Podcast Summary: How to Use the SOSTAC Model in Real-World Marketing

In this episode, Kiran Kapur and Sam Bridge discuss the practical application of the SOSTAC (Situation, Objectives, Strategy, Tactics, Action, Control) marketing planning model. The interviewee, Sam Bridge, a freelance marketer and communications professional, shares her experiences using SOSTAC in real-world scenarios, including for marketing plans, internal communications, and client briefings. She highlights the benefits of the framework as a way to organise thinking and ensure key elements are covered, while also discussing the challenges of applying it in a linear fashion.

Key Points

  • SOSTAC is a useful framework for strategic marketing planning, but can also be applied to other types of plans and communications.
  • In practice, the process is often not linear, with marketers being brought in at different stages and needing to backtrack or fill in gaps.
  • Conducting a thorough situation analysis can be challenging due to time, resource, and stakeholder constraints, so a pragmatic, common-sense approach is often required.
  • Setting clear, SMART objectives is crucial but can be difficult, as stakeholders may have different expectations.
  • Regularly reviewing and adjusting plans based on changing market conditions is important, but often overlooked in practice.
  • Adapting the terminology of the SOSTAC model (e.g. using "background" instead of "situation analysis") can make it more relatable for non-marketing stakeholders.

 

Podcast Transcript

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Announcer (00:01):
In this episode of the Cambridge Marketing Podcast - SOSTAC and how to use it.

Sam Bridge (00:06):
If you use anything too jargony in any situation, you just alienate people, don't you? And most of the time I'm not presenting to a marketing person, it's somebody in a different part of the business or a business owner.

Announcer (00:21):
You are listening to the Cambridge Marketing Podcast with Kiran Kapur.

Kiran Kapur (host) (00:26):
This week we are looking at the model of SOSTAC used for marketing auditing and planning. We've done a podcast in the past, actually going through the various elements of SOSTAC, and you can find that I interviewed PR Smith who came up with the model. But today we're actually going to look at how you use SOSTAC in the real world because it's all very well learning something theoretically, but how you actually apply it can be very different. And I'm very pleased to be joined by Sam Bridge, who is a freelancer marketer and communications professional and a tutor at the college. Sam, let's just start with what one would even use SOSTAC for.

Sam Bridge (01:06):
Well, SOSTAC a tool that you'd mainly associate with strategic marketing planning. So a structured process where you need a set of objectives, a strategy to meet those objectives. You need going to result in a comprehensive plan that's linked to your business objectives. That's what it's really there for. That's what I learned about it for in reality, I use it for other things as well. I'll use it for an internal communications plan. I'll even use it to feed back on a client brief. So if I've taken a brief from a client and I want to note that down on paper or go back to them in something, I'll use that structure there as well because it's just a really helpful framework I find for organising my thinking, structuring a document and making sure that all of the key things are covered.

Kiran Kapur (host) (01:54):
Before we go any further, let's just cover off very briefly what SOSTAC is. So this is always the interesting bit where I put you on the spot for what thhe acronym, so it's an acronym.

Sam Bridge (02:04):
It is. It's a six word or an acronym for six words. So you've got situation analysis, objectives, strategy tactics, action and control.

Kiran Kapur (host) (02:17):
And as we go through, we can talk about what each of those means. I know when I'm teaching it, people often get confused between actions and tactics, and I think sometimes it can seem that you do all these things separately, but maybe you don't. So let's explore that. So you said that you use it and you said you used it to organise your thinking. So how do you do that?

Sam Bridge (02:39):
Well, it's just a set of headings really, isn't it? So if you take each of those six words in the acronym that we've just mentioned, really what you're doing is asking yourself a set of questions and answering those questions. And so if I am doing a marketing plan, well the situation analysis is probably going to be quite detailed, be a lot of information about what products are out in the market already or services, what the competitors are doing, what we've seen succeed for our business before. There'll be a whole wealth of information at that stage. If I'm just using it as a framework to capture a conversation that I've had with a client or potential client, it's more like a background at that point. So I think really what you're doing is you're just capturing what is the situation now, what do I know? What information do I have? And that can be very thorough or in some cases for me it's quite brief. Then you're looking at what we're trying to achieve. So that's where your objectives are coming in. Your question there is what do I need to do? And then yes, you need to make those smart. So specific, measurable, realistic and timed. I swear they changed those acronyms as I've gone through my education. I

Kiran Kapur (host) (03:55):
I think they have actually, yes.

