Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: [00:00:05] What does it really take to build a successful business? And could your marketing budget be working against you? First up in this week’s episode, entrepreneur Dorry Kordahi shares his journey from humble beginnings to launching DKM Blue in his parents garage and more recently, growing swanky socks into a global brand. Dorry unpacks the mindset behind sustainable growth, the value of hard work, and why entrepreneurs must be mentally prepared for failure. Then Refer US CEO Justin Herald explains why digital marketing can become a money pit for many small businesses, and why mastering customer experience, margins and referrals may be far more powerful than chasing clicks and metrics from SoundCartel, I’m Grace Jennings-Edquist, and this is Business Essentials.
From the garage to global: Dorry Kordahi’s career success story
Our first guest is Dorry Kordahi, chief executive of Swanky Socks, managing director of DKM Blue and one of the original sharks on Shark Tank. A highly accomplished entrepreneur and business leader, dory is known for his relentless drive, sharp commercial instincts, and ability to turn bold ideas into thriving businesses. In this conversation, Dory shares the lessons, mindset, and practical principles that have shaped his career and entrepreneurial success. To kick off our interview, I ask Dory whether he was always pretty entrepreneurial or whether he became entrepreneurial over time.
Dorry Kordahi: [00:01:32] That’s a good question because I do get asked that a fair bit by people. I think I’ve always had that sort of entrepreneurial drive in me. When I was young, I’ve always loved selling. And I think, you know, what does the word entrepreneur mean? It’s someone that’s taking chances and taking risks in what they do. And something I’ve always been adverse to is, is really putting myself out in the deep end and trying to learn how to swim at a young age. So I’ve always loved selling. I’ve always loved pushing myself out there. I’ve always loved business. You know, I think there were entrepreneurs really come to fruition over the last probably 10 to 15 years prior to that. You know, you’re just a business guy trying to build a business and trying to make a living for himself. So for me, I think it’s just been part of my DNA from the get go.
Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: [00:02:13] Dora, you launched your own promotional merchandise business, DKM Blue, from your parents garage more than two decades ago. What early lessons about business did you learn from starting and scaling DKM Blue?
Dorry Kordahi: [00:02:25] You know, look, it’s hard work. You know, people think things happen just, you know, by luck. But I think you got to put yourself in the right positions. I’ve always focused on building something that’s going to be sustainable. I was fortunate enough that I spent a few years working in my family business in the rag trade. I was a hairdresser by trade. People know that, you know, failed everything at school, no degree in anything. But I’ve always looked at working in the family business was my university degree, and I’ve always talked about leveraging off my sport and basketball. For me, it was a very big foundation of learning. You know, the key fundamentals around teamwork, visualization, planning, preparation. So you know what? I did start my business. I was mentally prepared for it. And I think, you know, when you do succeed in business, you’ve got to know what comes with that. And, you know, being successful, you’ve got to be prepared for that. And I think the ones that are prepared mentally are the ones that can sustain that longevity and growth in business. And I was fortunate enough that starting from my parents garage, told me the grass roots and the foundations of what you’ve got to do and, and making sure you don’t get ahead of yourself. And that’s something that I’ve always been focused. Even today, I’ve still got those same basic fundamentals in businesses that I run is keeping a tight overhead and just sort of trying to build sustainability.
Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: [00:03:39] One of your current ventures is Swanky Socks. How did you recognize an opportunity to develop a premium brand in a quite crowded product category?
Dorry Kordahi: [00:03:48] Yeah, definitely. You know, I saw the product. I was at a program called The Bench, which was run by Chivas Regal, and I had a few fashion brands at the time. And I thought, you know, one size fits all product could add value to our menswear collection that we had at the time. I like that there was a gap in the market and the merchandise in the marketing industry that I was in. No one was really selling corporate socks. So yeah, looking I reached out to the founder at the time and had a bit of a chat around the product, and I know a little bit more around it. And then I saw that it was, you know, really more of a hobby startup sort of business doing, you know, 40,000 revenue at the start. And I thought, you know what? There’s an opportunity in the market that I know I can do something with it. And that’s sort of just built, you know, leverage for a retail brand that wasn’t really big, but that perception was there. And yeah, and just sort of starting building the basic roadblocks that I did at Deacon Blue. And, you know, we applied it towards swanky socks and have carried the same philosophies across. And fortunate enough, the business has grown globally. You know, we’ve got global offices now and we’ve done over 3 million pairs of socks within a seven year period.
Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: [00:04:51] I wonder if you could share with us what is your formula for success as an entrepreneur?
