Hi and welcome to this week's episode of Money with Alpha. Today I have a lovely new guest to introduce to you, Paul Farmer. Welcome, Paul.
Thanks, Alpha. And lovely. I like being called lovely. Yeah, I'll take that.
Most of, most of my listeners are women. Um, but I met you through, um, one of the networking groups and we connected and I love your energy and I really like what you do and how you do it. So, so. And I feel like you can have a lot of really valuable information and insights to share with our listeners.
Um, before we hit record, we were talking a little bit about that, so we'll start to unpack a little bit. But before we delve into it, um, I wanted, uh, to introduce you a bit more. You've got an amazing background. You've worked overseas, you've worked in lots of different industries.
You're a cpa, which is a certified practicing accountant. Uh, you do all sorts of things with businesses in different ways. Do you want to give us a little bit of a background of your professional kind of history and why you've kind of ended up where you are now?
Alpha, how long have we got? I'll get, I'll give you, I'll give you a snapshot abridged.
Abridged.
Because I, I've, I've covered a lot of ground. There's been a lot of water under a lot of bridges. Um, but I'll give you a, A snapshot into, into the way that I see the world historically, uh, and then also going forward, because I'll be honest, I see things through, ah, a different lens to a lot of people.
So I'll be upfront and honest with that because I do. I see things differently. So, um, I grew up in a small country town, population 800. Uh, so, um, hour and a half outside of Toowoomba, which is an hour and a half outside of Brisbane, uh, in Queensland, for those that may not, uh, know where, where Toowoomba, uh, is.
So, um, my dad was a small, small business owner. My mum worked with dad collectively. Uh, they owned a pharmacy. Um, and so I've been exposed to small business my whole life, uh, based on the fact that that was the thing that provided my sister and I an opportunity to be able to go to boarding school.
So mum and dad worked hard, sacrificed, um, and ate beans, uh, to put. To be able to give us the opportunity to go to boarding school. So, um, originally I wanted to be a physical education teacher. Um, sport has just driven my life. Um, and I wanted to be a PE teacher.
I didn't get the TE score. Back in the 80s 90s we had a thing called a TE school which I wasn't uh, in a space where I got a high enough score just to do pe so I thought well what did I do well at? And I did very well at accounting.
So I thought uh, I'll give that a crack. Um, so I then went from wanting to be a PE teacher to becoming ah, a Bachelor of Commerce majoring in accounting and tax which same, same but different some would say. Um, and then moved to Brisbane in 96 to work for Bentley's which is a second tier accounting firm.
Um, and then worked there for three years, worked for another accounting firm, Snelman Tom for three years, went overseas, worked for Shell, Petra, Canada, uh, Suncorp, um, in accounting, uh, and then strategic forecasting, um, got made redundant twice. Some go, oh, how does that. You must have been shocked.
No, we knew it was coming um, and we got paid out. So you know, redundancy was probably a good thing. Um, I then got a job back here in Australia and worked for a Canadian oil and gas company um, and worked for them until 2015 and then decided that I don't think corporate was the space to allow me to be able to think differently because it was structured, it was corporate.
So um, I left and started Mentoris which is about uh, January. It'll be 10 years that I've since I started it. So um, in all of that I got my CPA qualification, um, and I look back last week, um, and everything that I do is geared around helping people see what's possible.
Whether it's work, home, um, family, whatever it is. I find that I'm geared around helping people see what's possible and then helping them make what's possible possible. So for simplistic terms, everything that we do, whether it's in um, with challenged businesses, flying businesses, leaders that are challenged, leaders that are flying, everything it's about helping them understand what's possible and then help them make that happen for them or understand how they can make that happen themselves.
Yeah, so that's the short version, uh, and um, unbridged without red wine version. So hopefully that's given the, the, the people that see this an opportunity to get a bit of a flavor from, for where I've come from, uh, and where uh, where I am at the moment.
Yeah, no, no, um, that's a, it's a great start. So uh, quite a journey really. Um, and I love the, the difference. So when, when you're working. So people who listen to this will be different, different stages in business, different sizes of business. Some will be solopreneurs who might have like an assistant.
Others will have teams. Uh, when, when you say getting people to think what's possible, is it kind of like where do they want to take their business and their life? Is it the business?
