Have you noticed that the equestrian industry is more “boots on the ground” than most other industries you hear about?
Hearing the word “industry” itself might allude to an office building in the downtowns of London or Barcelona.
Yet in our industry, most jobs you know of aren’t in offices, they’re in stables or tack shops.
Leonie Peacock has a clear view of this as the founder and head of Kick On Recruitment, a recruiting agency specializing in hiring sales reps for equestrian brands in the UK.
In this episode, we discuss:
🐴 This episode is brought to you by Pegasus, the first modern event management system that makes it easy to host and run equestrian events. Sign up for early access at www.thepegasus.app.
Be sure to follow Pegasus on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and subscribe to The Oxer, the #1 weekly newsletter for global equestrian industry happenings. 🗞️
Have you noticed that the equestrian industry is more “boots on the ground” than most other industries you hear about?
Hearing the word “industry” itself might allude to an office building in the downtowns of London or Barcelona.
Yet in our industry, most jobs you know of aren’t in offices, they’re in stables or tack shops.
Leonie Peacock has a clear view of this as the founder and head of Kick On Recruitment, a recruiting agency specializing in hiring sales reps for equestrian brands in the UK.
In this episode, we discuss:
🐴 This episode is brought to you by Pegasus, the first modern event management system that makes it easy to host and run equestrian events. Sign up for early access at www.thepegasus.app.
Be sure to follow Pegasus on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and subscribe to The Oxer, the #1 weekly newsletter for global equestrian industry happenings. 🗞️
Here in America the famous thing is the average horse trainer has a flip phone. That's a common expression you'll hear right, they have a flip phone. They don't know. It's not technology. If you go into the hunter-jumper world, they want to pay with a check, they don't want to pay with a credit card, they don't want to use Venmo. There's a lot of super old-school practices in place that are just sticking around due to tradition and just people not wanting to change.
Speaker 2:Hi everyone, my name is Noah Levy and I am the producer of our Pegasus podcast. On today's episode, co-host and Pegasus co-founder Sam Baines sits down with the founder and head of KickOn recruitment, Leone Peacock. Kickon recruitment is a recruiting agency that helps equestrian brands in the United Kingdom hire sales reps. Sam and Leone discuss it all, from how kids' TV shows can bring more people to equestrian to creating a more formal path between our stables and white collar jobs. Alright, let's get into it.
Speaker 1:Alright Leone, thank you very much for joining us today. For our listeners, if you can just give them a quick overview of who you are and what you do, that would be great.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely so. My name's Leone. I founded a company called KickOn Recruitment in 2022. It was specialised in recruiting in the equine industry in the UK for sales, marketing and administration staff.
Speaker 1:Right. So my background actually prior to Pegasus was in many ways, in recruiting, ah, but mine was more in the defence, contracting, space and the tech industry. So when you look at recruiting in the equestrian industry, what exactly does that mean in terms of how is that structured? Are you as a recruiting agency? Are you being employed by companies looking to find staff, or do you go find people and then you're selling them to the companies?
Speaker 3:So, essentially, we are recruited. Well, we are instructed by the business to find staff. We do get candidates that come forward. So we have had recently some chief operating officers that have come forward to us and asked us to represent them and find a role for them. However, we're still, in essence, paid by a business to find them staff. So we always act on behalf of the business rather than a candidate, unless, yeah, there's a situation where a candidate would like us to specifically look for. It might be a particular role or they may feel that we could perhaps get them more money on the salary, but primarily businesses.
Speaker 1:In the UK is it difficult to find because these roles that you mainly feel right, they are sales reps. I believe understand that a lot of them are sales reps yeah, absolutely A marketing and administration yeah. All right. So let's look at the sales rep side, for example. So we look at the sales rep side of things. They're essentially being hired by businesses to go out into the field and sell products. Is that door-to-door sales, or are they going to events and vendering at events? What exactly does that role involve?
Speaker 3:It's a little bit of everything. To be honest. It completely depends on what sales staff you're looking at. So if we take, for example, leatherwork sales, so we do a lot of work with saddle brands to recruit salespeople into those brands. It does involve going to yard to yard. They are invited on. It's not so much I would say old school cold cooling and door knocking, so they are invited on. And yes, there is an element of shows there. Absolutely they do go and represent the brand. They love it, big shows like the London International, those types of shows. So yeah, mainly that.
Speaker 1:So something that I literally just posted on LinkedIn this morning and I was commenting on this idea that I'm not sure what it's like in the UK and I know the UK is a more mature industry in the equestrian space than America. I know America is a bigger market, but you guys have kind of worked out the kinks a little bit better than we have in terms of the professionalization of the industry. But one of the things I was talking about this morning was that the marketing distribution channels is really stunted here in the US. Unlike most industries that will have really successful podcasts that you can advertise through, or really successful newsletters that you can advertise through, or you know sophisticated marketing agencies that you hire, etc.
Speaker 1:In the US, the majority of the distribution channels if you're not currently running your own Instagram account or your Facebook account and using Instagram and Facebook to organically market, then your marketing channels are essentially limited to magazines that still get.
Speaker 1:They still get written, they still get printed, they still get distributed.
