00:00:00:02 - 00:00:10:16
Speaker 1
You and I were sitting at a pub in Carlton, and we were figuring out if we were going to make $1 million, and we were charging $60 a week for social media.
00:00:10:17 - 00:00:11:13
Speaker 2
It's a lot of clients.
00:00:11:14 - 00:00:12:19
Speaker 1
It's a lot of clients.
00:00:12:20 - 00:00:25:08
Speaker 2
You just know that we've now outgrown it, and it has to die in order for your business to grow. You're most likely have to reiterate the business model 4 or 5 times on the way to 20, 30, $40 million.
00:00:25:09 - 00:00:33:13
Speaker 1
But you have to be okay with the fact that you were technically wrong for the last period. Yeah, now, that last period would have got you to where you are now.
00:00:33:15 - 00:01:02:22
Speaker 2
It was quite strange, but awesome. A client turned up to our office who'd been on back a ball and started hugging all of us, and we're not really a walk into an office type. They're like, it's not a retail store, it's an office. And he he had had an experience using the technology that had transformed his life. He made, I think, $20,000 just as a as a side.
00:01:02:24 - 00:01:44:06
Speaker 2
Maybe it was more. But let's not exaggerate. But for him, he he's been working with the technology in such a way that he was emotional about the transformation in his life because he'd been running a business for a long time and really couldn't break through to that next level. It's an interesting, I guess, experience because we've all been in those situations, some of us a lifetime and many years of of toiling at our craft and actually understanding how AI and the things you can start doing now that aren't so outside the realm, but actually getting support that's only tailored to you at the moment and what that actually can do.
00:01:44:06 - 00:02:16:01
Speaker 2
Because for him, it's been transformative. Like, you know, he he took up a foundation membership and he's, you know, he's got what, 100 times return on it financially like, which is wonderful. We probably should check our pricing. But these sort of experiences, and I think it's just when we'd gone through stages of difficulty in businesses, they hit a plateau where you go to next stage or you need to, you know, rip the business apart to, you know, re recalibrate it for the next level of growth.
00:02:16:03 - 00:02:42:20
Speaker 2
How, how before this sort of technology exists, how did how did you approach those times of complete I guess not transformation, but essentially the destruction of everything that it got to that point. And now what needs to go on? How did you emotionally deal with that sort of stuff? Because I generally find it difficult when you do so much work and you just know that it's we've now outgrown it and it has to die.
00:02:42:22 - 00:03:04:14
Speaker 1
So my job in all these businesses was to build the systems and processes. And we're talking before AI, you know, 5 or 600 pages worth of how to run the business. And let's be honest, most of the transformation came because of you. You had an idea, you had a concept, it was implemented. And my 5 to 600 pages were then put in the bin.
00:03:04:15 - 00:03:16:14
Speaker 2
So and we definitely systemized way too early in most of it. I mean, maybe that's why it grew, but thinking about it now. But we went pretty deep into systemizing everything from the start.
00:03:16:16 - 00:03:35:17
Speaker 1
I possibly went to early, but that's also the foundation of where we are right now. True, we never would have built what we had built if we hadn't actually done the painstaking. How do you answer an email? What are the emails that come in? It's now categorization and all this sort of tech talk that you can talk about.
00:03:35:17 - 00:03:43:22
Speaker 1
But we did that on paper. And so the first step for me was utter despair that my 600 pages of how to's were thrown in the bin.
00:03:43:23 - 00:03:47:05
Speaker 2
It's amazing. You don't have to think about that now. Yeah.
00:03:47:08 - 00:03:48:03
Speaker 1
It's pretty fun.
00:03:48:04 - 00:03:49:06
Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:03:49:08 - 00:04:01:15
Speaker 1
And then from that, it was just get up and move forward. I think if you're in business and you have any level of despair or unhappiness over a growth moment, you probably shouldn't be in business.
00:04:01:15 - 00:04:22:15
Speaker 2
But I think from the from people who haven't done it before or are they going through this experience? You've got to understand that in order for your business to grow, you'll most likely have to reiterate the business model for or five times on the way to 20, 30, $40 million. Because, you know, we mapped these things for eight years, thousands of businesses, what actually had to happen, what were the key moments?
00:04:22:15 - 00:04:43:15
Speaker 2
What were the businesses that made it, the ones that didn't? Why? What was the key things of why some people plateaued? Some people took off at certain levels, you know, and that that was a fascinating insight for us because there's definitely patterns of the things that change, especially now layering on machine learning and AI. But most people don't think about their business having to evolve.
00:04:43:16 - 00:04:58:24
Speaker 2
They think that it's just more staff and will grow that way where it's not that at all. There's 20 levers that need to change at every single level. It's you should expect your current business not to. Well, I don't know, a business that actually has stayed the same.
00:04:59:01 - 00:05:12:01
Speaker 1
And we've spoken about this before, which is the owners who scaled back instead of kept going and adding more employees. And if I remember correctly, you had quite a controversial opinion on that.