Because a lot of people that I've spoken to, um, they want to keep their business and it's just them. Then there's others who will want to actually scale and grow. Is there a different mentality in terms of how you set all that up or do you kind of say to people, well, let's just grow it to a certain degree and see how you go once you've discovered what the possibilities are.
Yeah, interesting. Great question. So, uh, for those that can see this, and I don't know whether people will be able to visually see. See the podcast. Yep.
Yeah, some will see if they're watching it on YouTube, others will be listening.
So, so for those that may see it on YouTube, then behind me there's a picture, and there's a picture of a, a, uh, small boy pulling back a beige curtain and there is, um, a lot of colorful symbols, uh, behind the curtain. Now I look at, I look at that and every time someone comes into my room, I ask them what does that mean to them?
Because sometimes I'll have clients come in and they go, there is so much noise going on in my space at the moment. Can you just shut it up?
Mhm.
So I can then think and then I can then pull back the curtain and I can then unleash what I call unleash the music. For others, they come in and they go, oh, I've got so much that I, uh, that I haven't achieved or, or I just don't know.
But, but I know there's more that I can be doing than what I'm currently doing or what I'm able to do or what I see. And so to go back to your question, some people are in a space where they want to quieten it down, refocus so they can go again.
Mhm.
Some people want to sit there and go, I just don't know how to make the next stage happen.
Mhm.
So if I take that as an example, what's possible for one person might be, I don't know how to shut up the noise so I can think, get, get a plan in place and then make it happen. Because I've just got crap everywhere. I've got clients want me, team want me, I'VE got rubbish clients, I've got great clients.
I've got a melting pot of everything going on, whether it's just myself and an assistant or whether I've got big teams that there's a lot of noise going on. How do I quieten it down so I can then be clear about where we're going and what we're doing? Now that may be, um, we want to sell.
Mhm.
It Maybe we want to merge, we want to acquire something, we want to grow. But at the moment we've got so much going on that I don't know where we're going yet. And so at the moment what I'm seeing is that, uh, again, it's a melting pot of people want to grow, but they don't understand what growth means for them.
They don't understand the energy resource that they have available or that they're prepared to put towards whatever it is they want the next stage to be. I've got a number of clients that are, that are looking to, uh, to grow. M. And I said, well, what does growth mean for you?
And let's say there are six clients that are in that stage. Each one of them was different. Yeah, One of them was, well, if we're not growing, if we're, if we're not green and growing, we're brown and dying. And I said, and I said, well, you know what, that comes up a lot.
Um, I said, but what does growth mean? Yeah, to you it might meet one thing. To someone else it might mean something else. So it's, it's getting okay and clear about what growth means. First accepting that that's your version of growth and then going, okay, well, if I accept it now, I can choose to do something about it.
Whatever that may be, whatever that looks like it might be. Acquisition. Okay, what does that look like? Because as we both know, the acquisition could be, you know, we buy the whole lot, or internally we've got, uh, a CEO that wants to retire. Yeah. Okay, well, how do we do that?
I was having that conversation on the weekend. How do we do that? Well, someone can either buy, buy you out, they can buy five, they can buy 20% over the next five years, they can sell, they can, you can sell to someone external. You, uh, there are so many options that are available, but just to go, this is, this is what.
I'm not sure what I want. Make it okay to create a business that you want in a way that you actually want it to m. Happen. Yeah. So for me, it's, it's about and uh, that question of what does growth mean for you and what does it look like?
Because some certain people have a certain bandwidth.
Yeah.
They, they have energy resources and a desire to make certain things happen. Now if I want to go from a business that has, has 10 trucks on the road to 20 trucks on the road, that's growth. But for some people, they're sitting there go, uh, I couldn't think of anything worse.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But what if you could add 5 or 10% to your bottom line profitability but not do any more work? Is that growth? Yeah. So that for me is helping people see and that I use what's possible. For me, when someone comes in and isn't clear about what's possible or what they want or their direction or whatever, uh, for me it's about, so what does growth mean to you?
Because most people want to grow.
Yes.
Yeah. But growth may not necessarily be incrementally M scaling a mountain. It might be the next 12 months we're going to consolidate, we're going to get rid of all of our rubbish clients, we're going to add a class clients, we're going to invest in our team, we're not going to do a bucket load more work, but we're going to add 10 to 15% profitability to our business, which then means that in 12 months time we can then look at an acquisition or we can look at incrementally growing or we can look at adding to our team.