Speaker 1:And because of the costs of creating those magazines because it's a physical product that needs to be physically handed out the costs are high, which creates a huge. It hugely stunts the equestrian industry in the sense that if you're a small business, you start a new Shopify store and you haven't got a brick and mortar presence, you're stuck between accounting to start my own Instagram account and grow my own audience, which is hard and time consuming, or I can try and pay $10,000 for a half page spread in a magazine, which either of which are bad options. So this is a very long winded way of me saying the fact that you guys, your bread and butter, it sounds like, is the sales rep roles, and these sales reps, companies in the equestrian space in the UK are literally hiring people, putting them on salary and sending them out on foot to literally go and try and sell location to location to location. Is that a reflection of the fact that, similar to America, in the UK there aren't very good distribution channels for marketing and sales?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I agree with you. I think the equestrian market is so different. When we look at marketing channels and how they get their name out there, I think the UK relies heavily on trade shows, you will find a lot of these companies are at them, which is why the sales reps have to be there, and a lot, believe it or not, the UK is word of mouth as well. The UK is very good on yards for spreading good words about companies. That's why they put these sales reps out there to show jumping dress our jobs, whatever it may be. They go up with their kit, their branded vehicle, they're all in there their uniform, turn up, they do an appointment and that word spreads really quickly.
Speaker 3:On top of that, all of those sales reps have to have their own social media pages for those businesses. So if you take some of the biggest saddle brands, they'll have their own social media and then they'll have their professional social media as well. But yeah, that's what the UK is good for, I suppose. But magazines here are. It's an odd one, I don't really. Yeah, I mean, we've been approached to go in a magazine, but for us it's not. It wouldn't be beneficial, I don't think so.
Speaker 1:are you saying that that existing infrastructure of the magazines and stuff that hangover still also exists in the UK?
Speaker 3:It definitely does. It's not as beneficial I don't think personally as sending a rep round to yards. I think you get the word out quicker, better. It's more efficient, definitely more cost effective to do it that way than to go down the magazine channel route.
Speaker 1:Do you think that that use of that business model of literally sending reps out, do you think that is a symptom of there not being a better option? Or do you think that even if there was better options in the equestrian space in the UK, that is literally just the most effective, best way to guarantee sales, considering the culture of the equestrian industry in the UK?
Speaker 3:Absolutely, I think. If we look at, for example, so one of our sales reps, if we're looking at leather work, some of these saddles start at £2,000, in excess of £2,000. For me, when we've had feedback from customers, they prefer a rep to go out because it's a human being. When you're spending that type of money and we do spend a lot of money on our horses that's facing they bankrupt us every single day. My bank account cries all the time. But when we're spending that level of money, you want the human being there. So to have a sales rep come out, there was one at IR the other day. He did an appointment for one person. That turned into an appointment for five people the following week and His feedback to me was that it's always better to be on site rather than behind a PC Making posts. Get out there and go see them. That's what he said to me and it's worked for him.
Speaker 1:Right, got you, got you. You were saying that in the UK, that their trade shows are quite common there and they're quite successful. Are those trade shows that are run simply for vendors, where equestrians basically come like a fate and they can go around and see all their physical products in one place and pick up sales, or is it a case of these? Are vendor villages attached to main shows?
Speaker 3:So they're mostly vendor villages attached to main shows. When we do, for example, the London International at Christmas time, the shopping is amazing and they do sell a lot of product there. You know, I know the answer people have gone just for the shopping and they haven't watched the show because they want to go and see a Brand that they may not have access to in mainstream tax shops, but they're at the show. So if they go for example, joshua Jones is a great example of that is useful boots that people want to see him in person. So if they go to the shows to buy, them right?
Speaker 1:And do you have any idea how much the shows depend on the vendor villages for that business to make the show profitable? Because I know in the UK spectators at horse shows is much more of a thing than it is here in the US. So do you get the impression I don't know if you've worked with horse shows and the show managers at all but have you ever got the impression that that vendor village experience is kind of crucial to making the show a profitable experience for the show manager, or is it kind of a nice to have?
Speaker 3:I haven't worked with a show manager previously, but I have obviously we've experienced working with some clients how much they spend on having a stand at these shows, and they are extremely expensive. The stands in the UK small stands start from a few thousand pound all the way up if you want bigger stands.
Speaker 3:So I imagine it would play massively into the profit that they make on the shows. But yeah, in the UK we're great as spectators. We love a horse show, we're all there all the time. But yeah, I would imagine it has a huge part to play. I just passed it. I don't know the figures myself.
Speaker 1:Why is that? Why is the UK, as a public, so much more engaged in horse shows than the US or most of the world?
Speaker 3:honestly, I don't, you know. There's just something about getting there and being in the atmosphere, and I think England is obviously a lot smaller than the US, so getting to shows is a lot easier. We have great shopping at shows. We have the Windsor, the Royal Windsor show, the royalties to turn up, people love to see the Queen, or now the King to get involved. A lot We've just got I can't you have to go is one of those. You get sucked into the atmosphere and we all absolutely love it. Brits love horses.
