Your Box Has Knobs!! | Meet Kay, the Sales Director Who Built Our Wholesale Side

Most people who deal with E-Stim Systems never speak to me. They speak to Kay. She runs our sales, answers the phones, handles the emails and the live chat, and quietly built the wholesale side of this business from nothing. So for once I handed the microphone to the person who actually does the talking.

We recorded this in a hotel room in Barcelona, the night before a trade show, with a brew and no real plan. Remember Victor Kiam? The man who tried a Remington and was so taken with it he bought the company. "So impressed, I bought the company," as he put it. Kay's version went a bit differently. She turned up in 2006 as a customer, bought a Series 1, came back for a remote, made a glib comment about why nobody stocked us in shops, and then talked her way into getting us into shops. She didn't quite buy the company. She just helped build the wholesale side of it from nothing, and put up with me and my little black book for the best part of twenty years.

We get into the bits nobody tells you about this trade. The Dragon's Den moment where a store manager told us we'd never survive. They're gone. We're worldwide. Why you can't just double your money on adult products. What actually makes a stockist sell, and why it's never the margin. The nervous customer who walked past the shop three or four times before he came in. The Python that US customs flagged as an endangered species. And how a company this small keeps innovating with no development team, no design house, and no crowdfunder in sight.

Kay also talks, in her own words, about coming out as trans during lockdown, and what changed from Mick to Kay. We're putting this one out in Pride Month. That felt right. You'll notice we didn't make a song or dance about it, and that was deliberate. It's her story, told her way.

Next month, the machines take over. That's the second Tuesday of July.

You'll find E-Stim Systems wherever you care to look, and the podcast wherever you're listening to this right now. Give it a follow, and as always, be safe and have fun.

"I Make Sex Toys" is the personal podcast of Wayne Allen, the Director of E-Stim Systems. We have been creating ElectroStimulation Technology since 2004, Find out what really happens behind the doors of a specialist sex toy company.

Please Note the content of these podcasts are not designed to be Explicit or Erotic but we may discuss adult topics and therefore these podcasts are not suitable for children or those of a nervous disposition. You have been warned.

If you are interested in E-Stim Systems the company, or any of our products, have a look at https://estim.store

Transcript

Meet Kay Behind The Scenes

Wayne 0:00

Hello everyone, it's Wayne here, and yes, I make sex toys. You should know that bit by now. This one's a little bit different. For a change you're not stuck with just me rabbiting on, I'm going to be handing the microphone over to someone who almost never sits in front of one. Kay, our sales director. Now, if you ever emailed us, rung us, or used the live chat, the odds are you've spoken to Kay and not me. I tend to hide behind a workshop door and let her do the talking, which works out well for everyone. Kay came to us back in 2006 as a customer, bought the box, liked it, and somewhere along the way ended up helping to build our entire wholesale side from nothing. We sat down in a hotel room in Barcelona the night before a trade show and just talked. How she got here, how the business actually works, and a fair bit she's never said on mic before. That last part is hers to tell, and she tells it her way. So grab a brew, here's Kay. Hi, Wayne. Her voice is nearly as bad as mine when it comes to radio work. So yeah, we're going to talk about how Kay joined the company. She tends not to be, what's the word I'm looking for? Visible. Visible in terms of our normal social media channels, but she's always hiding in the background because she's the one who actually deals with most of the customers out there. Because I try to avoid talking to customers. I just get like, ugh. I'm quite happy to talk to people face to face, but talking to people on the phone, I'm like, oh, scary. Anyway. So

From Customer To Sales Director

Wayne 1:20

I've got a list of questions here, which in fairness to Kate, she has actually seen. So hopefully we can generate some interesting responses. So Kate, you came to East M Systems first as a customer, and I call it the Victor Kayam moment.

SPEAKER_00 1:33

I was delighted and impressed.

Wayne 1:35

So impressed, I bought the company. For those of you who don't remember, Victor Kayam is a guy who liked to raise us so much he bought the company.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

Yeah, I mean I mean I didn't quite buy the company, but um yeah, I did. Tallend 2006, we need 2007, I think. So yeah, a long, long time ago. Very early days of of East IM Systems um as an entity. And I believe it was the London alternative market. I'd been playing with Electro for a couple of years by then, and was looking for something a little better than what I had. And became aware of the fact that you guys were at um Lam. Uh tipped up and uh met you. We had a conversation, and I think that resulted in the purchase of a series one. Uh Long May It Rest in Peace to be replaced by the Helix. And then not that long after, I came back and bought a remote, the what would have been the classic, but even older than the classic remote. The original classic. Um and we just were having a long conversation, we seem to hit it off. And I seem to remember making some slightly glib comment around the fact that why do we not, you know, why do people not see your this brand in shops? There was an element of, yeah, because I don't talk to people.