Sam Bridge (03:57):
I think there's been various versions, but the point being those objectives need to be something that you can really measure and that when you're going to try and achieve them by, and then your strategy, you're asking yourself, well, what's my big idea for getting there? What's the thing that we're really going to get into here? And then when you get to your actions, that's always, for me, quite the fun bit. That's the way you can get a bit creative. That's where your tactics come in, that's where your channels come in and you are getting all of that then and then your actions. So other to-do list really. So at that point it's who is doing what when, and probably at that point I've got some sort of business process system I'm using or a spreadsheet or something if it's a detailed plan where I'm kind of capturing what's got to be done by when, how's it all going to happen, probably what it's going to cost.

(04:49):
And then you've got your control piece. So what can we measure? How will we know this is working? And that's setting out upfront what it is that you're going to be measuring. And I think that's a really important piece of it because I've been in situations where if that hasn't been agreed upfront, you can be reporting on something quite different to what your stakeholder is expecting. So if you've got someone that's expecting revenue figures and you are giving them social media metrics, it can be a quite tricky conversation. So you are working out as part of the planning process, not once you've started, not once you're going along, you're working it out at the start. What are we measuring? How can we make sure we're meeting those objectives?

Kiran Kapur (host) (05:33):
I think that's, and particularly your controls and making certain that you're measuring what your client is wanting, is really important. I've just done a podcast on marketers talking to the board and how marketers go in talking about their social media stats, whereas the board want to hear revenue, hard figures, money, and you are absolutely right. It's absolutely vital that we know what it is the other person wants. Equally, you don't want to be boring them with hard. You want to spend hours producing hard revenue figures if that's not what they're looking for.

Sam Bridge (06:04):
No, exactly. And I think you've got to have the objectives agreed in order for that to work. So I think that objective setting part is really important because you need to all be on the same page with those and for them to be articulated really clearly. And then off the back of that, the control, the measurement, the monitoring piece should follow. So I was looking for a little case study on this and Airbnb has a good one. So their business goal was around improving customer loyalty and increasing the lifetime value of customers. So that's what they wanted to achieve as a business. And their marketing objective was to increase customer engagement on their mobile app by 30%. So that's really clear. That objective is clear, it's got a measure against it. And so at that point it's obvious what's going to be reported on when you're reviewing or whatever time periods you're working to. So I think the two go hand in hand.

Kiran Kapur (host) (06:58):
And do you find when you're using SOSTAC, particularly with clients, that you actually go through it in a linear fashion? Yes, that's what I thought. So what actually happens in the real world?

Sam Bridge (07:10):
I think what actually happens in the real world is that you get quite often brought in as the marketer, you quite often get brought in at a stage where something's been decided. So you quite often get brought in at the stage where a strategy has been decided or an objective has been decided. Probably not a clear smart objective, maybe a sort of woolly vague objective that you're expected to understand or even a tactic. Actually I worked in professional services for quite a long time and a classic amongst the internal clients in professional services, I need to hold an event. So that's a thing that you want to do, but actually what are you trying to achieve? And so you'll often be working backwards to try and fill in some of the gaps that go beforehand and you might be at a point where that aim of having an event that's not really their objective, that's the thing that they want to do.

(08:03):
So they're trying to achieve something else and holding an event may not be the best way to do that. They may be one of the things that they do, but there may need to be a whole load of other things as well. So I think you do often get brought in at a stage where other things have happened and sometimes I've been in the position where I've been able to say, actually, can we just step back at a moment and actually do the situation analysis properly because then we can really understand what's happened before, where the opportunities really lie, and sometimes even what your product actually is because what you think it is and what it, particularly in a service environment where it might be a piece of technology along with a service and it's quite complicated. There's not necessarily a clear market for that.

(08:46):
So stepping back and looking at what else is going on, who else is out there where you fit, where you're having success already before rolling into we just need to sell more to this type of customer can be really, really valuable time spent because it can mean that the marketing that you go on to do is much more effective. So I'd say it is not linear. You want to try and do this as early as you can and as thoroughly as you can. But the reality is things are moving very fast as the marketer, you're brought in at different stages and sometimes there is a need to backtrack and sometimes that won't be possible. Sometimes there's a launch date, everyone's moving forward and you've just got to work with what you've got.

