More Than Numbers: Sum Effect

So today I am dropping in to see Matt and the team from Sum Effect. We've worked together for many years and there are a great bunch of people and haven't seen them in a while so I really look forward to catching up with them. Hey! How are you? Good to see you. Good to see you too. Come on in. Thank you. Welcome to the studio. Hi. How are you? Good to see you. Good to see you too. Come on in. It's a studio. Hey, thanks. A bit different to East Freo. Yeah. Wow. It's a lot different to East Freo. This is where we spend probably half our time, like our works, still split kind of 50/50 ish studio, which is a lot of product-based portraits, TV commercial if you need some sort of a studio set, props that we've built up over the years.

The other half is out on location, pack whatever we need to pack to go wherever we need to go. A lot of go-backs, yeah. A lot of go-backs, exactly. Yeah. This just becomes whatever it needs to be for the day. This is really cool. I love the softness in the photos. It's really subtle and understated but there's almost a softness to it. If we want something to look matte or shiny or round, we kind of match that feeling with how we like it. Especially with like glows of bottles and it's like, "Oh." So as part of this story, we'll pull some stills together and you're into photography.

Yeah. So we thought, "Why don't you be up for taking some pictures?" Sure. It'd be fine. Yeah. You get the studio experience. Yeah. And so one of them, we've got a few ideas but one of them can just be a nice portrait of me. Yeah. Here. In front of. In front of. And then the camera is here. Yeah. And then pictures come straight up on the screen here. Yeah. I'll give you a crash course. Sometimes you just want me to stay and focus the whole time. So if you point that at me and you hold that, then you never have to go through that half-press to focus click.

Like if you just press the button, press it now. Yeah. This one. That was totally not awkward. I thought you meant that one. Oh, both of them. Yeah, actually. Sorry. That was a good shot. So I think we're done with the portrait. Try 5 or 10. Okay. Yeah. Just blast it. Because then I'll relax. Oh, okay. So just keep. Yeah. See how they, well, let's have a look. See how they're starting to get a flow there? Okay. You can see that shift in your expression a little bit. Can't you? Like here, I, here it looks like there's a camera pointed at me.

Yeah. And that's when the whole feeling changed. Yeah. And then you got your way to that. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. It's a really beautiful shot. On the drive over, I was thinking about, you know, when we first met back at the Fremantle Business Awards and, you know, you and Lisa are at our table and I was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and super excited about the future and what I really appreciated about you both back then, the way in which both of you care about people and care about relationships.

And that's always come through that sort of authenticity and that, that's something that really means a lot to me. And so we've hired particular types of personalities and we've hired based on mindset and integrity and it's not a commercial decision, that's a decision based on connection and relationship and just wanting to support someone. I'm always thinking about what the experience is for other people of us. Well, the one thing you've done, like, and this blows my mind and I, I don't know how because I've never seen any other business ever do this.

Every week, for the last 12-odd years, we've communicated with your business for payroll, accounts, super, anything that lives in that Xero program is squeaky clean, thousands and thousands of communications and it's like flawless and without charge, without judgment. And you've had team members come into roles and out of roles over the time, which is normal. There's been no bump, like, no wobble. No other company could say that. Thank you. Yeah. So, so they've been with us now, so for 11 and 12 years, you know, and seeing their growth over time has been really cool because there's been multiple kids, partners, families, you know, that whole evolution journey of them as a person and their growth, not just professionally, but personally.

That's been really cool to be a part of as well and to witness and, and over time, they've then stepped into taking a role of mentoring other people within the business. So I think time has, has given us more depth to be able to go, "Okay, well, we know that we can help. We know that we can tackle anything that gets thrown at us." Through our business, where it's sometimes been like, "Great, life's good." Sometimes it's been like, "This is a nightmare. We're like this close to the edge." And the one thing that was so good through that period is I could proudly say our accounts are up to date.

It's all on the record and it's all up to date to the week for the last decade or more. That's been probably when I've been most grateful for your service. Thank you. The act of taking stock and taking a moment to look back at how far you've come, this feels like that. I love the experience that you've created today as well in just going through things and I've really enjoyed that. So it's been nice to just let things go and, yeah, thank you. Amazing. Thank you for my photos that you took of me.

Yeah. Awesome. Cheers, mate. Thank you. Cheers.