Jaimie Abbott: Well, my guest today is Kylie Pengelly Linke. And growing up on a farm in rural South Australia, Kylie always had lofty dreams of the places that she would go and the things that she would do. She set out on an entrepreneur entrepreneurial path, wanting to experience everything on offer. When people called her a dreamer, she took it as the ultimate compliment. A rebel with a cause. Hers was on making those dreams come true. In 2012, after running her first business coaching and writing business for three years, Kylie wanted to test the digital nomad lifestyle. So she packed a suitcase, put the rest of her stuff in storage, rented out her house and travelled the world for a couple of years. Hospitality has been in her blood since her first waitressing job out of school. So Kylie's next adventure, was to make her biggest, most audacious dream of 20 plus years become a reality. Opening an authentic Aussie pub in Stockholm, Sweden as you do. And she did in 2018. Moving back to Australia in 2023, Kylie has now jumped back into business coaching with a renewed resilience gained from surviving the pandemic in hospitality business. Kylie is focused on helping time poor hospitality business owners break free from the daily grind to create profitable events, unforgettable customer experiences and a thriving business. Welcome to the podcast, Kylie Pengelly Linke.
Kylie Pengelli Linke: Thank you. It's funny hearing that or come back to me.
Jaimie Abbott: Yeah, I mean, gosh, so many Questions just from that intro alone. But before I take you way back, the thing that stood out there was Covid and the hospitality industry. Gosh, it feels like so long ago now, but also at the same time, it feels like just yesterday. how was that? And, you know, did you sort of gang, did you have your pub, Will you move back to Australia a couple of years after that? So you had your pub in Sweden all through the pandemic, I assume from 2018 up until you move back to 2023, is that right? And then how was that?
Kylie Pengelli Linke: yeah, well, so we've been open one year, when Covid hit. So I was kind of excited because, like, January, I could start comparing numbers from year one to year two and I was like, wow, we've increased 20%, you know, cusers coming in, it's fantastic. And then February and then it just died. So when the Swedish, Prime Minister, announced, you know, stay home, work from home, do all the right things, don't, you know, touch anyone or whatever, all those things on that was a Friday, on that Monday, I had one customer and I went, oh, my goodness, what's going to happen here? So, yeah, it was quite crazy. We were a little bit. Sweden went a little bit different way. I don't know if you remember hearing about Sweden's way of doing things, but they didn't go for the full lockdown. masks were only a recommendation. but the only thing that they could do was affect what they call the alcohol law in Sweden, which was me. so they shut us at 8:30, which, you know, nobody wants to go to the pub. But when you ve got to go home by 8:30, plus there was all the distancing, you know, one metre distancing rule. So that kind of, made the amount of people that we could have, you know, less, obviously. So whilst we didn't have all the lockdowns and issues that perhaps people had in Australia or hospitality businesses had in Australia, we still just didn't have the customers because they were told to stay home. And Swedes are fairly, What's the word? they listened to their government fairly nicely and they stayed home, like. So, yeah, it was a hugely difficult time, you know, going through having to put off your staff, trying, to work out how to make money. just, I guess, if I tried to take positive out of anything. And the thing that I took out of the pandemic was just being able to pivot, come up with ideas, throw stuff at a wall and see what sticks a little bit and just keep moving forward and focus, you know, on the. How do we, you know, the goal which was I changed my business plan in April 2020 to survive Covid. That was it. So everything was like, on that, you know, survived Covid line. So.
Jaimie Abbott: Oh wow. I mean, first of all, I'm happy to put my hand up to go home by 8:30 in my Nano years. As I say. No, no, I certainly don't go out as late as I used to. But I mean you're saying 2022, that was part of the business plan. But obviously in 2020s when Covid.
Kylie Pengelli Linke: Oh, sorry, I meant 2020.
Jaimie Abbott: I was gonna say. Wow. Yeah, took. So I guess we're talking about different ways to make money and how to pivot and all that sort of stuff. What did you learn? I mean obviously this is something that you share with business owners now and it was desperate times then. But did you kind of learn, wow, we'd been wasting a lot of our money in the past and we should have been smarter. What are some of the key lessons learned during that time?