But for one person, they'll uh, look at that and go, that's us, that's doable. Someone else will go, I want to scale incrementally from today. How do I do it?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's understanding the personal life impact as well as the business impact and what you're progressing. Prepared to accept or what's what? Yeah, uh, yeah, what. What you actually want to do. Because I think a lot of businesses have grown incrementally over time, and they haven't necessarily gone back and reviewed.
Is this even the sort of work that I want to do, how I want to do it, the sort of clients I want to have? Like, there's a lot of that that goes into it too.
Yeah.
And, and the, and the, the.
The.
The growing over time. If you don't step back and look at what's in front of you and where you would like to go, you will go where you wanted to go six months or 12 months previously.
Yeah.
Ah, but that may have changed. It doesn't make it wrong. It doesn't make it just maybe that you sit there and go, you know, I've got some clients that they've gone. We don't want a massive team.
Yes.
We find that massive teams need managing, and we just want to be in a space where we're comfortable having a business that is a certain size, that makes a certain amount of profitability. And if over the next three to five years we can build it so it becomes more attractive to someone to buy, then for us, that's more important than going from 10 people to 15 to 20 to 30 to 50 to 100.
For them, that's not in their space, but helping them become okay with that.
Yes.
That's the piece that I see is the ego, beautiful ego, uh, that's required to, to, you know, to be able to keep moving forward. Then, you know, when you don't have a resourceful ego, then it's about bigger, uh, stronger, faster. I was in a room with a client, and I wrote on the board, I wrote, bigger equals better.
And then I wrote in capital, um, letters underneath it, ego. And for the first 20 minutes of our conversation, they looked at the. They were looking at this thing on the board and, And I could see that they were kind of. It was bugging them. And I said, so what.
What's. What's, uh, up? Something's up. I. I sense that, that you, you're getting frustrated. There's something that's. What is it? They said that word, ego. I said, yeah. I said, that's what we built our first, our previous business, we built it on. And it failed.
Yes.
And I said, so if you've got bigger equals better on the, on the, on, uh, the book, I said, how can you, how could you change that simply. And they said, we don't know. I said, well, what If I put a line through equals and made bigger, uh, doesn't equal better M.
And they went, oh, if we'd have known that. That we don't have to have the biggest, the most everything. If we'd have known that, potentially we would have got to a point and gone. We don't have to do more than 25 million a year or 30 million a year.
We don't have to keep growing. Yeah, we can. If we can add an extra 5 or 10% profitability on a $30 million business, do you reckon that's growth?
Yes, that's still.
And that's year, and that's year on year.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So do you find the. Because, I mean, the word mindset gets bandied around quite a lot. Um, and I've been listening to a lot of things that talk about nervous systems as well. So there's that whole. If somebody wants to. To grow or they want to develop or even build a business, because there might be people listening who are still trying to build a business to make it.
Prof.
Profitable. How do you see the concepts around mindset and being able to, like, uh, literally, like, hold. When I think of nervous system, I was like, energetically hold the space for a bigger business and be that bigger version. Be that sort of like CEO energy that we were talking about before we hit record.
How do you see that play out? Um, in your experience?
So, ironically, as an accountant, I spend 90% of my days talking about mindset.
Yeah.
Because businesses are reflections of the decisions that we make.
Yes.
Businesses are reflections of the choices we make. So a lot of our time with clients is spent helping them understand
what's influencing their decisions.
Yes.
Helps. That. Helps them understand the choices they make. They may say yes. To employ someone who they've kept on for three months and they don't feel. They've kept them on for six months, and they don't feel like they can get rid of them. Because what would. What would it mean?
Well, it means that I have to then admit that I may have made a decision that wasn't a good decision, but I then have to unwind it. But that's. I've spent six months covering it up because they'll get better and I can change them and whatever. So that whole element of mindset, for me, it's.
It's about choice. Uh, and we choose everything that comes into our space.
Yeah.
Whether we. Whether we cause it or not. Different story. But we choose everything that comes into our space. Yep. If. If someone does something that impacts our space and we choose to agree with it. We're agreeing with it. If we choose to not agree with it but allow them to continue to do it, then we're choosing to do nothing about something that's influencing our space.