Dorry Kordahi: [00:04:56] You know what? It’s just hard work and doing things that people don’t want to do. And that’s something I’ve always believed in. You know, there is no magic formula. It’s it’s doing the basic things right. It’s, you know, keeping things very simple in business and never jump into something you don’t know about, you know, and that’s where I see a lot of entrepreneurs or business people saying, I’m going to start a business, but I’ve never done it before. But you know, I believe in myself. Well, that’s great, but do you really have a basic understanding of what’s involved? And, and a lot of people, you know, just dive into the deep end without having that knowledge or the base fundamentals. So for me, it’s just doing the hard work and, and just being consistent and persistent in what you do. And then hopefully the whole thing will stick together and you sort of, you know, your business moves up, but like, you’ve got to be prepared. I’ve always had the mindset that I’m going to fail before I succeed. So when I’m always visualizing, I’m always visualizing all the negatives in business because I can always see blue skies in success, but no one’s ever prepared for failure. So I think I’ve always given myself a failure first and foremost. And if I can overcome those hurdles mentally, that I can bypass these failures going to get out of these obstacles. When I do come across hurdles, I’ve already subconsciously prepared for those scenarios and how to navigate out of that. So I’ve always had a very different approach. You look at all the negatives before the positives.
Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: [00:06:18] And if you could go back and speak to the younger Dory, what would you tell him?
Dorry Kordahi: [00:06:23] You know, look, you know what, I wouldn’t change a thing. Then I wouldn’t be where I am today speaking to you and speaking about my journey and what I’ve created. You know, I still don’t believe I’ve achieved much, but, you know, I’m still striving to push myself further. I think every lesson you learn in business and in life gets you to where you are. You know, I’m proud of what I’ve achieved so far. I’m happy where I’m at at the moment. You know, look, I wouldn’t really change anything. I’ve been asked that question a few times, but yeah, look, you know, every decision I’ve made has been a very strategic and very careful thought process. And I’ll leave it where I am right now.
Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: [00:06:56] What’s next for you personally and what’s next for Swanky Socks? If you can tell me.
Dorry Kordahi: [00:07:01] For me, what I’ve learned in life. I’m just trying to balance my life and enjoy what I’ve achieved. You know? A lot of people just keep running that rat race, you know? And I still am. But, you know, I’m really trying for myself, focusing on the now and enjoying the now process instead of always trying to chase that next goal. And so, you know, for me, it’s just trying to balance my life a little bit better now because I have been very all systems go for a number of years. So I think there’s still a lot of progress for what we can do with swanky. There’s a lot of growth, international growth, really expanding in the UK market. My goal now is to really drive the retail segment of the product. We started off as a retail brand, which wasn’t really doing much at all. But now, you know, we’ve done a great collaboration with Douglas Costa, World Cup Brazilian soccer player who played, you know, for Bayern Munich and Juventus with Ronaldo and you know, very big names. So it’s all about collaborations now with the brand, really getting that brand out there as well as getting the B2B side, you know, sort of ramping up a lot more as well. So once again, like this still in the growth stage for that business.
Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: [00:08:02] That was Dorry Kordahi, CEO of Swanky Socks.
Why digital marketing can be a money pit for small business
Now we turn to digital marketing, and whether your small to medium business could be pouring too much money into it. Justin Herald is the CEO of Refer Us and a longtime entrepreneur who has built and scaled multiple successful businesses. In this conversation, Justin explains why many businesses fall into costly marketing traps and why a return to fundamentals may be the smarter path to sustainable success. Justin has called digital marketing the biggest money pit in business. I started our interview by asking Justin what exactly he means by that.
Justin Herald: [00:08:45] There seems to be this theory at the moment, or a push by a lot of also digital media companies to the businesses need to go on and be online and all that sort of stuff, which is fine if that’s just part of, of what you need to do. It’s not all you need to do. And I think people fall into the mistake of thinking if they go and advertise on any digital platform, it’s going to make them a lot of money. It may and probably won’t, but it may. The reality is, if you’re not making money offline. If you’ve got an offline business as well, then you’re not going to make that much more money online as that part of the process. What people have got to do in business, they’ve got to get back to basics. So if you’re not looking after your customers and they’re not actually out there talking about you, raving about you and sending you more business as a natural flow, then anything you spend money on is just going to be a bit of a side hustle as that part of it.
Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: [00:09:34] I was wondering if you could tell me what factors are playing into the current digital marketing landscape at the moment, for example, you know, AI changing algorithms or whatever you think.
Justin Herald: [00:09:43] Oh, look, I’ve got my own theory. I’m getting I might be a bit of a dinosaur on this one, but, you know, I think the business has put too much faith and trust into AI, creating the success in their business. Ai should be a tool, not the only tool that you’ve got. So when it comes to, especially when it comes. I’ve got clients in my other business that use AI all the time to create their ads and create everything. Problem with that most of the time would normally miss their voice. And so your customers are craving connection. Your clients are craving connection. You can’t manufacture that no matter how many people tell me you can. You can’t manufacture it. And people buy off people they like. I don’t buy off a machine I like, I buy off people I like. And so I’ve got to make sure we put that human aspect back into our business. And if you’re going to use AI, if you’re going to use any sort of marketing, that’s got to portray who you are as a business owner and who you are as a business and the culture that your business has. And you can’t manufacture culture.
Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: [00:10:39] Let’s talk about vanity metrics, which are numbers that can look impressive but don’t truly reflect the health of a business. What metrics should business owners be measuring instead of vanity metrics if they really want growth?
Justin Herald: [00:10:50] Well, one of the biggest mistakes a lot of people in business make is they rely on statistics that they either read or see. Now, my current theory is 67.78% of statistics are made up. And so that being the case in business, what I think you should do, and I’ve been in business for 32 years now, and I started my first business with $1.25 in the bank. So I fell into business. And so for me, I had to learn it myself. Now, common sense is the most important factor that you can have as a business owner. And so part of that is you’ve got to do it your way. And it’s my business, my rules, and it’s whoever’s listening, it’s your business, your rules. So relying on statistics that you read on some random website or theories that you get out there and go, well, that’s going to apply to my business. And accountants do this a lot. Sorry, accountants where they’ll go, well, your industry states that you should be doing this, this or this as your turnover says who? Like we can’t fall into that. And I think a lot of people will limit their growth by following some figures and statistics and stuff that they hear instead of just running your own race.
Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: [00:11:56] Justin, you’ve built one of your businesses, Attitude Inc, into a brand that you sold for $37 million. What fundamentals did you focus on in Growing Attitude Inc that most businesses are neglecting today?
Justin Herald: [00:12:08] Oh look, I have always relied on and still do. And I’ve got a lot of businesses now. I’ve got 12 of them. I rely on common sense and I rely on the basics. All of my staff have always followed the principle of we just do the basics and we do the basics well. And it’s like building a house. If your foundation is right, then you can build a fairly good house and you can build a strong house if it’s not right. And I’m finding this a lot now with a lot of business owners that I mentor that start with me. They’ve got like an upside down pyramid. Yeah, it’s growing, but there’s nothing really holding it all together on the ground. So the basics of stuff like making sure your staff are trained, making sure that your pricing is correct, making sure that you’ve got really good margins, that you can actually handle the growth, making sure that your suppliers are actually not taking you around the bend and not giving you anything in return. Making sure that you look after your customers, making sure your customers come back and making sure you’ve got a very good referral or a program where people can actually rave about you and you can grow your business word of mouth.
Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: [00:13:08] That all sounds pretty terrific. I wanted to ask if an Australian small to medium business cancelled their digital marketing agency budget tomorrow. Where should they redirect that budget to generate real leads and sustainable growth in 2026? What should they focus on?
Justin Herald: [00:13:21] Do exactly what I do. I don’t have any digital marketing whatsoever in any of my businesses. The reality is my business is over 30 years. My first business, as I told you, I started with $1.25. I had no money for marketing and I actually started. Luckily for me, and I do say it’s lucky because unfortunately the internet exists. Now, while I say it’s unfortunate that people rely on that too much and that’s the savior of mankind. We didn’t have that back in those days. I’m the olden days as my kids would call them. So we had to actually do this weird thing where we connected with our customers and connected with our clients and had that true relationship. And because of that, they ended up liking the bloke that owned the business. They liked the staff that worked for the bloke that owned the business. And because of that, they then talked about the business. And that is happening today. The reality is people are not capitalising on that word of mouth. They see it as a flippant, oh yeah, people are talking about me type stuff now. That’s the way we grow all of our businesses. I’ve got a theory in all of them in my businesses, and it’s a saying that my staff are sick and tired of, and that is we go after our customers customer. That is how we have done business for 30 years. And by that I mean I’ve got to do such a good job or anyone working for me has got to do such a good job and leave an imprint with someone.
Justin Herald: [00:14:33] And the big kicker here is regardless of whether they buy or not, I’m not worried if people spend money with me. I’m worried if we give them a or don’t do or do not give them a good experience. If they don’t buy it from me and they’ve had a good experience, they will come back at some point in time. And so all we’ve got to do is leave a good imprint, and that is what has grown my businesses for 30 years, because people do talk about it and because we deliver what we promise, we’re going to deliver. People will then stay loyal to us. And it’s as simple as that. And sorry to the digital marketers that are listening to this, but you don’t have to go and spend a fortune on marketing and advertising right now. My advice is try it without it first, and then you can see if you’ve got a natural progression for your business. And if you’ve got a natural progression for your business, then build on that. Sure. But if there’s no natural progression, no matter how much money you throw at it with ads, you still don’t have a natural progression. So it sort of doesn’t make any sense to me.
Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: [00:15:30] That was Justin Herald, CEO of Refer Us. Thanks for joining us for this week’s episode. Follow Business Essentials Podcast across social media and head to www.BusinessEssentialsPodcast.au for more. Business Essentials is a SoundCartel podcast. Producers are Nick Schildberger, Nicole Goodman and myself. Technical production is by Pete Letts. I’m Grace Jennings-Edquist thanks for listening. We’ll bring you more business essentials next week.