Kylie Pengelli Linke: I think that was the major thing is just cut out all the unnecessary spend. Like I had, for example, you know, when you're dealing with food and not so many customers, you don't need your rubbish picked up as often. So that was a math. It sounds like a silly little thing, but just things like that are we, you know, maximizising all of those type of services. So we went back from, you know, three times a week to once a week. Cause we didn't need any, know, pickup. And that saved us a lot of money. Also just looking at you know, our website, we had another, we were like dealing with another company that we had a website with. It's sort of like a TripAdvisor type company, that you paid them a fee. And I was like, I can do is myself. So everywhere. and you know, a lot of business owners are fairly entrepreneurial and can do everything themselves. They've got to a point where their outsource and it was actually taking back a lot of stuff that I could do that still enabled me to do the things that I needed to do. But I did actually bring on a part time, administrative person to just help me with data entry. Cause that was just taking way too much time that I could have been spending on money making things. So it was sort of funny cutting costs one place but spending money another place so that I could make more money, doing Things. So. And I mean, one of the major things that I actually did. I'mlucky. Thank God for my mother and my grandmothers who taught me how to cook. so I actually took on all the cooking, role, and then started making, you know, Aussie pies and sausage rolls and selling them frozen because all these people were sitting at home and needed food to eat for lunch and they went later go out. So I had this customer base and I just sent out an email, I just got all these orders. So that was sort of an, income stream that kept me going.
Jaimie Abbott: I mean, that's interesting. And I kind of do. Even though I'm not in hospitality, I do really resonate with that. So I've been in online business now for a couple of years, three years I think, to be exact, and it feels like longer than that, but I think it's, I made a lot of money very quickly. I sold my Paid to Speak course, of which I should mention, you are, one of the Pay to Speak alumni, which is incredible. And, and it's an honour that you invested in my course. But when I first started, I just did really well my first course, 33k, 44k. And before I knew it, I went from zero to over 100 grand in my first year of online business. But what I did then was I spent. So I joined a $30,000 mastermind then on top of all these other memberships and subscriptions and the more money I earned, the more I spent. Right. and I really have had to learn the hard way. Wow. It's not how much you earn, it's how much you, you know, your profit, not just you could earn 100,000 doars, but spend 110 do easily. And so do you think that that is something that even though we're not in Covid now and pubs are open later and we don't have to social distance, much of my friends discussed who just told me this morning she got a cold sore from kissing a kissing pub a couple of days ago. We had to just mention that, social distancing meant no cold sores from kissing blokes in pubs.
Kylie Pengelli Linke: Other things I.
Jaimie Abbott: That we're not in that desperate time though. Do you think that you still kind of che treat it and you encourage pub owners to think that we kind of are. Every dollar counts and it is all about the profit. Is that kind of what it taught you?
Kylie Pengelli Linke: It is. And it sort of teaches you that, you know, tomorrow is not a given. Like, you know, when you go from having a full house and people waiting to get tables one week and then you get one customer buying one beer for what would be what, 10 bucks at the time. and you have overheads, you sort of go, oh, this is a little scary. So I think, yeah, it's about future proofing your business, for whatever. Because I tell you what, if I had a crystal ball and it said there's going to be a global pandemic, I never would have moved to Sweden and open a pub, you know, like that. But you know, you don't have that foright. And right now, at the moment hospitality is going through still a hard time. And I just saw an article in the Australia, the advertiser here in South Australia that said, the pandemic was a breeze compared to this. And I think that's the thing at the moment, people don't go out the same way they used to. after the pandemic people like you say, kind of like the distancing thing, they don't mind'in a few people that don't want to get all excited with everybody getting cold sores. and I live in a rural community here too and I've just noticed since we moved back, like the local pub used to be pumping until you know, 12, 1 o'clock on a Friday and Saturday, it's dead by nine so people aren't going out. So you have to come up with new ways of cap captivating their dollar when they're there. and I think, yeah, that's what I pass on now is you have to actually be an ideas generating machine and you also need to talk to your customers and see what they want. because I mean that's what I did with know my customers and having an email list like online businesses do. I think that's the other thing that bricks and mortar businesses and hospitality businesses as well are not great at is nurturing their or capturing their customers details so they can talk to them and tell them what's going on and it doesn't mean bombarding with, you know, we've got a sale on or anything can. It can be informational and educational as well. But yeah, it's actually asking your customers and listening what do they want. I saw a pub here in Adelaide that ended up just recently starting a book club. Cause all the girls are, you know, having their wines at home, having a book club. Why not invite them to your place and do it for them? Smart, smart ye the little things like that. I Think it's all about the ideas. And I'm great at ideas, I have to say. Like, I mean, some of them are like, people go, no, that would never work. But, until you start throwing things out there and you know, one's going to stick and go, oh, yeah, that works for us or our community or where we are.