So we talk about mindset and having a business mindset and having a mindset of, um, understanding business. A lot of our time is spent helping business owners understand what's influencing their business and how they can influence what's influencing their business. Because when you understand what is impacting your business, whether it's from a financial perspective.
Mhm.
If you're making losses and you don't understand why you're making losses, then we're not understanding what's influencing our business because we just look at it and say, well, we're making losses, but do we understand our pricing? Do we understand saying no to rubbish clients? Do we say yes, but to things on our terms rather than on the terms of others which generally are in their favor, uh, not in ours.
So, you know, in terms of, for me, I look at the mindset of business and let's be honest, business is a tough gig. You can't. There's. No, there's not. If, if, if it was easy, everyone would be doing it.
Yes. Yep.
So it's tough. So having an understanding of the mindset that will allow you to be able to focus on the right things, make good decisions, choose wisely, and value, value yourself enough to be able to say yes to the stuff that you want, no to the stuff that you don't want, and say yes or no.
But it might no, might not be no. Never. It might be no, not yet, or no to the terms that you're suggesting. But if I use, we have a phrase, my house, my rules. And so for us it's if I'm going to be, um, if I want to want someone in my space to go on a particular journey, I have to take them on the journey I want them to go on.
Yeah.
Otherwise they take me on theirs.
Yes.
And that generally ends up on their pricing, their timing and their way of doing it, which generally, again, what shows up there, it's not on our terms. We, we don't get the price that we want, the profitability is not there, and it's on someone else's timeline. So does it work for us?
No. Uh, well, what if we could make things on our timeline then helping people be able to identify what's coming up, but also help them realize that we always have a choice.
It may not be a stellar list of Things, uh, that we get to choose from. But again, we always have a choice whether we choose to say yes or no. Generally, it's up to us. We don't. Someone doesn't force themselves to be a client of ours, we agree to take them on as a client.
And when we agree, we agree to whatever terms we've agreed on. And if they're in their favor, we've agreed to it. So do we get to whinge a bitch your mind about the fact that our, uh, clients aren't profitable? Well, we said yes to them.
Yes. Yeah, yeah.
So. So when you, when you get into bigger business, often what we find is, is that element of choice. It's always there. There are a lot of moving parts, but there are also a lot of people who sit there and go, oh, uh, I didn't have a choice. Well, in the nicest possible way, that's rubbish.
We always do. Yeah. The alternative may not be a comfortable one, and it may mean there needs to be what we call an adult conversation.
Yeah.
But at the same time, there is always an option.
Yeah.
And early on in business, I feel like you don't want to say no as much as you probably can down the track. So then it's, how do you balance that? You want business, but trying to make it equitable.
True.
And so in that space, there's still, again, for those that are in that initial, um, phase. Yeah. Stuff doesn't just come flying at you as most people would like it to, unless you've done some pre work before you've gone into your business. But a lot of the time it's.
Even if you're in a space where you have to say yes to everything, there are ways to be able to have the conversation around. On what terms? There are ways, and we call it the journey that we take people on. If we get people making decisions based on emotion rather than logic, potentially you can still influence the price that someone is prepared to pay or the timing of it or whatever.
Uh, yeah, you can still, you can still influence the way that they think, feel, operate, relating to you. Even if you're in the slim pickings, I've got to take everything. There are still ways to have that conversation, to have someone want to work with you regardless of price or whatever.
But it takes us to be valuing ourselves enough to see that we can take them on that journey and we spend a bit of time with that, with our clients upfront. Ah, because everyone needs that. Because everyone is selling.
Yes.
And so that brings me to a question. Which I mentioned before, I was going to ask you because I, I find it interesting. We hear the word strategy a lot and I think early on we kind of go a little bit fly by the seat of your pants. And you know, there is, there is an element of spaghetti at the wall because you're still trying to test yourself in business, what other clients want, how you, who you like to work with, et cetera.
So when you, you see businesses at different stages of their journey, how do you see that? Like what is strategy to you? Uh, and then how is, what's that, that sort of difference between strategy and tactical? Because also as a business owner in the early days, you're kind of doing all of it, but as you grow and you bring in team, you can start to sort of step up and step out of it while you bring other people in to do some of that more planning, tactical work.
How do you see those, those elements?
Yeah, perfect, perfect. Question. There's a bunch in there, uh, to unpack. So if I go on a tangent, feel free to bring me back because I often get excited about strategy and whatnot. So, um, so for me, strategy, I'll look at it through the lens of how we see it for our clients.