Speaker 1:But like am I right? My assumption on this is that there is a culture when you grow up in the UK which is that a horse show is a great way to get out of the countryside and have a few beers and a few shampas and some nibblies, and they just happen to be something relatively interesting happening.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, we should be going to. That's really what it is. It's just a big social event for ourselves to get together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I know this is unrelated to your business. I'm just kind of fascinated by this. No, one of the big challenges that we have here in the States is that same thing exists here. Right, people go to horse shows. There's drinks available, there's coffee available. It's a nice way to get out of the house. It is a big country but it's also a big population, so it's relatively you can get masses. The problem is that there isn't a history or there isn't an infrastructure in place that makes the average person who knows nothing about horses, to take an interest in horses. Their attitude is why did I go to a horse show and I can go axe throwing on the weekend? You know what I mean. Or why would I go horse to horse show when I can go hunting or whatever it is? So in the UK do you find when you go to the horse shows, are there big swaths of the public who aren't horse people themselves going, because it's just the culture of the country, or is it usually a horse person dragging along non horse people?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's a horse person dragging along non horsey people. My partner will tell you, I do it to him, I make him come along and he has no idea. He can tell you which end is the head and which end is the ass, and that's it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a perfect combination of they're available. It's time outside, it's drinking nibblies, it's relatively entertaining and there's going to be someone who's passionate about horses going to drag you along.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Right? Well, I've got to figure out how we can imitate that in the United States and the rest of the world, right? So coming back to why we're actually your business. So this idea of companies hiring sales reps I always find sales really interesting because sales are always ahead of the game in knowing where the market is going, because they're the ones selling the vision or the project or the dream of what you're buying and why you're buying it, because this is the way the industry is going. So have you noticed anything, in particular, any trends about how the equation industry is changing, from noticing the difference in how the companies are hiring sales rep and deploying them? And if you have noticed any changes, do you have any theories on why those changes are occurring?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think the biggest change I noticed and it was all based on COVID. I mean the market was shifting that way, but primarily COVID here. What I've noticed in the market is brands before were putting all their products through tap shops mainstream tap shops. They were going to shows, as we've already mentioned, when COVID struck and, to be fair, the pattern before was heading this way. But I think COVID excelled it. We shut all the shops and nobody could get anything.
Speaker 3:So these brands then moved to doing their own sales, hiring more sales reps, because the money that they made themselves through direct sales actually increased what they were making through some of these tap shops because the tap shops were closed. So this is why kick on started. There was an increase for want the sales reps to start getting on the phones speaking to people about the products. When COVID lifted, those sales reps were then let loose on the world, as we say, visiting these people at yards etc and selling face to face. That was kind of a turning point for us and, yeah, why kick on was formed. I noticed it to start with. I had a few chats with some friends who also have equestrian businesses and then I started noticing the job openings coming up and I thought this is really interesting. And then, yeah, kick on was born from that.
Speaker 1:That's interesting, right, because if you hadn't told me that detail, my assumption would have been that, covid, the shops were closed, everyone went to an online model and people were selling online and then, when COVID lifted, people stayed online. But the question is in the UK, by the sound, things come into this like pseudo model, which was direct, not online, just no longer through the distribution of the tax shops.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely, I think there was more. There's more money to be done through direct sales than there is distribution. I think it's always the way. We all know that we use tax shops as a distribution platform is great for people. You know companies that are starting out, that some of these bigger brands, like Arius, for example everyone knows their name and, yes, they do go through tax shops. But actually to have salespeople not so much area, but to have salespeople for example, the weather beaters, to go out and build businesses and even to go out to the tax shops that maybe they hadn't been in before, just to get a little bit extra in there. But you still need the salespeople to do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3:Still need those salespeople to approach and that's yeah. That's what we were noticing is primarily they did go online when COVID lifted those salespeople out, they went. The country suffered with during COVID. It was a terrible time, especially financially, because nobody knew what was going on and etc. So it's getting those salespeople out there to build the businesses back up. It's brilliant.
Speaker 1:So what's the repercussions of this? The tax stores are losing, I assume, and all this, and have you noticed that the tax stores are closing down?
Speaker 3:Some of them, I've noticed some of them have. What I've also found is that some of the online stores actually believe it or not. The popped out that became really popular in COVID have also started shutting. So there was one that we used to use all the time and it was huge, absolutely huge, and it's yeah, we got alerted that it was closing down and it was really odd. Not sure, I think, because they do a lot of their own products as well, so they did import a lot of rugs from other places that were cheaper. I wonder if, obviously, importation costs and bits like that one up.
Speaker 3:I wonder if that has a role to play in it. But yeah, some of the tax shops are losing out.
Speaker 1:Right Interesting. We have a online newsletter that we call the OxR, which basically covers business use in the equestrian space, so we focus on the global market. We wrote an article about an article that we read a few months back. That was essentially saying that in the UK you kind of have the opposite problem that we have here in the US, which was that there was an increase in demand for people wanting to participate in equestrian activities but there wasn't enough supply of training facilities boarding barns to meet that demand.
Speaker 1:So first thought for me was okay, this is just a swell from COVID and it'll die back down. And when you said that a lot of these e-commerce stores that popped up during COVID they're now closing, Is it the same thing? Is this the case that demand swelled during COVID because it was an outdoor activity that wasn't restricted, and now that demand's dying down so that the need of people who want to participate in activities is dying down, and now there's more parity between the boarding facilities and the riders and there's not enough room in the market now for all those e-commerce stores. Is that an accurate assessment or is it different?