Kiran Kapur (host) (09:31):
When you talk about, you said sometimes you need to encourage the customer to do a situational analysis. What does that look like? Because when we're teaching it, we teach that you do a macro analysis and then you do a micro analysis and then you do this and then you do that. What does it actually look like in the real world?

Sam Bridge (09:47):
I think this is one of the things that when I was learning it, I got so bogged down in the which models and data do I need here? Which section of the plan does it go in? Have I ticked every single one of them off my list? And I am not saying that you don't do that, you do. And it depends on the organisation, the product or service. So many factors come into play to whether you do all of the analysis that you've described. But I do look at that checklist as a sort of what have I got? Which bits of that do I know or which bits can I quite quickly and easily find out? Sometimes you can just have a few conversations with a few people and get a lot of information. Other times you need to be much more rigorous in how you go through that analysis.

(10:34):
In reality, if I'm honest, that checklist isn't met every time. And so like I said before, if I'm just using the SOSTAC model to capture a client conversation and agree next steps, it's a background. It might not have any data in it. It might have a little bit, I'll probably have been able to do, you can do enough desk research these days, can't you to be able to put a few interesting facts and figures in that are relevant, but there won't have been a proper macro analysis or it depends on the need and the situation. And you've got to also consider there's a resource factor. There's people needed for this. There's sometimes budget needed for this depending on the extent of what you're doing. There's very often time needed for this. And I'm not saying that you should dismiss it because of any of those factors, but you've got to find those things in order to be able to go through that process. And you've got to have the support of the rest of the business.

Kiran Kapur (host) (11:33):
Yes, because if your manager is screaming that they want, I dunno, social media you've got to keep the social media up or you've got and something else coming up, then you may not have the time. And I think that's a really important point that we often overlook when we're teaching you this theoretically that is there isn't a cost as a resource cost into doing this.

Sam Bridge (11:53):
And it's not always very appealing to your internal stakeholders. It's not something they would rather spend that money on the event or the social media campaign or the thing that they want to do that's exciting and looks interesting and this is quite a boring, not very exciting part of it. So you can understand why there's a hesitance. And like I said, time is often a factor as well. People are often in a rush. We want to be there before our competitors. We want to be there before this thing is happening or before this product is launching. There's often a time factor and doing a big piece of analysis can take time. What I would say though is you do need to find that balance between just being tactical based on no information and how much information you've got the kind of time and resource to gather.

(12:45):
So it is a fine line. And I think again, there's a sort of common sense approach to that isn't there of how big a budget are we spending on this marketing relative to the size of our organisation and our budgets in general. Now how big an investment is this for us that we need to, it is crucial that we get it right. And then obviously you want to put more effort into your situation analysis. This is quite a small campaign. You're just trialling something actually that might be informing a situation, analysis, gathering data, you're doing some testing and that will come into play as well. So it's a balance. I think

Kiran Kapur (host) (13:21):
That's a really interesting point that you can use tactics to then inform your situation analysis.

Sam Bridge (13:26):
And I think more and more now, it was much harder back when I was doing my CIM qualifications and you're putting an advert out and it was very hard to understand what was happening. You have so much real time information now that you can really be learning as you go along and understanding the market better as a result.

Kiran Kapur (host) (13:46):
Yes. So that's another thing about not you necessarily doing SOSTAC linearly, you could be doing a bit that then ref feeds back into another section. Could we talk a little bit about the objective side? This is the side I think marketers can sometimes struggle with when you said they've got to be smart, and the number of times I've seen with learners where they write objectives must be smart. And then you say, so give me an objective and they go increasing sales, there's a disconnect. So do you find in the real world people struggle to get the objectives?

Sam Bridge (14:22):
I think people struggle to make goals smart, whether it's in a marketing context or any other context. So if I think about appraisal review processes as a separate thing where we personally write our own goals or objectives for the year ahead. I mean so many have no time frame to them, have no measurement to them, and it doesn't always have to be a number, but you do have to be able to see whether you have achieved that objective or not. So increased sales, yes, I suppose you could look at what it is now and what it is in the future, but if you're investing money in marketing and what's going to be a reasonable amount for those sales to increase, what's the value of that? And again, to kind of the stakeholder perspective, how do you make sure that you need to know that they're going to be happy with that? The last thing you want to do is spend six months doing some brilliant marketing stuff, come back and say, oh yes, we've increased sales and it's by 5%, but they're in their head it was going to be 50 and the marketing that you'd planned was never going to get you to 50%. So you've got to have something to kind of make it concrete.