Jaimie Abbott: So, yeah, I'll come back to the ideas in a moment. But, you're right, some people do it really well. I know you don't work, like, you're not focused on cafe owners, but it's similar if you're a pub. There's a cafe here in Newcastle called House of Rose and they sell like iced coffees. They've got the special machine where you put the, aluminium, like seal, ah, they put that on there so they custom make the drink. But they're incredible social media. So two things they do well that just stand out to me and I've only just got onto the business in the last month or so. Whenever you tag them on Instagram, like if you're holding up one of their iced coffees, they will always reshare it. So you go to their, post their feed every day. Every story is just a reshe. Every single person that day who has shared them. One other thing they did, which is so smart, they did one of those name games, know boost dues. They'll say, if your name's Kylie, you get a free drink today. And I had engaged with them and gone there once and posted and tagged them, so I guess I was familiar to them. They did a name game over the summer holidays. It was about the 3rd of January and Jamie was one of the names. Jamie's never one of the names. They messaged me on Instagram and said, it's all about you today, Jamie. come in and get a free coffee now. I was up the coast, up in the north coast in Noss harbour, and I said, oh, no, I'm actually not in Newcastle today. And they said, no. ###ries we've got you. Come back in when you're back to Newcastle, show this message and the coffee is on us. Did someone who does marketing so well. And of course now I'm talking about it on the pod. I'm telling everyone about it. I'm going back there all the time. and so I think that some people just really get it. So what sort of ideas, apart from things like that, apart from the book club? I don't want you to give away all your tools of trade for Free on this podcast. But what are some ideas that you've seen that can work really, really well?
Kylie Pengelli Linke: I think, if we go to say, pubs and restaurants where food obviously is one of their great, products that they going to sell. So, partnering with local, other local businesses or like, I'm just at the doorstep of the Clair Valley. So we've got beautiful wines here. So, you know, working with a winemaker that's close by, or maybe you've got a food artisan that your chef can work with and either putting on a special dinner or doing a cooking inst. A demo because, you know, it's something different. People, oh, that could be fun. Or teaching people how to cook. there's wine tasting events you could do, like specific to seasons. So if we, I mean we're coming into autumn, winter now, so you're probably looking more at your red wines. But it. Spring'd be a. Called ro, you know, a bouquet of rose, all those sorts of things. I mean, Valentine's Day, you can bank on different, things there. I think. I think that's the thing that is for me what pubs and restaurants need to do is, you know, they'll get their general customers that come. doing stuff like that is just brilliant. It's like making you want to make your customers feel like they're VIPs and, you know, whether they are or not, whether they come once a week or once a month, you know. But try knowing who they are, remembering their name, using all your systems. Like, if you find out who they are, put their name in their, you know, system and have that all day. Like the know or the. Whichever one. So you've got. It's nothing better to go into a pub and they go, I'll get you your regular. You're like, oh, they remembered me. You know, I mean, I used to do that in Sweden. Like I only sold Australian wine only, never anything else. And I was a bit parochially South Australia because I only had South Australia wine. But, I, you know, because I was in Sweden, if you wanted to buy, something special, you'd have to buy a lot of it. So I would often just, find some, a few bottles of different ones that weren't on my wine list. And then when I had a customer who was likeh, I'm not sure I really love, you know, this type of wine, I'm like, just a moment, I'll just go into my personal CE Selllar and grab you one of my bottles. And I had them there for that, but they felt like I'd made them the most special person in the world because I went to my personalllar to get them, you know, a bottle of wine. So it's those types of small details that it doesn't take much to create this, surprise and delight. As I say, you know, moments for customers where like you, you're going to tell everyone about the ca you just told me. You know, you say, but that's what you want is you want raving fans. People are going to tell everyone else. So, and bring their friends, you know.
Jaimie Abbott: Wow. And so when you go into a business, then know you do some consulting as well as speaking. And by the way, just a side note, I get pitched to all the time for my podcast people. Probably. Yeah, sometimes a couple of times a day. all over the world, people wanting to go on my podcast. And it is something I offer exclusively to PR club members only. So they're guaranteed they can come on. But your pitch just hit the bar. Right. And that's a great lesson that you put yourself out there with a really clear pitch, but what value you can offer customers. And you're going to get speaking gigs. So I can just see the value you're going to bring on stages, talking to people in the hospitality industry, bar and restaurant owners. If you go into someone's business for a consulting or a coaching session, do you kind of look at all the things they're doing, ask them what's working and give them tailored sort of marketing ideas? Is that how you work?
Kylie Pengelli Linke: Yeah, so I do, I liked. Yeah. The best ways to go there because then you see what you can. I can see from the customer point of you, like if you walk into it. I'm sure you feel the same way. If you walk into a restaurant or bar and you're not sure, should I be seated? Should I seat myself? Like, where do I go? If, if a customer is confused from the moment they walk in in, they're going to want to walk out. So you want to make it this really inviting, you know, obvious you go to the bar or you can sit wherever you want or you have the please wait to be seated sign or whatever it is. and so going there for me is the best, you know, thing to help them with that type of making their customer experience, which is what I'm super excited about helping people with, really great for them. And that of course brings them back to bringing more customers in. And all the things that you, said about, you know, making you feel welcome and wanting to go there. But I also do a one, on one session online or in person, but generally online because it's a bit hard to travel but, to do an ideas to income. So they might have an idea of something that we want to do and we can explore that together. Or they've got no idea. They just need to do something new because things aren't working. They want to bring in something. So it'll be like a brainstorming session where we go through and work out what might work for them. Like the different things I said, like partnerships that they might be able to do with other, local companies, and come out with a plan of attack to actually put a, you know, something in place, whether it's a wine tasting event or whether it's something completely different that just works for their business. So they're the two ways, currently that I ye.