Speaker 3:I'm going to go back to the data. I released a report in 2019 and they do survey reports to speak about the equestrian market in the UK. So what they found there was actually a decrease in ownership of horses in the UK. I did oddly enough, I used to be an estate agent here, so a retail agent, or I suppose you want to call them.
Speaker 1:So they're about 45, 50,. They get out of horses and they become real estate agents. You've gone the other way.
Speaker 3:See, here in the UK you start out as real estate agents or estate agents here and then you get out of it. There's more money in horses yeah, that's it. We all move over. But yeah, what we were finding here is we lose land. So there's a lot of development and stuff, especially in the southeast where I'm based. Several people will tell you.
Speaker 3:So we used to have this deal. So, like with liveries, we have a couple of different packages. I don't know if it's the same for you guys in America. So we have like DIYs, where you literally just pay for a stable and filled and then you do everything, quite literally do it yourself. And then we have part liveries so they'll muck out et cetera, and then you have full livery where they'll ride. So what we find in here in the southeast is because of the property development situation, where property developers are buying outland, there's been a decrease in horse livery, stables as such and fields. So I wonder if that plays a part in some of the people removing themselves from horse ownership is getting far, far too expensive in some places. A few years ago we used to pay £120 a month to keep a horse that are stable and now you're looking some yards. It's £400 plus the cost of feed, bedding, et cetera has gone up. We do have a cost of living crisis here and unemployment rates are high, so I think that all plays into it.
Speaker 1:Is it more strongly correlated with the fact that everything's going up in price and therefore the horse industry is just one vertical of many industries are being affected, or is it more the driving force that more and more rural lands are being developed that is, reducing the space for equestrian facilities? Less question, and facilities means more demand for less spaces. More demand for less spaces equals higher charge charge, a higher price for that small space.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. I think the two are definitely linked. Prices are going up. We all know that. The cost of everything's going up. If you couple that with the development and all these houses being built, it then pushes the prices up even higher. So I've had friends that have owned horses for years and they've just taken a step back and said, no, I can't afford it anymore, and they've walked away from it. But yeah, it definitely goes hand in hand.
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Speaker 1:Out of interest. Who's winning out of this circumstance? Because you made the comment that some e-commerce stores that popped up during COVID are going away, which is the counter narrative to what is logical. You would think that the brands that popped up with a low physical infrastructure, a low brick and mortar infrastructure, and thrive, would continue to thrive and gain momentum coming out of the pandemic, but a lot of them are going under to fill that space. Does that mean that a lot of your clients who are hiring the sales reps are actually thriving because they're basically picking up those sales?
Speaker 3:Yeah, don't get me wrong, there are some e-commerce places here that have thrived and they'll continue to grow and their business models are great and they do really great things.
Speaker 3:There are obviously some, like I said, that have since come down. I don't know if that is due to the country situation or if that's just their business model. Perhaps they, overly invested, couldn't come back from it. It's a fine line with businesses, as we all know, especially opening new businesses and trying to stay in profit, so it could be either of those things. We don't know. But yeah, I mean, some of the bigger brands definitely are thriving. They've gone from strength to strength. Like I mentioned earlier, joshua Jones is huge here in the UK. We've got some great brands over here that seem to be just gaining momentum. But is that from that situation? I'm not sure. To be honest with you, it could be anything.
Speaker 1:Out of inches. When you say you got some great brands over there in the equestrian business space, I mean I would say here in the States you've got a few big hitters who are in the retail space, such as Ariat, etc. You've got an increasing number of smaller online businesses that are popping up to sell apparel. Some of them are doing okay, but it's not like there's many breakthroughs.
Speaker 1:You've obviously got your supplementary pharmaceutical companies that are always going to do well, and then the majority of people in the equestrian industry over here, businesses that you would qualify as a business that contributes to the equestrian economy, the grand majority of services, businesses in the training, boarding, chiropractor, physio, veterinarian space In the UK. Is that a relatively similar makeup?
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. So. You've got the likes of yeah, like you said, ariat, some of those bigger names that have been around for a number of years. The top riders where sponsored by blah blah blah. A lot of it is for us. It's chiropractors, vets, physios, livery businesses, training centers, those types of places and show grounds as well.
Speaker 1:Those smaller businesses? Are they relatively old school in the way they do things? Is there a lot of tradition and I don't like change. Here in America the famous thing is the average horse trainer has a flip phone. That's a common expression you'll hear right, they have a flip phone. They don't want to adopt technology. If you go into the hunter-jumper world, they want to pay with a check. They don't want to pay with a credit card. They don't want to use Venmo. There's a lot of super old school practices in place that are just sticking around due to tradition and just people not wanting to change. Is it similar in the UK?
Speaker 3:No. I think it's been a while since I've seen a flip phone.
Speaker 1:It is not uncommon to see a trainer with a flip phone here. I don't know where they get them. I don't know how they fix them when they break, but they maintain the device.