Kiran Kapur (host) (15:37):
And there's always the temptation to go, well, we're just going to increase sales 5% on what we did last year. Well, markets change, circumstances change. That may just not be possible. Yeah,

Sam Bridge (15:48):
Yeah. So many factors. Exactly. And that is the thing with any of these plans is you do have to be reviewing my pet hate is the beautiful plan is created so much work and effort goes into it and everyone's agreed is a brint idea and then in it goes into a filing cabinet and doesn't see the light of day for the rest of the year when you get it out and go, how did we get on with our marketing plan? It can't be just pushed to the side once you've completed it, you do need to be looking because markets, like you said, things change. Circumstances are changing all the time and really, really quickly, especially in some industries. I've worked quite a lot in the tech space as well and things are changing rapidly. You can't plan for a year or even six months and then dust your plan off and check that it's working. It has to be something that you are looking at regularly and checking and tweaking and evolving if you need to.

Kiran Kapur (host) (16:45):
And again, in the real world, do we do the control element and do we review?

Sam Bridge (16:52):
No, I think that's the biggest missed area and such a shame because that's where you learn. I think that's where you really get to understand. I think it is very often the case that you plan things, you implement them, everyone's very excited and running along with things and then you forget to review and the next shiny project comes along and people get busy on that and you sort of move on. And it can be very easy to not do any of that kind of monitoring and measuring or maybe not enough of it or not for long enough. The other thing might be quite good for a couple of months or half a year sort of reporting back to people and then forget about it. But actually stuff's still out in the market. It's still happening. What's happened 12 months or even further down the line again depending the timescales and the nature of your product or service.

(17:51):
But I do think that it's a missed opportunity not spending a bit of time on control. And again, I try and hold myself accountable for it to keep reporting to. I think sometimes it's actually my stakeholders have got bored of hearing about it and want to hear about the new thing and I'm still coming back going, that thing that we started six months ago, look at these latest wickers because well, it's part of me justifying my value and what I'm doing for them actually. But also you should be looking at the lifetime of the marketing.

Kiran Kapur (host) (18:29):
Yes. And you mentioned professional services and events. I mean presumably those don't necessarily have an instant impact. They can be, it's all about being top of mind, isn't it? So the impact could be six months or a year later.

Sam Bridge (18:41):
Oh absolutely. I mean the sort of customer journey in professional services is a lot of little touch points that build up and build up over time before you might get the opportunity to pitch for some work and win a piece. So yes, that's why I want to run an event. For me, it's not a great starting point. It's actually I'm trying to achieve winning these new clients from this area. So an event, yes, good, but what else? That's not going to be the thing very often in its own right.

Kiran Kapur (host) (19:12):
So when you're talking to a client and you have SOSTAC in the back of your mind, or do you actually say, let's go through a SOSTAC? How would you practically use it?

Sam Bridge (19:24):
No, I wouldn't say let's go through a SOSTAC. And actually I am known for changing the titles. So even when I'm playing it back, I might have changed situation analysis to background. I might not call it by the sort of technical term for example, or objectives might be aims or goals depending on who I'm talking to and what the situation is. So I will tweak things as I need to, but no, I wouldn't have it out there in the open of let's go through this. I've never done that. It might work. I personally haven't tried it and I wouldn't even necessarily structure my conversation around it. But when I come away from that and I'm making my notes afterwards, that's when I'll bring the structure in because then I can kind of think about all the things we've talked about, all of the notes that I've made, all of the information that I've got in the background and bring it into something that kind of makes sense and I can look back on and then I might play it forward to them as well. So it might be the follow-up to the meeting might be, here's a kind of first draught of a plan of what we could do together. So I'll use it that way.

Kiran Kapur (host) (20:39):
And do you find changing the names, I'm really intrigued by that because quite often I won't call the 'situation analysis' situation analysis because actually I think it's a strange phrase, I'll often call it just context,

Sam Bridge (20:51):
Yes

Kiran Kapur (host) (20:51):
But I like your idea of background. Do you find that actually just changing the labels actually makes it seem more relevant?