00:05:12:02 - 00:05:13:01
Speaker 2
On what?
00:05:13:03 - 00:05:30:17
Speaker 1
On choosing to scale back, because when you hit a certain level, it wasn't what you wanted or what you thought you wanted. And when you do get exactly what you want. It's why the famous be careful what you wish for. So many things have to change, and the big part of it is you actually have to be as an owner.
00:05:30:17 - 00:05:51:02
Speaker 1
You have to be okay with the fact that you were technically wrong for the last period. Yeah. Now that last period would have got you to where you are now. But if you're not okay with failing and falling and just keep going whether or not you want to or can be bothered, then the ownership or the idea of it isn't for you because your job is to keep moving regardless of what happens.
00:05:51:03 - 00:06:10:07
Speaker 2
Yeah, we see the hard bit of around the people side of it sometimes that you're not the right leader for the next level of business. A lot of startup founders get to a certain point and actually their entrepreneur ism, their way they look at the world is what dragged them through the first few levels and revenue levels. But actually that's the mindset.
00:06:10:07 - 00:06:30:10
Speaker 2
They need to look at the future. But actually you need to bring in professional managers when you start getting a bigger team. But most owners who've never had that experience, they find it hard to let go or let other people because there's an air of control. It's an area that they got success by doing it this way. Why would you change?
00:06:30:10 - 00:06:52:03
Speaker 2
But we see it all the time that if you don't change, the business just can't evolve through. We're back to that whole thing of you need to evolve with the business, or the business won't evolve without you. And that's a that's one of the really interesting parts of, I guess, growing a company or having these breakthroughs. Going back to the guy that sort of turned up to our office is he's having major breakthroughs.
00:06:52:03 - 00:07:11:02
Speaker 2
But straight away with the success of oh my God, I've got some money coming in and it's good money and it's, you know, essentially becoming life changing money and straight away. So how do I manage all this growth? How do I how do I look at it now obviously he's using backbone. And we that's that's why we built the damn thing.
00:07:11:02 - 00:07:30:22
Speaker 2
But it's it's so interesting to remember when we were looking at this prior to having technology that could support you or, you know, you could speak to it 24 over seven. It's difficult being there by yourself going, should I employ this person or should I remove myself as the CEO? Should I still do the marketing? What's my actual role?
00:07:30:22 - 00:07:57:24
Speaker 2
And and the exciting thing I think these days is it's actually there's so much nuance on it that you can actually now do things in such specific and high, impactful ways. You don't have to just make a full decision. Like, this is the thing of having these organizations that are completely, I guess, transparent now because your transition basically can be be ushered in with the help of AI now, which I think is an incredible thing.
00:07:58:01 - 00:08:14:20
Speaker 2
What's, can you remember the first big breakthrough you had as a business? Like when I was just thinking back of when this guy, what was the first like, wow moment for you when you started your company? Because I was just seeing his joy in on my and the oh my God, what the hell do I do now?
00:08:14:24 - 00:08:17:17
Speaker 2
But do you remember that? Do you remember your first client?
00:08:17:18 - 00:08:40:11
Speaker 1
I remember my first client, but I remember the the time when I went, oh, I actually, I run a business. She. Yeah. You and I were sitting at a pub in Carlton, and we were figuring out if we were going to make $1 million, and we were charging $60 a week for social media. So five posts a week.
00:08:40:16 - 00:08:50:13
Speaker 1
Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Full content collection, full strategy build and posting without any scheduling because it was all manual for 60 bucks a week.
00:08:50:15 - 00:08:52:09
Speaker 3
You and I were like, yeah.
00:08:52:11 - 00:08:57:19
Speaker 1
We can get that many clients to make $1 million for the year.
00:08:57:21 - 00:08:58:19
Speaker 2
It's a lot of clients.
00:08:58:19 - 00:09:00:03
Speaker 1
It's a lot of clients.
00:09:00:03 - 00:09:04:06
Speaker 2
And people got exactly the same model now.
00:09:04:08 - 00:09:07:17
Speaker 2
Fucking idiots.
00:09:07:19 - 00:09:09:16
Speaker 1
You asked for the wow moment.
00:09:09:16 - 00:09:13:15
Speaker 2
Well, here's a wow realization. The fucking.
00:09:13:16 - 00:09:31:16
Speaker 1
Day you're older, man. And so that's when I sat there and went, oh, I'm a business owner. I'm I've got decisions to make. And I, I think we brought in a package that was $100 a week and we added in Pinterest, which was. Yeah. So it was less about the.
00:09:31:18 - 00:09:44:21
Speaker 2
Well, member when you had to pay for advertising. And it was like, we're going to lose all our clients because you used to not have to pay for advertising like the organic reach. And then meta changed all that when agencies there that at one stage was, oh my God, people are not going to pay for advertising.