Wayne 2:56

Um don't involve me phoning the shop up and going, Hi, yeah, uh, I'd like you to sell my product. I'd like to talk to someone.

SPEAKER_00 3:05

Yeah, and I uh I was doing something very very different to that environment at the time. But my previous um history was sales, and I guess arrogantly, I said, Well, I'll get you in some shops, and you were sensible enough. I nearly said fool enough foolish enough. Um, you were sensible enough, certainly for the company anyway, to go go on then. Um so I was very much put in the put your money where your mouth is moment. Unfortunately, uh I did both put my money where the mouth was and indeed sought out some stores. Yeah, I remember one of our early days. I know exactly what you're gonna say. A Dragon's Den moment. Dragon's Den with a uh a particular store who is no longer around. They were in uh, if memory says it right, they were in Wells Street, and yeah, that was very much uh felt very much like a dragon's. You're gonna have to tell the story. Um yes, I mean uh we I courted a couple of uh of stores in London, uh neither of which unfortunately uh are actually in existence anymore. And the first one was actually relatively easy, and I went and did that on my own. But you and I went to a store, yeah. I seen for him it's in Well Street, and I think it's only fair we don't mention the name. And we sat there and had a conversation in sort of their not so much back room, but it was very much one end of the shop and behind some stuff, you know, surrounded as you are in these sorts of of stores with the the aroma of latex or leather or both. We basically got beaten up by the store manager verbally on the basis of you don't know what you're doing and these prices don't work and you know, this, that, and the other, and they were busy sort of effectively telling us that much the same as uh uh as some other people have done, you know, you're never going to survive like this. Yeah. And yeah, that would have been 2007.

A Brutal First Shop Pitch

SPEAKER_00 4:57

2026 now shows who was right then. Um as you rightly say, they don't exist anymore. In fact, the best of my knowledge, they don't exist anywhere, let alone in London. Whereas we exist worldwide these

The Real Maths Of Wholesale

SPEAKER_00 5:09

days.

Wayne 5:09

I mean, I talk about that being our Dragon's Den moment, and it makes us sort of reflect on the whole what we offer the wholesale customers, what we offer distributors, because people forget it's very easy just to create something and then sell it to your mate. You don't have tax and VAT, etc., to add on. And then when you start selling it to a store, the store quite rightly wants to make some money out of that, which means in the other industry, probably 50% of the purchase price goes to the store. And then you have distributors who sell to the stores, and they also want 50%. And then you start to go, hold on, where do we fit in? Because we're manufacturing it, we've got to find the materials to create the item. So that £100 item, well, in the UK, immediately gets knocked down to 80 because they've got VAT. So you're selling it to a store for 40, you're selling it to a distributor for 20. And I've got to create it, so I've still got to pay for materials, I've still got to pay for staff to make it and still make a profit. So why am I doing this again?

SPEAKER_00 6:04

And it is that element of I have to to explain to to new customers this concept of do not expect to double your money. It used to be a very hard sell. A very hard sell. But these days it's not as problematic, I don't think, anyway. I have certainly when I talk talk to people at at shows, I have a lot less of the whole well, they don't lead with the what's the price, yeah, which they used to. You know, back in the early days of of our trade shows and things at uh at ETO, the league question was, what's the price? What's my price? Now actually we're more likely to get the what is it? And I have to I just find that quite bizarre still. And they seem to be more looking for something that they haven't seen before, something that's new, something that's innovative. And this is why I still find it bizarre that there are people who have owned, you know, adult stores or have run adult websites selling adult products for a number of years and they've never really come across electro play. It still feels slightly odd going back to first principles of actually explaining what it is first. Yeah. You know, you you uh we used to do an awful lot of that in the days of doing erotica with an end user. Why am I doing this to people within the trade? Because have they not heard of us or my stim or electra stim? You know, you've said this all the way along. We prefer to be the Rolls-Royce than the Ford Fiesta. You know, you don't want to be everywhere.

Wayne 7:39

We're never going to be stack it high, sell them cheap, because it just doesn't work as a business.

SPEAKER_00 7:43

As demonstrated by those who aren't around anymore.

Picking Stockists Who Can Sell

Wayne 7:47

I think the industry is maturing closer to what it should be, where it's more acceptable for an adult when you're hiding down back alleyways and getting all the set shops down.

