Interview: Two codes, two businesses – the sporting legend doing things in pairs

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Sean Aylmer: Welcome to the Fear & Greed business interview. I’m Sean Aylmer.

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Sean Aylmer: Something a little different today. My guest is dual Rugby

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Sean Aylmer: League and Rugby Union International Lote Tuqiri, one of the

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Sean Aylmer: most recognizable players across both codes. Since retiring, he’s moved

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Sean Aylmer: into the business world as the co- founder of content

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Sean Aylmer: marketing agency Hoozu. His latest venture is FanStands, F- a- n- S- t- a- n- d-

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Sean Aylmer: s, FanStands. A platform offering discounts on brands and services

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Sean Aylmer: and the opportunity to win VIP sporting experiences. I wanted

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Sean Aylmer: to talk to Lote about life after football, and how

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Sean Aylmer: he’s handled the transition to business. Lote Tuqiri, welcome to

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Sean Aylmer: Fear & Greed.

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Lote Tuqiri: Hey, mate. How are you guys? Thanks for having me.

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Sean Aylmer: No worries at all. I’ve got to ask you, first

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Sean Aylmer: up, what’s it like being so high profile and playing

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Sean Aylmer: football, in both League and Union, and then finding yourself

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Sean Aylmer: in the business world? Are there many similarities?

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Lote Tuqiri: Yeah, there is and there isn’t. You got to start from the bottom again,

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Lote Tuqiri: I guess. It’s a learning process for me. I’m still

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Lote Tuqiri: learning, as I did when I played both rugby codes

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Lote Tuqiri: for a long time. So I don’t profess to know

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Lote Tuqiri: everything. I’m learning all the time. I’m talking to mentors,

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Lote Tuqiri: I’ve got good people around me to help me out,

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Lote Tuqiri: and I’m just trying to be like a sponge. I

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Lote Tuqiri: know I’ve been retired now for a little bit of

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Lote Tuqiri: time, but just trying to soak it all in.

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Sean Aylmer: When you were playing sport at such a high level,

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Sean Aylmer: did you think much about life after sport? Did you

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Sean Aylmer: think you’d become a business person?

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Lote Tuqiri: Obviously closer to the end of my career, I started

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Lote Tuqiri: having thoughts around, what can I do, what do I

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Lote Tuqiri: like? And I think both rugby codes and professional sport

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Lote Tuqiri: in general now do a lot for the young athlete

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Lote Tuqiri: now. I think when I was coming through, I came

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Lote Tuqiri: straight out of school, straight into a professional footy environment,

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Lote Tuqiri: and there wasn’t really a lot offered at the time

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Lote Tuqiri: in the sense of you can do this, you can

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Lote Tuqiri: do that. It was pretty much just have all your

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Lote Tuqiri: time playing footy, and then your downtime is looking at

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Lote Tuqiri: film, looking at video, or recovering, and you’re pretty much

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Lote Tuqiri: tired after that. But it’s really encouraged around guys doing

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Lote Tuqiri: something now, which is really good, and I’m probably a

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Lote Tuqiri: little bit jealous about some of those opportunities afforded to

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Lote Tuqiri: younger guys now, that it’s an actual thing that they

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Lote Tuqiri: have to do and need to do.

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Sean Aylmer: Yeah. Okay. So tell me about FanStands. How did you become involved

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Sean Aylmer: in it?

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Lote Tuqiri: Yeah. So there’s obviously a few things going around. We

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Lote Tuqiri: noticed there’s been a good response to reward programs and

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Lote Tuqiri: members benefits programs, and we wanted to have something similar

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Lote Tuqiri: for members that we created, this members benefits program, but

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Lote Tuqiri: our prizes, with me having the sporting background and my

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Lote Tuqiri: partners, we just wanted to offer the everyday punter a

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Lote Tuqiri: chance to go to some of these big sporting experience.

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Lote Tuqiri: I know they’ve probably been hijacked a little bit by

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Lote Tuqiri: corporate, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but to give

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Lote Tuqiri: the average everyday punter the chance to go to a big

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Lote Tuqiri: sporting experience, say a big UFC fight in Vegas, the

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Lote Tuqiri: Ashes at Lords, the Super Bowl, the list goes on.

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Lote Tuqiri: So we want to scale it up as big as

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Lote Tuqiri: we can, to offer our members not only great benefits,

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Lote Tuqiri: but also your chance to go to some of these

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Lote Tuqiri: major sporting events, for not just yourself but your mates,

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Lote Tuqiri: you can go with your crew. So it’s been great

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Lote Tuqiri: that we can actually offer those experiences.

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Sean Aylmer: Stay with me, Lote. We’ll be back in a minute.

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Sean Aylmer: I’m speaking to Lote Tuqiri, sporting legend and the co-

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Sean Aylmer: founder of Hoozu and FanStands. So how’s the model work? People

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Sean Aylmer: subscribe to FanStands, and you have partners whereby your members

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Sean Aylmer: can then get discounts on groceries, fuel, that sort of

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Sean Aylmer: thing. Is that right?

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Lote Tuqiri: That’s right, mate. So it’s real simple. Sign up and gain access to

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Lote Tuqiri: FanStand rewards. You just go to the website, fanstands.com.au, and you start

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Lote Tuqiri: saving straight away. You can get discounts on our reward partners.