Speaker 3:I bet they're easier to fix than the touch phone. That's crazy. I think here we've got a lot of young trainers coming through, a lot of people, livery centres maybe, that are owned for generations, maybe a slight year in an era not quite the 21st century, but everyone else is great. Sadler's come out with their little credit card machines and everyone's social media. Everyone is really up to date with everything. I've come across anyone apart from my old trainer who is Irish and he is dead set in his ways but he didn't have a flip phone given that.
Speaker 3:But yeah, everyone's pretty up to speed.
Speaker 1:Right, you guys are zooming.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 1:Okay, so that's the small businesses, right? So the small businesses are running geo-located and geo-restricted businesses. As far as your industry, when it comes into the larger brands and retail brands, etc. What kind of brands are the most prolific? Is it the apparel brands that's your major export or is it the pharmaceuticals, or what kind of things are really the main hitters?
Speaker 3:Firstly, it depends on the sector. So sales-wise we always do really well with leatherworks, so bridal saddles, those types of manufacturers, and the pharmaceutical side. They tend to be our two main areas for sales reps. Administration marketing that kind of goes over. Definitely apparel, apparel it recruit heavily in administration and marketing, especially marketing, as you can imagine, with all of that online and digital stuff. It is interesting when you look at the verticals and then which sectors they tend to recruit in. It helps us with our business plan very well because we know which way to target. But yeah, it's very almost set.
Speaker 1:Has that resulted in opening up a whole new set of career opportunities for equestrians that want to have, for lack of a better term, a white-collar job? Yeah, that's true. Just to set that up here in the States and obviously this is a sweeping statement and there's always going to be exceptions but here in the States it is very much a general consensus, or not general consensus, just call it a vibe. It's very much a vibe that there isn't really a clear path for a white-collar career in the equestrian space. It's either the businesses that run retail businesses.
Speaker 1:There's few that people think of as a legitimate career choice like, oh, I want to graduate and go work for Ariat, for example. Ariat might be one of a few of those opportunities, but when most people who are equestrians, who love the equestrian industry and they go to college and they get a degree and they graduate, the general mindset is my choice to work with horses is to basically go back and become a groom or to go work at a stable or to ride. There isn't this connection between legitimate professional career and invested in the equestrian passion. It sounds like in the UK, if you guys are more modern and you are hiring in those administration marketing verticals, that there is a more mature perspective of what a career in the industry could be.
Speaker 3:So with stuff like marketing and administration, I think a lot of people that love horses the way we do and that are part of this world when they go to college or university and they do their marketing degrees, they can see a future between the two. We know, obviously, with the equestrian world there is a lot of marketing involved and most of these big companies need administration staff to keep stuff running, or HR. Hr is another sector that we sometimes delve into. Sales isn't that way, and I'll go back to when I was in sales. So before kick on, before my time in technology, when I was an estate agent, I did sales for a number of years and I love horses, absolutely adore them.
Speaker 3:I didn't correlate the two, sales and horses. I didn't think it existed. I wasn't sure what that may look like. So I moved into technology and then, while I was in technology, it kind of came about. I started seeing job postings for sales reps and I was like, oh silly me. You do need sales reps to expand. And now when we talk to candidates, the amount of people we speak to on a daily basis, and they'll bring us and say I want a job, a white collar job with horses, but I don't know what's out there. They have no idea. You know the possibility that are there. It's not spoken about enough, I don't think.
Speaker 1:That would infer to me that there isn't really a formal education infrastructure in place for this. And I say that because we literally had a discussion yesterday with a French woman who has her own business and she came up through the French equestrian industry and one thing she said that was fascinating we actually not said we spent a lot of time talking about it was that in France, to become a horse trainer is a national certification. You have to go through one to two years of training to become a horse trainer, and my gut reaction to this is that the fact that you need a formal qualification to become a horse trainer and you literally cannot become a horse trainer without it you need it to get your insurance there would be less horse trainers because there is this physical commitment and education barred entry. I was completely wrong. She said no, it's the opposite effect, which is because there's a legitimate career path. It de-risks in people's mind the idea that this is a career, and so it results in more horse trainers because it's easier to tell your parents that you're going to go get a diploma than to try and convince your parents I'm not gonna go to university, I'm just gonna go become a horse trainer.
Speaker 1:So it actually results in more horse trainers in the market because it's legitimized, which is a complete opposite to America, which is there's no formal. I mean to be a farrier. There are farrier schools and stuff, but in veterinary, obviously, in chiropractors, but anything that's kind of not a medical space, there's no formal. I mean there are equine degrees but they're like business degrees. So is it kind of the same in the UK, where there isn't really that formal education? Therefore that link for someone who grows up writing goes to university, there isn't that formal link that makes them realize oh, I can specialize in the equestrian business.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's something that lacks here. So don't get me wrong, we do have. So, for example, you can go and do your BHS one, two, three exams or whatever many there are. Now we're talking. It's been a while since I've looked into it, but you can go and do those exams and those exams help you along your teaching career. So if you wanted to become a coach and do that type of thing, it helps. You've also got your equine science degree. So if you're looking at going into nutrition, for example, some of the clients we recruit for you have to. Even if you want to be a sales rep, you have to have an equine science degree. They do not look at you otherwise. So you've got that face, but they're only.