SPEAKER_00 7:56

I remember being in one of the shops um putting in our product and putting in the display in Leeds. A chap came in and he was he was quite nervous, came in, looked around, wasn't a particularly big store, saw our stuff that was literally being unpacked and put on the shelves, and he bought a a kit there and then. And it wasn't until he left that the uh the manager in the store turned around and said, You do realise he walked up and down outside three or four times because I saw him on the CCTV. I guess working in the industry, it it's one of those the concept of going into an adult store to me is no different than walking into Tesco's. It's not illegal, it shouldn't be something that's shameful and you should be ashamed of. Potentially, it it falls back into the the days of the 70s where they were sleazy. So, how do you find the right stockist? You know, the ones who can sell all of our boxes? Yeah, I think well the answer is not everybody can. And I think the way I would answer that question is to actually look at the stockists we have that are the most successful and work back from that. And the most successful stockists we have are those where either the person who owns the company or the main individuals either plays with our kit already, and that's how they come to us, or they have an interest in doing so. You know, I we have a a stockist in Europe in Denmark, he uses our products himself. He's very much become the go-to person in Denmark if you want to talk electro. And that's because he uses stuff. We s we invested some time, I say we, I um invested some time in going through stuff with him. And because he was interested, because he was not only was he learning about the product from the perspective of selling it, and and I'll come back to that in a mo, but from the perspective of wanting to use it, that he asked some really great questions. You know, uh there is there's this fairly standard stock list of questions that people tend to ask around the electro play, you know, does it hurt? Is it like sticking your fingers in the socket and those sort of things? And and how do I get a sensation out of these things? But he was asking challenging, I suppose, is is the right word. Questions that made me have to think about things. It's the wait a minute, and you know, I've been playing with these things now for coming up to 30 years, and I'd have to think about it for a moment. And that to me indicates a level of desire for knowledge rather than just the tell me what the four modes on this thing is so I can sell it to somebody. Yeah, and it is that element, and you know, as a company we make this very clear to our stockists that we are the experts in what we do. I don't have to know about the most recent vibrating, sucking, silicon-covered motor in a sexy-looking colour. But it requires a degree of understanding, and that's not a degree of understanding, not a degree, to be able to use them effectively. And that's where when we look at bricks and mortar stores, the ones that reorder from us because they're selling it the most are the ones where there is the understanding, there's the personal knowledge. It helps that there is that personal touch. Personally, I know that if I'm talking to somebody who's trying to sell me something, I can tell whether they're giving me a sales pitch or whether they actually mean what they're saying because they use it. And that tends to make a difference. And I think, you know, as a company, it makes a difference for us when we're talking to the people we're selling to.

Wayne 11:35

It seems to be stores that do really well for us and for themselves are the ones that we have a good relationship with. Yeah, that's the word relationship. And it's not just a relationship with us, it's a relationship with our own customers. Yes. Every store that we know about will have customers who come in on a regular basis and effectively turn around and go, What's new? Yep. 100%. Rather than just doing the Amazons of this world, they just turn up and buy something and disappear. I mean, every store has that. Small independents seem to be the ones that come to the top of the list because they've got that relationship.

SPEAKER_00 12:08

And it is that the margin is not the key element in selling our product. That's not to say that if you stock and sell our product, you won't make money. You will. I mean, we're still in business, so we must make money somewhere, otherwise you we wouldn't still be here. And the stockists that we have, whether they be physical stores or whether they be um web stores, are making money because they're still here. The ones that are not didn't go down the tubes because of our product. They'll have gone down the tubes for other reasons. There'll be a number of reasons around money. The first question is what do you actually tell people you actually do? What do I tell people to? I I tell

Remote Work And Customer Support Reality

SPEAKER_00 12:50

pe it depends. It very much depends on who it is and uh how I'm feeling at the time. Great Auntie Gertie, I make sex toys. Yes. There are people within my family who have no idea what it is I do other than work for a company that sells electrical goods. And there are other members of my family who know exactly what it is I sell. I used to be very guarded about it, um, for multiple reasons, not least of which, when I first started working with you, I had a career doing something very, very different that my then boss may not have been massively comfortable with me doing. He's not the commissioner anymore. And for those who are listening, that gives you an idea of what I used to do. And so I used to be guarded. These days, I will quite happily tell people, I mean, that the the people I I work with in my off time that I volunteer with know I'm here in Barcelona and they know I'm here selling sex toys. And most of them were sort of a oh, okay. You get you it falls into two categories. It's either the they want to know more or they don't want to talk about it at all and move on. Um, but no, I'm I'm very open and honest about it these days. Um, and I think that comes with the fact that I'm now very open and honest about me rather than how I would have been six or seven years ago.

