah, money and social media has cultivated that.

[00:46:37] I don't think that's a bad thing at all whatsoever. I think it's a good thing. I I think the only negative about it all is that there's always going to be some bad actors in space. But if I'm honest with you. Every FinTech brand that we've worked with, spoken to about any form of influence marketing at the top of their list, [00:47:00] it's about integrity and that they only want to be aligned with high quality creators.

[00:47:07] And actually if there's any sort of crisis system to this you're, hugely incentivized to, go down the right path because that will be rewarded, several fold. Because brands do want to work with really, credible individuals. 

[00:47:26] Monica: definitely. Cool. So as we are approaching towards the end of the episode. What is the, predominant strategic question that you have in your mind that keeps coming, back in the top of your mind that you're trying to solve?

[00:47:46] Shammer: Yeah. Look we're, an agency. So for me, our business is. Solving problems for clients. And so therefore [00:48:00] the strategic question behind that is what are the problems that clients can't solve for themselves and then how can we solve it for them? That that's, the only thing I see if, right now, spotting a couple of trends at the moment.

[00:48:18] I think influencer is one And then the second thing is really interestingly, it depends. It's interesting to me. But I think the the multitude of, social media platforms, now putting marketing teams under pressure in terms of having to create creative for every single platform.

[00:48:49] I've been looking at that and we've been approached about four or five times in the last six weeks or so, eight weeks or so. So we're building out a product to, to help support that. So I'll be [00:49:00] launching that in the next sort of few weeks. So in, we're in Feb now, so it'll come out in March.

[00:49:06] So yeah, so that that's, the strategic question that I'm asking myself.

[00:49:11] Monica: And that's very important because it comes back to. What we were saying, we don't have big budgets and with big budgets also means we don't have a ton of people to then repurpose all this content across different platforms because each platform has its own specificities. No, it's not just like changing the format.

[00:49:30] There's so much more behind them. Yeah, that's a good one. As we approach towards the end, this is one of my favorite questions. That I ask every single guest. So if we were to think one thing, we've talked about many things now, but if, we were to think one thing in fintech that would have the most impact to customers, staff, and shareholders, what could that be?

[00:49:57] Shammer: I've said it several times. It's, that diversity piece again. I think if you want to have Yeah the most positive impact, I think investors really need to broaden who they're investing in, and then think about what they're investing in. And I think that would be?

[00:50:23] brilliant.

[00:50:25] I don't know if you have more time, you could probably rattle through a whole bunch of FinTech brands that, that are doing amazing things that have a really diverse range of founders. And they're just prime examples of, reasons why we need diversity. 

[00:50:43] Monica: Definitely. And this is full circle because that was the very first topic that we discussed today. It's been a pleasure having you in the show Shamir.

[00:50:56] Shammer: It's been absolutely fantastic being on it. I really enjoyed this [00:51:00] conversation today. 

[00:51:00] Monica : Me too. Thank you. And everyone, see you next week. Ciao