Speaker 3:I would say if you go to a college, that's an agricultural college, they obviously can help you with the path into the equine world because, as we all know, they're linked. So if you go and you do your equine science, they'll help you move for them and whatnot. But if you go to a regular university you wouldn't link the two. I mean marketing. Maybe I mean in your own head. If you love horses and you did a marketing degree, you would probably say, right, at some point I want to move into the equine world. But how you get those, it's not talked about here in the UK at all, especially, like I said, especially in sales, unless you do an equine science degree.
Speaker 1:Here in the States. I always find it fascinating looking at the equestrian industry at large because it's kind of this no man's land as far as the government is concerned. Right, it's not agriculture. It's not agriculture because it's not producing crops. People don't think of it as agriculture. And that's a big thing, because me growing up in Australia, I had lots of friends who went to college who went and did we call it ag echoes, agricultural economics because they're like, yeah, I want to go into the business of agriculture, that's what I'm specializing in. And then a lot of them went and worked for banks and the banks in the bank departments that invested in land and understood the business models of agriculture. But the horse world doesn't really fall under that portfolio, so it kind of gets lost and forgotten in when we talk about these big picture things. Is it kind of the same in the UK where equestrians kind of out on this island by itself?
Speaker 3:Yeah, definitely, I think, unless you're living in this world, as I say in this crazy world that we have.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's very much forgotten about, very much, despite the fact that it's a huge contributor to the economy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah this is the thing, though. I think it's a huge contributor. So I think you know, basically saying that, it was 4.7 billion pounds in the UK that was revenue-wise, that came out in 2019 from the equestrian industry. So it's huge in terms of contributions to the economy. But unless you're a passionate equestrian or you love horses or whatever, you may not own a horse but you love them or you may teach in the university that does that kind of stuff. It's like I've got friends that aren't horsey and they're like didn't realize it was that big.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They just have no idea.
Speaker 3:They don't.
Speaker 1:It's a common thing because we speak to a lot of investors and strategic partners and stuff and you spend a lot of time trying to convince and talk to brands who aren't in the equestrian space and we're like, hey, you guys should really explore the equestrian market as a market that you can sell to. Perfect example is Lululemon here in the US. Why isn't Lululemon trying to sell into the equestrian industry, considering how many people naturally wear Lululemon when doing basic equestrian things? It's just a natural market, but they don't think that way. But the thing that does fascinate me, as you said, is you spend. People are like is the equestrian industry really that big? And the reason most people think that, I think, is because it doesn't take place in metropolitan centers. So people who exist in metropolitan centers, who usually have the budget, who usually have their hands on the strings, they don't see it, so they don't believe it exists. And I said, no, it exists, it's just not here, it's out there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, you actually have to go outside and have a look. Yeah no, absolutely it's the same here. Polo's a great industry. Here it's really busy, especially with my time in technology. The amount of Polo batches we went to with business owners that have no idea about well, they go for the social and to meet some partners and whatever it may be. It was just, yeah, it was fascinating. I was like how did you not know?
Speaker 3:Like show jumping dress art, something other than Polo and racing. There's more sides to the equestrian world than this and they're like is that, didn't know, didn't know? You can jump over poles and it's a sport I'm like, oh.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a huge disconnect. So on that note that disconnect, one of the things that we harp on about a lot here at Pegasus is and I think that continues to amaze me is the lack of content available that tailors to the equestrian industry. My sister's got four kids under the age of six or something like that. I should know what that top age is, but it's like six or something.
Speaker 3:I should know, I think.
Speaker 1:Forgive me, she lives on the other side of the world so I think I'm forgiven a little bit. Oh yeah, but watching her with kids for the first time in my life, I've been exposed to how much money and effort parents spend trying to entertain kids. It's like holy shit, how do I stop this house from burning down for three hours so I can wear them out and I can come home and I might be able to sit down for 20 minutes and have a cup of tea. You know what I mean Like.
Speaker 1:And so you take that reality that a huge portion of the population is dealing with and then you combine it with the reality that little girls some little boys, but majority of the little girls have this primitive, hard, wide obsession with horses at a young age. And then you combine that with the fact that it's never been easier to create and distribute entertaining content, and there's so many examples of shows like Bluey and Pepper Pig, who have proven that you can create a multi-billion dollar company based off just making stuff and putting it on YouTube. It baffles me that there isn't so much horse content on YouTube. Let's sit down, little kids, and be like, yeah, just watch this, and just they obsess over it In the UK that doesn't exist in America. Have you seen in the media space any rumblings of more content coming out to feed the question industry, or is it just as lacking as it is here in the US?
Speaker 3:It is lacking. When I was younger I remember every week we used to tune in. My sisters and I all horse mad and we used to get our friends into it. We used to tune in to watch a thing called the Saddle Club, loved it. It was huge here in the UK, we loved it and it disappeared. And now I tell so my niece is horse mad as well and I tell her about it and she's like there's no shows, absolutely nothing, that they can watch. She YouTube everything and she watches trainers do training videos on the young horses, just so she can watch a horse.
Speaker 1:Have some connection, Crazy right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, she's only eight. She knows more about horse training than I do Just from those videos.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, wild, yeah, so it's the exact same thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's fascinating, isn't it Right?