Wayne 14:07

When we started the business, I was working in a university, I was also doing work in a primary school. That was entertaining. But when I eventually decided to do this full-time, my boss, who was the headmaster of the primary school, was saying, Oh yeah, so what are you gonna do? Uh I'm making sex toys. And he was like, Please don't tell the parents. I then turned around and went, Don't worry, them. Two of them ordered last week.

SPEAKER_00 14:29

That's always an interesting one. The concept of people that you wouldn't expect to be our customers, who all of a sudden you discover are.

Wayne 14:39

Like a bunch of farmers, we went through a phase where every second order was going to a farm.

SPEAKER_00 14:43

Oh, yeah. You you'd look at the address and go, where? And then you oh, hang on, the word farm would appear somewhere. I work remotely now as a result of COVID because it became quite apparent to both you and I that there was actually no physical reason to be in the in the office. What I do, which is answering the phone and dealing with with customers via email and via our live chat, simply requires an internet connection, especially these days in in the age of the IP phone. Whereas back in the good old, bad old days, trying to work remotely where part of your job is to answer the phone, wasn't ever going to happen. Um so yeah, I mean my my day consists primarily of dealing with inbound emails, whether they be inquiries about our product, whether that be spam emails that somebody's picked up, the word flange is probably the the key, the the biggest one. We have a product called a flange, and we have uh inordinate number of emails every week from engineering companies and casting companies from round the world trying to tell us that they can make us flanges and all sorts of fittings with flanges on that would be great for us. Part of my day is spent dealing with our dispatch, and by that I mean dealing with either the shipping platform, DHL. Well, yeah, but DHL are better than the other people with the brown van whose platform wasn't great and who are currently chasing me to go back to their platform. But it's it's not so much the carrier, it's what's happening with the parcel in the country it's going to. Yeah. And it's how I I then have to deal with the carrier to understand why it is that US Customs and Border Protection want an import license for endangered species. Because it's called a Python. Yeah. Took me a little while to learn that one and take that out of the description that goes on the customs documentation. Because it's it's a product name, but AI is something that's being used more and more and more. And the AI picks that word up and goes, Oh, Python, that's a snake, that's endangered, you need a license. Hold. It takes longer. It is it it is a bit of a misnomer if you think you can send anything to the United States of America for next day or 24, 48-hour delivery, and it's about customs clearance. So, yeah, a big chunk of my my day is spent dealing with that, and part of my day is spent complaining to you about the I can't sell what we don't have. And that tends to be a bit of the joke because it's it's more a case of the juggling the production and juggling the stock and prioritizing what we're doing.

Wayne 17:35

Because we have that level of control, it means we can juggle our production to sort of get things closer to where they should be. But we're always trying harder.

SPEAKER_00 17:43

We put in new systems, we've invested in new technology, we changed our platform in October last year. We finally ended up with a stock control system which we have both talked about multiple times over the years.

Wayne 18:00

It's that balancing act between this is different to how we used to do it. Yes. Yeah. We do actually have the three infamous rules. Does it improve the product? Does it improve the service? Does it improve the bottom line? Yeah. And the answer is did it improve the service? Yes. Yes, it did. Did it improve the bottom line? No, it was more expensive.

SPEAKER_00 18:19

Cost more. Um did it improve the product? It didn't change or improve the product, it made it more accessible because it it improved the customer experience. Unlike a lot of things these days, there's more than one way of doing it. And it was it was finding the right way. And then another lump of my day is spent talking to you. Which I know initially when I went to remote working, you you weren't overly keen on because you'd rather have a face-to-face conversation, and you were finding it difficult to do other things while we were having a conversation until I introduced you to the concept of hands-free phone. You can put it on speaker like I do, and do other things with both hands. Um that's keyboards and typing and things for you, smutty-minded individuals. On the whole, I much prefer it. I don't spend two hours of a day battling with the M25 for no reason. I I believe I am probably more productive in that respect. Yeah, we we've evolved it a bit more. What's the thing you're