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Lote Tuqiri: We’ve got hundreds of vendors across e-commerce, travel, retail, sports accommodation, fashion,

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Lote Tuqiri: and electronics. Our packages start at $14.95 a month, which

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Lote Tuqiri: is a cost of half a beer or a coffee

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Lote Tuqiri: a week, and you can cancel at any time. So

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Lote Tuqiri: you’re not locked in. It’s not like one of the

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Lote Tuqiri: old gym memberships where you have to lock in for

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Lote Tuqiri: 18 months to two years. You can jump out at

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Lote Tuqiri: any time. But if you can want to join now,

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Lote Tuqiri: you can get your first 14 days free on FanStands rewards,

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Lote Tuqiri: and just go to fanstands.com.au.

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Sean Aylmer: Okay. And then in terms of those bigger rewards, the UFC,

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Sean Aylmer: et cetera, is that more of a competition where you

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Sean Aylmer: go into a prize draw? How does that work?

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Lote Tuqiri: Yeah. So you become a member, and then you accumulate

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Lote Tuqiri: month on month. So the longer you stay a member,

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Lote Tuqiri: you get more tickets into the next draw. So we

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Lote Tuqiri: have smaller draws before we offer a big one. So

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Lote Tuqiri: we’ve got State of Origin, State of Origin 3, had

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Lote Tuqiri: some great winners go to that. We have a draw

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Lote Tuqiri: coming up pretty soon for the Magpies versus Port Power games,

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Lote Tuqiri: the top of the table clash, for four as well.

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Lote Tuqiri: So in between the bigger ones, we have smaller ones

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Lote Tuqiri: like that. We want to keep our members up to

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Lote Tuqiri: date and offering them things all the time, rather than

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Lote Tuqiri: just the run of the mill.

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Sean Aylmer: What’s the response been like so far, Lote?

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Lote Tuqiri: The response has been pretty good. We’re tracking all right.

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Lote Tuqiri: We’ve only been live for four months. We received a

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Lote Tuqiri: hell of a response. So members are growing, and our

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Lote Tuqiri: retail partners are growing with our discounts. So the social following’s

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Lote Tuqiri: in the thousands, and we’re just trying to get that,

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Lote Tuqiri: we’ve been hitting the socials pretty hard. But the bigger

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Lote Tuqiri: it becomes, I guess, I think it builds on itself,

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Lote Tuqiri: and the bigger and better prizes we can reward our

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Lote Tuqiri: members with.

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Sean Aylmer: Okay. Now, your other business is Hoozu, which is an

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Sean Aylmer: influencer marketing platform working with influencers across TikTok, Instagram, that sort

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Sean Aylmer: of thing. I’m not quite sure how to ask this

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Sean Aylmer: question, but you worked very hard over many years, you

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Sean Aylmer: built a profile through sport, you’re incredibly successful in two

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Sean Aylmer: sports. When you look at some of the influencers on

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Sean Aylmer: TikTok and things like that, does it amaze you that

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Sean Aylmer: they are influencers given their background, or the heritage perhaps

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Sean Aylmer: isn’t quite as rich as yours?

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Lote Tuqiri: I know, I know. And I guess some of the older crew, say the

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Lote Tuqiri: Gen X-ers and the ones further back, think to themselves

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Lote Tuqiri: how they worked hard for so long to get to where they are,

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Lote Tuqiri: and then… Well, this is a new way the kids communicate.

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Lote Tuqiri: I’ve got a few kids, and they are on these platforms,

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Lote Tuqiri: and they do support some of these influencers. Whether they

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Lote Tuqiri: influence in a good way or a bad way, they’re still influencing. And I

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Lote Tuqiri: think from the Hoozu angle, we got into it a fair while

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Lote Tuqiri: ago now, it’s ten years old now, and I think

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Lote Tuqiri: we’re probably one of the leading influencer marketing agencies in

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Lote Tuqiri: that space. And I’m very proud to be a part

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Lote Tuqiri: of that.
We’ve got some 15 staff. Natalie Giddings, who’s our CEO,

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Lote Tuqiri: has really done well with her expertise in that field.

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Lote Tuqiri: We work with brands like Bunnings, Supercheap Auto, Emma Sleep

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Lote Tuqiri: is a big one with us lately. So just trying

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Lote Tuqiri: to keep them happy and produce revenue for them and

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Lote Tuqiri: have a way to communicate to the younger demographic, which

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Lote Tuqiri: is where they buy, which is a hell of a

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Lote Tuqiri: lot different to what I did back in the day.

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Lote Tuqiri: I’m still using cash.

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Sean Aylmer: Yeah. Lote, you’ve got to be beyond cash by now.

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Lote Tuqiri: I’m not that old. You’re right. But I actually don’t

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Lote Tuqiri: mind using cash.

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Sean Aylmer: Yeah. I’ve got to say, if you don’t want to spend

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Sean Aylmer: too much money, hand cash over, because it actually hurts

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Sean Aylmer: a lot more than tapping a card, I find.

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Lote Tuqiri: It does.

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Sean Aylmer: Maybe that’s how it works. Lote Tuqiri, thank you very much for talking

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Sean Aylmer: to Fear & Greed.

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Lote Tuqiri: I appreciate it, guys. Thank you very much, mate.

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Sean Aylmer: That was Lote Tuqiri, sporting legend and the Co-Founder of Hoozu and FanStands.

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Sean Aylmer: This is the Fear & Greed business interview. Join us every

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Sean Aylmer: morning for the full episode of Fear & Greed, Australia’s most

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Sean Aylmer: popular business podcast. I’m Sean Aylmer. Enjoy your day.