Speaker 1:So, because we've been speaking for a while now, I just want to come back to one last thing, actually two last things.
Speaker 1:First one is you made them mentioned earlier that a lot of these sales reps won't get hired unless they're doing equal science degree. So one of the things that we constantly debate here, pegasus, is, when we're looking to hire staff is are you best off getting someone who is a equestrian first and then teaching them the hard skills that you need to do the job, or is it better if someone has the hard skills and then trying to teach them the equestrian industry? So, running a recruitment company where your job is to find the people to fill these roles one it seems like the businesses there believe get the equestrian first, then teach them the hard skills and, as you, having sat on top of the industry and seen it all go, do you agree with that sentiment? Or are you finding that there is a world in which you can take again excellent salesman, for example, who comes out of maybe London, who's been ripping at three years, and then teach them the equestrian industry and let them go, of course?
Speaker 3:No. So the sector that I find looks at degrees is the nutrition side, just because of, as you can imagine, there's a lot of science behind it. It's like the rest of them. They absolutely love just equestrian people who are passionate. For me, you can't teach sales into someone, but really I've always believed in this and it was ever since I had my first mentor. He always said to me you can't tell something that you're not passionate about. So we always look for equestrian people. They might have sales background from equestrian markets but we look for thorough and through equestrian people. Absolutely.
Speaker 3:Bonkers love their horses because if you give them saddles or bridles or rugs or Boots riding boots they will tell they will learn everything that you they need to know about that boot, what zipper it uses, how many notches are in the zipper, because they're so passionate about it. And when they go to meet these people, that passion just splurges out and you can see people buy from people. I'm old school and believe in that. People buy from people and they want passionate people. They don't want some random sales dude who was selling stocks in London to turn up at they big show jumping Yard or dress our yard. Do you want to buy some boots or something they want. You know the girl or the guy that's been riding since they were young and they know what's going on in the industry at the moment and they can have a chat about the horses. And then the sales come in.
Speaker 3:You know, I went out with one of the saddle reps that we placed recently and she went. They spoke about horses the whole time. I think that we were there for about two hours, literally an hour and a half. They were just talking about the horses and what was going on in the British show, jumping world, and then the last half now Is she's like right, should we have a look at some saddles then?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:You couldn't put a normal human being that hasn't been around a horse in that situation right because they'd be like what are you talking about?
Speaker 1:So, when you're finding these people, do you go on LinkedIn, do you go on Facebook groups and Find them in Facebook groups? Or do you go on LinkedIn and look for someone who's got sales experience but then, in their interest, is like, oh, they're also part of the beta group. Yeah, how do you like to find them?
Speaker 3:So a few different avenues. So we do a lot on social media. We tend to have a lot of candidates that come to us that want to go on our books. So we do reach out to those candidates fast because normally they're pestering me every week to see if something's coming on, which is great because it shows every passionate about finding something that they love. But yeah, absolutely we use LinkedIn, we use social media tools. There's also CV databases here in the UK. So as a recruiter we pay for a subscription and we're able to access those databases. So one of them, for example it's really big in the UK.
Speaker 3:People candidates will go on, they'll upload their CV. They'll kind of give a rough indication as to what they're looking for. When we log on, I can go in and go right, I want someone with sales. So you know you can type in the sales and then you put and horse and it'll bring up everything. Everyone in that area that's got sales and horse ring on their CV and then it's our job to literally just go through and make sure that the people that were speaking to can do the job that we need them to do. Obviously, more more senior roles involves a lot more headhunting. So director levels and bits like that. But yeah, for the mainstream sales admin, marketing people, that's how we do it.
Speaker 1:Are the Facebook groups in the UK in the question space as huge and active as they are here and that is tumultuous as they are here?
Speaker 3:I think you know what I think coursey people were. Just, we're just weird people. I've turned, you know, obviously on Facebook when you join you can have your notifications on and I made the stupid mistake of leaving it on. So our business pages. We're in a lot of groups because we advertise roles on there and different things, and I think one day I came down and this is not a joke to it was something like 5000 notifications.
Speaker 3:Wow and I was like right. Firstly, who left the notifications on? Secondly, like what has happened has a well blown up that no horse people love talking to horse people about everything. So it is lovely, social media is a great place.
Speaker 1:Here sounds like it's pretty similar to the states. All right. So last question and this is a big picture question so I'm Australian, I live in the States, I've never lived in the UK, I've never actually been to the UK. I'm going in a month or so for my first time ever with Brexit. What is the question? Industry in the UK's relationship with the rest of Europe. My completely non-educated hunch would be that you guys actually would have a relationship with the industry in Europe and if a company has sales reps in the UK, they're likely got offices and sales reps in Europe and they view the UK as part of the European market and the European sales targets and all the. Are they inextricably linked or does the UK kind of operate independently?
Speaker 3:So I can speak on, obviously, behalf of the companies that we work with, because we get good insights how their sales operations work. They really bring us in as part of the team to it so we're able to find the right people. But a lot of the time the UK operates as its own, so a lot of the clients that we have it runs on its own budget profit side, everything like that. Some of the saddle brands that we have are actually based in France, so they do have obviously there is some relationship there with trying to get especially stuff imported. Obviously fees and bits like that have gone up.