Innovation, Feedback And Lifetime Support

SPEAKER_00 19:25

most proud of? What am I most proud of? What, in general, or in relation to the business that we're still here? And I know that's almost a glib statement. But no, we're still here, we continue to grow, and I had a part in that. You know, you can slice it whichever way you want. Uh and it sounds horribly arrogant in my head, so I'm probably not going to say that. But we have a key distributor who has been absolutely invaluable since Brexit to cover Europe. If I'd have said to you at the same time as I was convincing you you need to be in London store, that you would have Mr. B, who it's certainly within the gay side of the industry, though they've become a little bit more general these days. But if I'd said to you, at the point at which we were trying to get our first store, or indeed, you know, our our Dragon's Den moment, that we would be running with one of the names within the European market and they would be selling our product since Brexit. Most people from Europe go with them, you wouldn't have believed me. Yet we are, I'm gonna say, 15, 16 years on now with Mr. B. We have a great working relationship with them. They are invaluable to us since we left the European Union, and they are key to our success within Europe. And that came as a result of me taking the opportunity to talk to not the organ grinder, as it were, but one of the other sales individuals and convincing you to let me give away a piece of product. It continues to improve, it int continues to grow, not least of which because of their effort, but again because we don't necessarily sit and do nothing. We've had periods of time where it looks like that's what we're doing, but that isn't actually the case.

Wayne 21:19

We're innovating because we're a small company. We try to avoid, and I'm gonna say this now, but I'm gonna shoot myself in the foot. We try to avoid releasing stuff before it's ready. For us, that's normally it's a case of it's on the shelf. Then we can tell people about it and we get it out there. We're not one of these companies who'll tell you about something that, oh, it's coming, it's coming, it's coming, it's coming, it's coming.

SPEAKER_00 21:39

Or indeed we crowdfund it so that it exists.

Wayne 21:42

Yep, that's another one. If you believe in your product, you should be financing it yourself rather than everyone else. But that's something completely different.

SPEAKER_00 21:49

We are not a large company with a team, a development team that does nothing else but development.

SPEAKER_02 21:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:59

We We don't come up with a concept and take it to a design company to make for us. We do it ourselves. The point is that the development is done with within a very small number of people, which you could count on one hand, generally from where the seed starts, but often it ends up with one person that it would be annoyingly you. Yes, ideas have come. You know, one of our quite successful electrodes was a result of me turning around and going, why don't we put this head on that base? You know, we have the the bubble which came from from CAT, so it's not just it's not just you, and it equally it's not just us, because you know, a lot of the modes that appear in in our power boxes and some of the designs of electrodes that we have have come from feedback from our customers, which I think is actually probably one of the core elements of the company is that we do listen to our customers. We were ahead of a lot of other people in certain elements, and what gets forgotten is we were doing it ten years ago, and you know, all of a sudden somebody else turns around and says, Great, we're the first to do this. You mean the second first?

Wayne 23:16

Yeah, you mean the fact that we were doing it ten years ago and now you've decided to announce to everyone that you're now doing it? Or you take something that we developed and then tweak it a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 23:26

Oh look, I've just reinvented the wheel that they made. It's from my perspective as somebody doing sales, and not just sales to end user but also to retailers, is that I don't want us as a company producing something new every month because it isn't sustainable with our resellers. Most of our resellers don't hold the full range. I have no problem with that. I wouldn't want them holding stuff that I don't think their store, based on the knowledge that I have, would sell. And I'm very upfront with people around that. And you know, it's one of the reasons why we have things like the element of there is no start a pack to buy, which is this, this, and this product. You know, I have the conversations with the resellers with the what's the demographic of your customer? Who is it you're targeting, who walks into your store, or who is it visits your website? These are the products that we find sell most. But we do have resellers who sell more of certain of our product than we do off our own retail site. And that's to do with where the the reach sits on websites and things. And equally, I will turn round to people who order stuff and I look at it and go, you really don't want to order that in that quantity, because you'll have that quantity in six months' time. And again, by having, as we do, no minimum order quantities, it is that element of yeah, if you really, really want it, buy one. Please don't buy more.

Wayne 24:56

A kit that you would change tomorrow if you could.

SPEAKER_00 24:59

Something about the kit I would change.

Wayne 25:01

I might not put this bit in the podcast, but if you're hearing it, it's in the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 25:06

Stock. I d I don't know actually. We have done the whole looking at what we do and what products we have. That you know, we'd look at the the the power boxes, and we you know, we retired the series one. We talked right at the beginning about the first box I bought from East Im Systems of Series One. We retired it, but what we did was we took what we did very well right from the beginning, refined it, and in the case of of the series one, we made it smaller, and you know, the remote. We're on what the third, possibly fourth iteration-ish of the remote, and each time we've put more in it, we're going to do something with that, I have no doubt. The 2B is probably the the the biggest one that we carry on doing things. The fact that we have God knows how many beta firmwares that we've been through where we've been changing things, bringing new things in, providing more functionality, providing more control. Sometimes that's been detrimental to the to the process. And I think you've mentioned somewhere else, either on live stream or short or on your podcast, around feature creep and getting bogged down and forgetting where we started. Much like this podcast. But I think not necessarily with the kit. I think possibly more with our process, and that's the process between you and me and and and the way we go about putting a product together and putting it out to the public. But that's a process that's evolved over the how many years, let me work this one out in nearly 20 years that we've been working together in some way, shape, or form.