Jaimie Abbott: yeah. I love that. And so do one other question. Do you think. Cause I often think I started PR club in my third year where I'm teaching people how to promote their business and I have 80 members. But in the first year I was doing all the things right. I'm like, here's what I'm doing. Do what I'm doing. But then last year when most of the year I was living in Jamaica working for the un so the business became a side hustle and things fell to the wayside. I wasn't on as many podcasts, not as many stages, wasn't sending my weekly newsletter out consistently. And as a result of that, the business didn't die, but it didn't grow as fast as it had the year before when I did all the things. And I think being a coach, having done it the wrong way helps because you've been there, you know, what fails, what succeeds, rather than just having all this success because you really go, okay, here's what happens when you don't do this. Do you think that makes you a better coach because you have experienced the pitfalls, the profit losses? I guess during COVID and thinking, here's where I was, getting the bin taken out all the time, little things like that I was spending too much money. Do you think that makes you a better coach and better consultant at what you're doing?
Kylie Pengelli Linke: I do. Cause I think, when, you know, especially we were so far away. I have a lot of friends in Sweden. I went, there on a working exchange in my 20s and that's why Swedename a place. But so I have a lot of friends and Network. But it's not the same as having family. And when you're sitting looking at your, you know, your bank account going, I don't know how to pay like, the staff, the rent that, you know, like, it's. And you're sitting on a precipice of failure or bankruptcy in a foreign country where your residency depends on your business, it certainly throws you into action. And I feel like that gave me, like the understanding of most, pub and restaurant owners are family businesses. Mu. It's a couple or it might be a single, you know, person who's put their heart and soul in this and literally everything's writing on it. So I do, I understand that. And. But also you get too close to it, as you said, that you can't see the. What is that saying? The wood for the leaves for the tree, whatever that saying is. so I can help them look at those places where they're probably overspending or not, being really focused and efficient on stuff and take the heart out of it and just look at it with your head. Because that was the hardest thing is, you know, ah, staffing. We didn't get all the nice subsidies that you guys got for a whole year. So it took 12 months before I got any sort of subsidy from the government. And I literally, if it didn't come when it did, we would have gone under. Like, it was that close to the edge. So, But yeah, you had to. And luckily my husband was working outside of the business and he's a bit more. I'm a bit, as I say, I'm the dreamer, but he's a bit more of the logical one that keeps me grounded. And he would be the one like, well, you can't, you just can't have all these, you know, stuff and stuff. I'm like, I know, but what do I do? I can't sack them. I'LIKE it's either we survival but, you know, like that's, you know, you have to be. Have to make those hard choices. Soing. Yeah, helping people talk through those hard choices, understanding with your heart, but coming at it with your, you know, solid, logical head strategist, I think is what. Where my strength.
Jaimie Abbott: Ly.
Kylie Pengelli Linke: And also I have this ability, I don't know how but to see a big picture that perhaps you can't when you're in it, you know, when you're right. And I remember saying that a couple of times to friends of mine. God, I need myself, you know, in the pub, I need myself to stand back and, like, look over my shoulder and help me out. Because it really is hard to, do the strategy when you're just trying to pay the bills, you know, like, keep the doors open, get your staff doing what you need them to do, all those things.
Jaimie Abbott: So, yeah, absolutely. All right. If people want to work with you, Kylie, and they want, to get you on stages for a hospitality conference, or if they are a pub or a restaurant owner and they really want some help, how can people get in touch with you and find you?
Kylie Pengelli Linke: Okay, my website is, Kylie pl Because my name's too long. Kylie P for Pengelli. L forlininky.com and it'll be Jamie. I'll be a special page just for people that are listening to your podcast with some, lovely little offers and some freeb is there for them to download.
Jaimie Abbott: Yeah, you know what? You are just like a star student. These are all the things you should do when you go on someone's podcast. But it is a lot of work to do that. so we'll put that link in our show notes as well if you're listening to this on Apple podcast or Spotify. But, Kylie, thank you so much for coming ono Pitch Perfect. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I almost want to go out and buy a pub myself. I mean, who doesn't have that dream, right?
Kylie Pengelli Linke: Yact.
Jaimie Abbott: and I'm certainly one of the ones keeping them in business around Newcastle and Sydney occasionally. But thank you so much. Really, really appreciate your time.
Kylie Pengelli Linke: No, Rose, thank you. It's been a pleasure.