Speaker 3:But yeah, I mean it's a tricky one on the competition side. Obviously everyone travels, so I'm not sure in terms of what effect it had as such with Brexit. I mean we've come in slightly later, I say, to the game to do it, but we never get a real insight into that side of things. We do hear our clients moan about it, which is fine they're entitled to as fees of going up and bits like that, but we don't have a real overview as to what it looks like internally. We just hear of the headaches that it has caused with importation, especially some of these bigger saddle brands that their warehouses are in France or Italy or so much. To try to get everything over is just, as they say, a pain in the heart.
Speaker 1:So is it fair to say that they might be logistically linked, but from a sales Perspective the UK is very much considered like its own independent market.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely yeah right and so I lie.
Speaker 1:One last question have you seen at all that many of your clients in the UK are starting to think about opportunities in Asia? So China, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia is that at all on their radar? Have you come across that at all?
Speaker 3:No, not personally. I've had a few companies in India reach out that want to move to the UK. So, they were looking for just an insight as to start in the UK market and what they may look like. Repruitment wise, but nothing. The other way around right.
Speaker 1:And what about the US? How does the UK market look at the US market?
Speaker 3:Is it? It's an interesting one because a lot of the businesses that we deal with a bigger one. So, like Aryan and people like that they're in the.
Speaker 3:US as well, but some of them to some of our saddle brands are quite large here and not so much in the US. I think it is a market that they want to delve into. There's been conversations around it, but see the time scales and things like that, I'm not sure on how they're gonna play. That is always difficult. I think if you're big here in the UK and you move to the US and vice versa, if you're big in the US and you move to the UK, it's taking that big leap into the big pond.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah yeah, and trying to make it successful.
Speaker 1:The reason I ask is so as an Australian living in the States I often have this conversation with Americans, not just in the equestrian industry but across every single part of life is that Americans are always underestimate how much the rest of the world, for better or for worse, believes in the myth of America, the idea of you're going into the American market. You're like well, if I'm going into the American market, I just assume there's probably 10 big bad competitors in the American market. I assume that they're on top of it. They're on top of everything. They seem to lead the way in a lot of things, especially when it comes to business and their capital structures.
Speaker 1:If I'm gonna go into America, I am going into busy waters and the equestrian industry. While it does have a lot of players, there's a lot of room and opportunity, but pretty much every, every international company that I see in the equestrian space coming into the US market, they dip their toe in, even though I know there's an opportunity here and they could kill it. They hire one sales rep and that one person just goes show-to-show and tries to stick together some partnerships. But it's a very half-a-tempt and I'm wondering whether it's a case of if they are limited by that, this, just this belief of what's not worth investing much because we're probably gonna lose Because America, not because that company, that company, just because like America.
Speaker 3:America In general. No, I think you're right. I've seen it coming back into the equestrian market with other industries. I worked for a tech company for a long time that moved over there to do tech. They put two people in America, that was it and they went. You literally they said to them you the sink or swim. Yeah and if you swim, we'll send some more out. It's the same, yeah, exactly the same, with the equestrian market. I think it's that fear that if they invest too much in it, go south Because it's America.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, it's like come back. So yeah, they just don't send. Yeah, one or two out there and that's it. It's yeah.
Speaker 3:We've had an American company actually moved to the UK recently that do the hydrotherapy chambers that the athletes have Big in the US, really big, especially in the racing lot up. Yet and they've come here and they've literally got one person because they're petrified of it and he said we've expanded that sales team for them and now that it's looking really healthy. But when we asked them, why'd you come over with what? And he was like well, what if it fails, then we've invested loads of money in and it's failed.
Speaker 1:Do American businesses move to the UK and succeed in the equestrian space?
Speaker 3:I think the equestrian space is so small here there's always opportunities and the British people we love unless they will, we love Anything equestrian, so I think there is openings here if someone was to move over. Haven't seen other than, obviously, the company that we're working with. I haven't personally seen it where they just Exploded onto the scene and everyone's like, oh my god, it does take a while to build up, but it's the same as the companies that we work with that were based in France. They moved to the UK to expand and it's taken them a long time to get here. Now they're some of the biggest names in sporting equipment over in the equestrian market. So just takes time, I think, but there's definitely Opportunity. Come over.
Speaker 1:That's been amazing. Thank you very much for your time today. For those who are listening, where can they find you? We're getting in contact with you. What are your channels?
Speaker 3:So get in touch with us. We have our website, so it's wwwkickonrecruitmentcouk, so very easy. Facebook, linkedin and Instagram are on all of those. So yeah, definitely get in touch.
Speaker 1:Fantastic. Well, thank you very much and, as I said, I'm gonna be in the UK next month, so if you're around, maybe we'll catch up.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, definitely definitely. That sounds good All right Take care.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for listening to the latest episode of the Pegasus podcast. As you heard from our mid-roll, we are also releasing an equestrian event management software platform. Now it's easier than ever to post, sign up and sponsor for any equestrian event in the world, thanks to all the features of the Pegasus app. To sign up, go to our homepage at wwwthepegasusapp. That is wwwthepegasusapp. See you next time.