Sam Bridge (21:00):
More relatable, I think. If you use anything too jargony in any situation, you just alienate people, don't you? And I think most of the time I'm not presenting to a marketing person, it's somebody in a different part of the business or a business owner. And so situation analysis and SOSTAC means nothing to them. So I call it something that seems appropriate.

Kiran Kapur (host) (21:28):
And do you ever go through the models you saidat the beginning under particularly situation analysis, background, there are some sort of models that we talk about. Do you find you ever use them or do you use a mixture of them?

Sam Bridge (21:42):
Yeah, a mixture. So I do, again, dependent on the circumstances, I will pick and mix a bit. Some seem more useful in certain scenarios than others and some I'm simply not going to be able to get the information in the time that I need it. So yes, I will always consider the models, but whether I use them or not depends very much on what I'm doing.

Kiran Kapur (host) (22:12):
So Sam, I think the one question I haven't really asked is how do you do this and has that changed over time?

Sam Bridge (22:18):
So if I think about when I first started doing SOSTAC, it would be a Word document and then later in my career it would be a PowerPoint slide deck because I've worked for big firms. If it's not a slide deck, is it even a thing? But now I tend to use this is if I'm planning with a group of people, I'll tend to use a whiteboard like mural. And I think in terms of that linear kind of process or iterative, I think the whiteboard concept can be really, really helpful because you get people involved in the conversation there in real time. You're not passing draughts backwards and forwards. And so it can speed things up, it can make sure everyone's on the same page, get the buy-in quite early on. And then you've got this living thing that you can roll out every time you've got a review or whatever.

Kiran Kapur (host) (23:11):
Thank you. So if somebody's listening going well, this is really interesting. Should I be using SOSTAC in the real world? What would your advice be?

Sam Bridge (23:21):
Absolutely should be using it? I think if I think about all of the things that I learned during what felt like many years of CIM study, it felt quite long and hard. It's the one thing that I have repeatedly come back to in all of my jobs and that I use regularly. So I think it's quite, if you don't let yourself get hung up and bogged down on the detail and the technicalities and you just use it as a way of setting something out, making sure you've covered the important points, then I think it's really, really useful. And like I said, I use the pieces that are meant to be in each, I'll use that as a checklist. So it's a reminder of, oh, have I thought about using this model for my situation analysis? Have I made my objective smart? I'll check against that. But I just think the danger is you get hung up on completing it in such detail and using all of those things that you actually don't use it at all. And it's better to have a framework that's a good solid framework and you've got those six sections and therefore you've thought of everything so you haven't forgotten to think about how will I measure whether this is working? You haven't forgotten to think about who's doing what when you've covered all of that and you've just done it in a sort of pragmatic way.

Kiran Kapur (host) (24:56):
I think that's very sound advice and really interesting that it's the one that you come back to. I mean of all the models that you will learn over the course of a CIM qualification, it's really interesting that this is the one that you find the most relevant consistently.

Sam Bridge (25:10):
Yeah.

Kiran Kapur (host) (25:12):
So my final question to you is around your career journey, and I always find this can be some of the most interesting part of the conversation because people don't do straightforward planned careers. One day I'm going to have a guest that actually says no, that I started out here and then I worked my way up and I got to where I wanted to. But how have you ended up as a freelance marketer in comms Professional?

Sam Bridge (25:37):
Okay, how long have you got? It's not been a normal, it's not been planned. I think that's the thing. I didn't use a SOSTAC model for my own career for sure, maybe I should have. But I think what I've always done is followed my interests and created my own opportunities. So if I kind of cast my mind back, I went to university to do a business degree, didn't have any idea what I wanted to do at all. So I thought I'd do some German and some law alongside the business to keep my options open. And three years after the degrees coming to an end. And I've kind of honed in on I guess the organisational behaviour type work and the marketing type work. So I'm thinking a career in HR or marketing is probably the way for me and then into the job market, which was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. You don't come out as a graduate with a choice of jobs available to you, even with a good degree. And I was actually about to accept a job that I really didn't want. The person was recruiting was calling it CEO of the stationary cupboard. And I just did not want to go there,

Kiran Kapur (host) (26:49):
Oh dear, how not to sell a job. Good grief!