So we see it as an essence to say, what is it that you're looking to? What's the business that you want in 12 months? So for us it's getting clear in 12 months. And for all of our clients, we sit, um, I've got a session, um, after this we're sitting and resetting what the client wants their business to be in 12 months.
Mhm.
We did this 12 months ago.
Yeah. Yep.
So every 12 months we'll sit. Okay, Right. Tell us about the last 12 months. What came up, what worked? And what did you learn?
Mhm.
Because you know, you win or you learn, there's no failure, that's just judging what you did. So we remove that out of the equation. So you win or you learn. So it's like over the last 12 months, what did you do? Well, what did you smash out of the park and what did you learn?
And so we generally go through that and then we go right, okay, so in 12 months, taking all of that into account, how do you do more of the stuff that worked and how do you bring the learnings into your space? But first, let's look at what you want this thing to be in 12 months.
What clients did now that you've got 12 months under your belt, 12 months worth of, uh, results, whatever they are. Um, what do you want? Clients who do you want to be working with? Yeah, what work do you want to be doing? Is it the same as what you wanted 12 months ago?
Or has the last 12 months allowed you to understand that that work there, not profitable, takes too much time, don't really want to do it. Well, what if we said no to that? Could we do more of the profitable stuff? Yes. Could we do more of this? Yes. So we take and strategically for us, we look at, uh, about eight categories, which is clients, workflow, uh, financials.
Mhm.
Um, leadership, as in who the, the business leaders or owners are being, who they are being. Um, we look at working on versus in the business. Uh, we look at the team, um, and
there's something else in there that we do. But you know, there's um, so, so we, we strategically look at where they want their business to be in 12 months. Now we used to look three years and often what we'll do is we'll have two or three really high level, um, intentions that they would like to make happen over the next three years.
But because business is so dynamic at the moment, we find that 12 months is beautiful because it allows people to get enough focus to deliver that, but then also say, okay, well why, why are we wanting that business in 12 months? Because it'll get us closer to our three year high level targets of whatever they may be.
Uh, so strategically for us, it's just resetting what they want their business to be in 12 months.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know.
It's then how we go about doing it, we then break it down into those 8, 7, 8 categories and then we put a bit more m meat on the bones to be able to say, okay, here are the intentions. We don't call them goals because when you set a goal, you're only focusing on the goal.
Whereas we call them intentions and we then say, okay, well what is it that you'll focus on over uh, the next 12 months or from today? What is it you'll focus on to make those things happen? And if it turns up in 12? Because if I set a 12 month goal, then I'm generally focusing on making that happen over 12 months.
But what if I could do it in three? What if I could do it in six? Now I'm not suggesting it's always possible, however, uh, we, we flip the script and we go, uh, rather than us wanting to do that over 12 months, how do we help a business within three to six months get what they need or what they want?
Which means they don't have to wait for 12 months, they do it in six, which allows them to then have six months of upside that they wouldn't normally have.
Yes.
So for us, um, and as businesses get bigger or they add people to their team, we call it
creating um, an opportunity for them to become a consultant to their own business.
Mhm.
So the context of that is most business owners don't really want to be on the tools. They don't want to be up to their elbows in dealing with the operational, uh, or financial day to day that most business owners I speak to, they don't want that. They want the flexibility to be able to choose, ah, where they spend their time.
So we have, for those that want to be involved in their business but not be in the day to day of it, we call it creating an opportunity for them to become a consultant to their own business.
Mhm.
And in that space we then help them identify what their role would be and use the phrase if not me, then who?
Mhm.
I also, we also use the element of if I wasn't in the business, what does the business need to allow it to operate without me in it, uh, but allowing me to choose where I spend my time. Yeah, that's truly, it's truly creating an opportunity for business owners to be consultants to the business.
And so where do business owners generally want to sit if they weren't doing what they were doing currently, what would they like to do? And there are three areas that generally come up, uh, in this conversation. One is setting, um, the strategy and the vision of the business.
Mhm.
That's what they'd like to do. Number two, manage the energy.
Mhm.
Yep, yep. So they, they manage the energy of the business. And then three is coach, don't play yeah. So those three areas, they tend to be where business owners want to, to focus. If they weren't up to their armpits, um, in operational grenade diving, then where would they spend their time?