Wayne 26:52

The whole thing is we're evolving. We're always looking. We're never going to stand here and just say, yeah, that's it. Yeah, that's fine. It's always not okay. How do we improve it?

SPEAKER_00 27:01

Yeah, and and I think you know, we we have, and this is one of the things I think actually one of the things about doing shows is not necessarily doing the shows, it's the fact that we spend an inordinate amount of time together with nothing else to do, but talk about the the company and the product.

Wayne 27:19

You used to have an infamous drive to Hanover. I mean, we used to do Eurofame in Hanover, and there was an eight-hour drive involved, which Kay used to kindly offer to do so because she's the professional driver.

SPEAKER_00 27:30

There's not an awful lot you can do for eight hours other than have a conversation with people.

Wayne 27:33

Yeah, I mean, we used to do this eight-hour drive, and it used to be an opportunity to discuss ideas and things that are worked out and not working, and what sort of the plans are. I mean, I have my infamous little black book with the 34 ideas, which is now actually up to about 50.

SPEAKER_00 27:47

Well, after after the last 24 hours, yes.

Wayne 27:49

Yeah, it's we constantly talk and sometimes we end up having arguments because I never want to have someone on the team who just accepts what I say. Never happening. And it is what I want people to I want people to bite back because at the end of the day, I'm not having someone work for the business who isn't going to have their own opinion and isn't going to turn around and go, I think you're wrong. Because yeah, I might say at that point in time, look, I'm the boss, we're doing it that way. But it doesn't mean to say I'm not still thinking about what was said. Three months, three weeks down the line, I turn Amber and go, We should have come up with this. No, now I think I can see Kay's eyes rolling and saying, I said that three months ago or three weeks ago.

SPEAKER_00 28:27

We have. I think one of the reasons it works

Coming Out At Work

SPEAKER_00 28:30

is because we didn't actually start, you know, you didn't ever formally interview me to come and work for the company. We started off as friends, and they do say never work with your friends. I think the difference is that I and you've alluded to the fact, yeah, we've had we've had some rightful ding-dong arguments. The difference is that certainly in my head anyway, I can separate and do separate what is the friendship that I have with you as a friend. I mean, hell, um this is about to open a slight can of worms. I was best man, well, I was then anyway, still in a skirt though, at your wedding. But I also am, yes, an employee, and ultimately, yeah, y I can say anything I like in relation to the how I think this should be done, but ultimately the choice is yours.

Wayne 29:17

I agree sometimes that it's almost a case of giving me an opportunity to allow things to evolve. So, although, yep, that's how we're doing it now, in three hours' time it's muted into something completely different.

SPEAKER_00 29:29

But then again, let's let's talk about evolution because I guess that's possibly the one elephant in the room that hasn't cropped up, was on the list, but was a sort of slight footnote. For the eloquent listeners who may have spotted uh my voice versus my name, or indeed are aware of the Taylor Swift video that floats around occasionally. I've evolved as an individual before, and I think uh that uh has has made a big difference to me and going back to the whole do I tell people what I do, in as much as you know, when I came out as transgender and sat in your office in not particularly attractive way and had that conversation with you.

Wayne 30:10

Yes, this was the point where you walked in and said, I want to have a conversation with you, and I actually thought Kay was leaving, and I thought, oh shit. And when you turned around and said you were transitioning, is that it? And I that sounds really good.

SPEAKER_00 30:23

In crucial words, I'm transgender. It was almost one of those I thought it was something serious.

Wayne 30:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:28

Yeah, that sounds really good. But the thing is, what's important to you is not necessarily important to me, and vice versa. I hadn't intended to do it on the day that I did it. It came about as a result of having spent the however many years we spent locked down in our own homes, which I fully accept for some people was not a great period of time, the COVID lockdown. For me, it gave me an opportunity to actually confirm who I was as an individual, something that I dealt with or had not actually hadn't dealt with for well over 40 plus years. And that opportunity where we were forcibly away from the world uh and thus locked with your own thoughts was a turning point for me. Yes, career had changed, uh the situation around just generally human beings at the time was okay, albeit we were in a pandemic, but you know, uh it for some people it wasn't it wouldn't have been the biggest thing in the world. But for me, I I had an opportunity to sit and reflect on myself and find myself. So yeah, those who may or may not have have followed East IM systems over the 20 plus years will have seen the change between Mick Clark, who was the was the sales director from let's say around about 2007-8-ish to Kay Elliott, who is the current sales director. They are one in the same.