00:09:45:01 - 00:10:01:04
Speaker 1
We had to convince them to pay for advertising. Yeah, yeah. But everyone's got a different way. Our moment. And for some people it is money coming into the bank. For me personally, it was I'm an owner. I actually not only I have to make decisions, but I can do this and I'm in charge of whatever it is that I want to do.
00:10:01:05 - 00:10:08:23
Speaker 2
Do you have a plan at the start? I know we had plans. Life plans, but did you have a plan personally of what you wanted to earn? Like a big hairy? Yeah.
00:10:08:24 - 00:10:19:19
Speaker 1
No, I think my first job. So it was at Universal Music. I'm pretty sure it was $28,000, was my wage. So as long as it was more than that, I was pretty. Yeah. Pretty. Okay.
00:10:19:21 - 00:10:22:02
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah, right.
00:10:22:03 - 00:10:27:07
Speaker 1
Yeah. What was your wow moment?
00:10:27:09 - 00:10:46:06
Speaker 2
It's funny, I don't know, sort of. Slugged it out. Yeah. I don't know if it's a it's not a wow moment. It's. I think when you crack a million in revenue for the first time, it's a some reason it's like a barrier. It feels real. We've had people we've worked with saying it just feels like I'm a real business owner, which is not a true thing at all.
00:10:46:06 - 00:11:11:21
Speaker 2
But it's just for some reason that feels like such a goal. When you started a small business. I think a couple of Wow moments was clients who were working with that sort of for me, like just unlocking a couple of things to grow by 30, $40 million quickly seeing that stuff, it's sort of a wow, because you see the difference in when you liberate a company in a certain way, what actually can happen.
00:11:11:21 - 00:11:33:16
Speaker 2
And you realize, like how how these things are, it's amazing the the ecosystem, a company, when things have got bottlenecks or the wrong model or the wrong whatever, how they they stop. And as soon as you tweak or ignite the right thing, how much they can grow and grow quickly, I think those moments have probably been the, the big ones.
00:11:33:16 - 00:11:52:07
Speaker 2
But, you know, someone walking into the office and being in tears because, you know, a piece of technology has changed their life. Like it's it's pretty amazing to me. That's a wow moment because, you know, we said probably stupidly, if it only helped one person, we've done it like we should change our goals if it only helps a million people.
00:11:52:09 - 00:12:11:14
Speaker 2
But, you know, that's a that's a life changing thing for that person. And that's, that's a nice thing to think about because, you know, if you've got one customer, you can find a thousand. If you can find 1000, you can find 100,000. And so for me, that's it's just some of those things that you see there, omens in a company's life cycle.
00:12:11:14 - 00:12:48:21
Speaker 2
Like, we'll remember that moment for someone who came in and, you know, changed their world. When I think it's at its dumbest version of what it is, that's cool. What's true, it's going to get smarter every day. Yeah. I mean, I had a using our platform and we'd talk about it. But for me, this is, you know, we obviously built some stuff into the back end around how it understands the person and all that sort of stuff to actually understand where you you need a rest, like me taking a day off because it said to me it was a big thing because it it out convinced me of how why?
00:12:48:21 - 00:12:59:20
Speaker 2
I said, there's no way we can take a day off at the moment, blah, blah, blah. So I'm just trying at the moment. Listen to everything it says and take it verbatim. But it's, it's interesting because it's 100% correct.
00:12:59:20 - 00:13:08:16
Speaker 1
So our previous discussion was about the radical counter and clear communication. And the fact is that you and I have worked together for nearly 20 years is it.
00:13:08:18 - 00:13:11:06
Speaker 2
Couldn't be close enough.
00:13:11:07 - 00:13:23:23
Speaker 1
Nigel's nodding close to. And in those 20 years, the only time you've taken a day off because someone told you to was an AI, and it was the one that you built.
00:13:24:00 - 00:13:25:13
Speaker 2
Yeah, it was obviously a genius.
00:13:25:13 - 00:13:29:10
Speaker 1
Genius. Let us all just be extremely clear on this.
00:13:29:12 - 00:13:54:12
Speaker 2
But but it's also it's not just how you should take a day off. It's the reasoning in terms of context of everything. Because I can't argue with the things that's looking at in context of why it's important. And so for me to have an amazing it's not a mentor, but to have an amazing intelligence that actually looks at the holistic, behaviors of everything I'm doing across the company.
00:13:54:15 - 00:14:14:20
Speaker 2
It's it's exactly what we used to teach CEOs, which is this is why we, you know, we've spoken about it before. We used to make them take Fridays off for Wednesdays off to just start breaking their patterns of the company doesn't rely on you, but also the free space with your brain to have to be out of the office to be out of there actually starts to create innovation again.
00:14:14:20 - 00:14:24:24
Speaker 2
So yeah, it's very interesting technology. It's very exciting. So that was a good experience this week. Great. Thanks for chatting.
00:14:25:01 - 00:14:48:22
Speaker 4
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