Sam Bridge (26:51):
Absolutely. Absolutely. And it was that kind of attitude and I really didn't want it, but it was like, I've got to get a job, you've got to take something. And then the most perfect job came along and it was a marketing executive job for a small but fast growing software company. And it was just the best first job because it was small, it was very hands-on and I just learned so much. So I think I had my kind of role description and then there were all the other things going on around it, like PR and design and customer service and sales that I was just, because we all sat together, you could hear everything. People needed help, you would muck in. So it was a brilliant foundation for me. And actually it was when I was there that I kind of started to understand that marketing was much bigger and there was much more to it than what I'd learned in a business degree.

(27:43):
So that's when I decided to start studying my CIM qualifications. And I signed up actually to a distance learning provider and got these huge folders delivered to my house, huge. And sat there every weekend and in the evenings working through by myself. And then I moved to a division of the University of Cambridge where I was in a communications manager role. And actually it was at that point that I got some funding for my qualifications. So I was able to go and study at the college and I had some colleagues studying with me. And that was brilliant because it is just support and people to work on live projects with back at the office as well. So that was great. And then I went on to join a law firm. I thought I've done fairly well with teachers and professors, I'll see how I go with lawyers.

(28:33):
And that was a big global law firm. And I think the really interesting thing for me there was that there were other people doing the same job for me but for different departments. So suddenly I had this network of people who were kind of similarly skilled, facing similar challenges. So I always had that sounding board and people to join projects with. And that was brilliant from a learning perspective as well. And I actually ended up staying there nine years. I had think three or four different roles there. I got promoted when I was pregnant with my second child. So I managed to somehow negotiate a part-time job share promotion just as I was about to go on maternity leave

Kiran Kapur (host) (29:18):
Which I think speaks volumes for your negotiation skills, I have to say.

Sam Bridge (29:22):
I know. I dunno how I managed that. I think that was rare back then. And I think it is still rare now, sadly. But yeah, so I had a great time there. And then I moved to one of the big four consultancy firms and again, my negotiation skills, they offered me a role and it was in London and I live near Cambridge. And I was like, I can't do a full-time role in London. I've got two small children. And they said, well, what can you do? And I said, well, I can do three days a week and I'll need this one to be at home. And they were like, we'll try it for three months. And I said, okay, we'll give it a go. And I stayed there for 10 years. Clearly it worked. And again, I had about five different roles there. But I think what I've done in all my roles is I've got to know people, I've got to understand the business much, much beyond my immediate area.

(30:15):
I have followed things that have interested me and I've come forward with ideas and proposals, which have allowed me to either move into a new role, set up a new team, and admittedly I've been working closely with technology teams. So those opportunities coming up regularly. There's lots of change, there's lots of investment. So that's definitely been a factor. And I've had a sort of technology thread all through my career. But I think building those deep relationships, really, really understanding how the business works and the market actually, it's not just the business, but what's going on in the market has given me the scope to come forward and say, have you thought about this? I think we need to do more here and manoeuvre myself into roles that didn't exist. So that's how I've managed to get to where I am. And I've stayed at PWC 10 years and had an absolutely brilliant time, worked on some amazing stuff. But one, I have a thing in my head of if you stay 10 years, you're probably going to stay forever. And I don't want to stay anywhere forever. And two, I wanted, I was just at that point where I wanted to work for myself. I wanted to have lots of flexibility around my children and sort of fulfil my purpose personally rather than the business's purpose, I think.

Kiran Kapur (host) (31:37):
And how is the move from a big multinational corporation to being Sam Bridge? What's that

Sam Bridge (31:45):
Like? Such an adjustment. I mean, it's been a year nearly, and I have just sort of built things up slowly. I think it's been brilliant in that I love the freedom to work when I want to work and to choose who I work with. I miss the company and the brilliance of the people that I worked with, and they were brilliant at PWC particularly. So that's been a massive change for me. Plus you just do everything as a solo freelancer. You have to think about everything. And that's been a big learning curve. I've worked for a huge organisation. You outsource so much anyway, and there's so many, there's always someone that you can ask. And so this is a very different scenario, but a really enjoyable one.

Kiran Kapur (host) (32:40):
Yes, it's a really good point, isn't it? That suddenly you're responsible for your own expenses and your own tax return and all the stuff that other people just did for you. Yes. Sam Bridge, that was absolutely brilliant. Thank you so much for explaining those sort of real life use of SaltStack as a model and also for insights into your career. I think the idea of following your interests and creating your opportunities is a fantastic motto for anybody in a career. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you. It's been a pleasure.