Wayne 31:58

It has caused a few confusions. I was speaking to Mick, now I have to speak to Kay.

SPEAKER_00 32:02

Yeah, I d I do get I have to say I get a wry smile when I get see an email with the Yeah, I was in email contact with Mick about this. Um they're fine. It's the ones where the that's not what he said in his yes, it is.

Wayne 32:16

Unfortunately, we do seem to still have, and speaking as someone on the outside, so to speak, the number of times people still misgender you. Yeah. You think these days, especially with all that's going on in the world and how people are more visible, it's just like, can't you just work it out?

SPEAKER_00 32:30

Yeah, well, you know, i I one, I I kind of live with it on the basis on the telephone. I'm well aware that my voice is not stereotypically feminine. Yeah. But I have a ho huge number of female friends who also have a non-stereotypical voice. Um, it gets a bit irksome um when it's around emails because my pronouns are on the email signature.

SPEAKER_02 32:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:55

Perhaps I should have chosen to use my full legal name rather than the name that people know me by because K is one of those could be male, female, or anywhere in between. But I mean, yes, I get misgendered. I won't say every day, but pretty much every day. I did this morning when I went down for breakfast by the individual at the hotel who asked for my room number with the can I have your room number, sir? And when I went, it's Miss. She went, No, no, no, I need your room number. I said, Yeah. But I miss. Misgendering is annoying. And yes, I chose the great time to come out at the point at which the world stage has changed a little bit towards trans rights, but we're not going to get political around around trans rights. But as as you alluded to in the live stream, which is actually one of the reasons we're doing this podcast, was that I didn't travel with you to Vegas. Because I don't feel comfortable with going to the United States of America, and that's that is a political thing, but when we won't dwell on that because people have the understanding. People have their views about about politics, people have their views about being transgender, being gay, whatever. I missed doing the US shows because it it's hot and sunny, but then again, we're in Barcelona and it's 22 degrees outside, so I'm fine with that. I I sent an email out to all of our wholesalers at the point to which I came out. I wasn't expecting quite the response that I got, which was incredibly positive. But then I look at who the resellers were that actually replied, and a lot of them are from the LGBTQ community anyway. We have a number of gay stockists, that's stockists who are gay, and their stores are very relevant towards the gay community, and yeah, their response was great, well done. It can't have been easy, and that opened the door for them to tell me about them coming out. Yes, it is slightly different around coming out as transgender as opposed to necessarily coming out as gay, lesbian, or bisexual, because somebody's sexuality is not something you can necessarily immediately ascertain when they walk down the street. But if you're transgender, it's actually not that easy to hide it. And I think that's possibly one of the reasons it becomes more of a target these days. Is it's it isn't easy to hide. But it's it's part and parcel of who I am. I am probably one of the few visibly transgender people within the industry around the shows we see. We see one or two, but it's I've not had any issues with it. How do you think things are going to change in the next ten years? From

AI, Apps And What Comes Next

SPEAKER_00 35:27

a business perspective, I would one hope that actually our type of product becomes even more visible. But the caveat of that is that it doesn't lose the attraction of the fact that it is a little bit niche. You know, i if it becomes too visible uh and too mainstream, then it could have a negative negative impact on us as a company because large companies in countries in the Far East that have large resources will start to deluge the the market. And the thing is, we've seen that with some of the mainstream products within the adult industry, whereby these days it's a case of what colour and what shape would you like, and I can do you exclusive, and that's something that we we saw being said multiple times so many times at shows. Bringing things to a close, where do you think we're going to go? The phrase I heard you use some god knows how long ago, world domination. No, I think it's going to get a little harder to be truly innovative. I think we've already gone in some directions as far as some of the technology we have now can go. But I think there is still scope for I hesitate to to use the two letters, but for AI. We had a real spate, probably about I think it was probably just pre-COVID. Of the interactive products. Products that responded to you. Yeah. And we got quite a lot of email with the whole, oh, I want something, I want an Eastern box that will respond to my heart rate or to me blinking or you know, to me moving my right arm or flinching or whatever. Waving at the box. Yeah. And that has mutated a bit. Yeah. We're getting more into a virtual world, even though, you know, the the the massive sudden rise of. What happened to Second Life? But I think we are going to see a bit more of the responsive type stuff, because we see people who are now interacting with chatbots as if they're human beings. And I think the na the obvious natural progression from that is to have sex toys that respond to you.

Wayne 37:50

You do realize that someone's actually using AI to create session files on the forum for the T B. Yeah. It's already there.

SPEAKER_00 37:57

Um I yes, but what what that doesn't do is we were able to do however many years ago we came up initially with Connect, which is to actually reach out and touch somebody that's in not in the same room. But the progression from that is to have something that is intuitive enough to know what it is you want the power box to do next.

Wayne 38:20

I must admit that scares me.

SPEAKER_00 38:22

It does.

Wayne 38:22

It terrifies me. I have enough issues giving CAS the control box, but to give it to an AI bot and then it certainly decides. Correction. It then decides I don't like you.

SPEAKER_00 38:32

But we we we we sell a product that allows people to interact with utter strangers. The obvious progression from that is I'm now not not relying on a stranger, I'm relying on a chat bot to do it for me.

Wayne 38:45

One thing that we're seeing is I think the speed of innovation is going to increase. Certainly for us, we're now working on new products and new boxes. Yes, we're working on new boxes. The rate of change is increasing because the technology that we now have access to is increasing. And actually, one of the problems is because we have this longevity commitment, so we have this lifetime guarantee, we don't end the life of products. We will retire a product, but we're still supporting it. So if you bought a series one on day two and phoned us up and said the socket's fallen off or it just doesn't work, we'll fix it for you. We can do that still now, 20-odd years on. But with a new technology, we can't use the cutting-edge technology because it'll change in five weeks, let alone five years.

SPEAKER_00 39:24

I think part of the danger, however, is the the speed of innovation and the speed of production of new products means that you run the risk of your customer base getting fed up with you because they bought the best thing that was the best thing this week, and next week it's not. And um, we already and do have it with the whole the 2B has been out for a number of years, and we do get some customers turn around and go, Well, if I buy a 2B, is it going to be obsolete tomorrow? Because it must be, because it's been around for so long. It isn't because of how we've chosen its design path, which is the we can upgrade its firmware. We have done work with elements of the hardware that actually we can change.

Wayne 40:08

Which other companies have only recently discovered. Did they really? Yes. Yes, they recently introduced new boxes with shock horror upgradable firmware. Gee! Yeah, no, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 40:18

We we oh hang on, wait a minute. We did think about that when the 2B came out in 2020 no 2012?

Wayne 40:29

Yes, you could argue that some of our boxes aren't upgradable, things like the helix, electro pebble, etc. But that's because the helix came from a series one. That was the DNA of it, and that's actually why it's called the Helix, because it was the DNA. I liked it. But why fix something that works so well?

SPEAKER_00 40:44

If you take out the two specialist boxes, and by that I mean the the the A-Box Mark II and the remote, so just specifically the the electro helix, the electropeble. Part of the reason, for me anyway, that I don't think they need to be upgradable per se, is because they're the gateway. They're gateway products. Not everybody wants to spend £300 and discover that they don't like something. Certainly not with something they can't return. We might have got it right in the first place. Yeah, but equally it's the it is the transition. It's the I'm gonna try this at a lower price point. Actually, this does everything I want it to do. I am very happy. You know, there are people who buy cars, who buy a car and drive it till it falls apart because they love that car. And there are others who will change their car every two years because they want the latest shiny thing on the drive.

Wayne 41:31

And so you don't necessarily have to have I think also the other problem, especially, and we're seeing this at the moment, is this propensity to everything that's got to be app based. Let's move everything towards apps. Well, yeah, we're working on in things in that direction. The problem is we have is you create an app, within three weeks' time, you never have to then create another app because it needs to be updated. And then in three years' time, the app doesn't work on anything.

SPEAKER_00 41:54

Do you know what? The number of we get plenty of emails where people go, I like the fact your box has got knobs.

Pride Month Wrap And Goodbye

Wayne 42:00

And that's Kay. The best part of 20 years quietly building the side of this business most people never see, and still putting up with me. Thank you, Kay. Genuinely. We're putting this one out in Pride Month, and that felt right, but you'll notice we didn't make a song dance about it, and that was deliberate. Kay told her the story the way she wanted to tell it, and that's the whole point. Next time, the machines take over. Want to know more? Well, you're gonna have to wait for the next podcast, and that's the second Tuesday of July. Until then, you'll find ESTIM Systems anywhere you care to look, and the podcast wherever you're listening to this right now. Give it a follow if you haven't, and as always, be safe and have fun. Thanks for listening. Bye.