And, and for most of, most of my clients who want to get out of the day today but still want to be involved.
Mhm.
I ask them, what if you could do this, this and this? And they sit back and they go, oh, that'd be so good. But that's not possible, is it? And then we come back to what's possible. Well, yeah, what if we could do that? I've got a client at the moment that I mentioned that and they went, oh, if I could do that.
But I don't know how to do that. It's like, no, because you're operationally focused. But what if we took you out of the business, Help the business get what it needs to allow it to function without you, but then throw in the fact that you get to choose where you inject yourself.
You could spend a day with key, uh, members of your team. It doesn't matter whether your time's chargeable or not. You spend time, you spend an hour, two hours with two or three people a day, over a month. That's a lot of understanding your people, investing in your people and showing they're important.
Yeah.
So bringing in team. So say this is a business who hasn't really invested in people yet. They've been doing it all themselves and they need to be able to scale and grow, to take that step back. And I love that. Coach, don't play. I want to ask you more about that.
Yes.
Um, how does, how do they get started in that space? Like bringing in. What would you suggest, um, for a newish business would um, be like the first team member that they would bring.
In and then how to transition yourself, clone yourself. Isn't it, isn't that how we do it now? Um, so what I ask business owners to do is to consider what is going to create the amount of time they need to be able to grow the business. And let's go back to what does growth mean?
Because it could mean different things. We're going to take someone on, then what is it that I want to create a space to be able to do? So if it means that I want to be, uh, out in front of clients. Business development. So then either, either I get someone to do business development.
Mhm.
But that's not really what I want. I want to do that. So then I go, okay, well how much time would I Need to free up to allow me to do business development. And it might be, if I could add a day a week to allow me to be able to be out in front of people, connecting with people, uh, having coffees, lunch, golf, or, or whatever that looks like networking.
If that's then, then I go, okay, well, what would I need to be able to have someone come in and do that to free me up, to allow me to do what I want to do? And so it may not be that you have to take a full, A full time person.
Yeah, it might be. Well, how do I create a day a week to be able to. And maybe I only have, I only have, um, client meetings on Monday to Thursday. Friday is my BD day. Or how do I take what's on my plate and go, you know what, can I get a, A va.
Can I, can I take some of the administrative stuff off my plate to then allow me to say, well, if I could get back a day a week, what would that, what's the value of that? Let's say, let's say we paid someone 30 bucks an hour, one day a week.
If my clients, uh, on average $1,000, would I spend $200 to create time for me to add $1,000 on? Yeah, yeah. Uh, I don't have to full time. I don't have to have someone there five days a week.
More fractional roles I'm seeing these days as well.
Bingo. And so for me, what I would do is I would initially, I would suggest if someone is in a space where they want to create time, but they don't feel comfortable with the investment for someone full time.
Yeah.
Look at, look at the activities that are, uh, currently taking up, um, their time and how do I get someone to take them on? Yeah, yeah. How do I get someone to. If I could take that off my plate through whatever means, what would it do? Would it. If it freed up a day, how many clients would I need to add in a month to allow me to pay for one?
One, um, one person at 30 bucks an hour. 200 bucks a day.
Yeah.
800 bucks, um, a month. If my clients are a thousand dollars a client, I need one to cover that. That's right. And if I can't add one client with a full day, uh, each week for a month, then I shouldn't be doing bd. And I had the conversation with a client in Sydney.
Um, they were same thing. Oh, I've got to pay 200,000 to add these three people to my business. I said, well, a um, you don't have to pay that today. It's over 12 months.
Yes.
Uh, and I said, b, what's the value of your client? He said, 40 grand. I said, so over 12 months, you're telling me that you don't feel like you could add five clients over 12 months with the time you get back by adding those three people, you're telling me that you can't add five clients to make that money back?
And it went, oh, I could add one or two a month. Okay, well, if you added two, there's 24 times 40, and it's going to cost you 200 over 12 months. Not. Not today.
Yeah.
And so at that point, we tend to. We tend to look at what won't happen if they don't. They won't get the day to add three clients. $3,000, and it cost. Yeah, because generally what they do, that. That whole element of fear. Fear, Abundance. What do we see? We see the fear.
I've got to spend $800 a month. Um, do I have that? Maybe, maybe not. Well, if I don't spend it, I'm not getting access to add 3, 4, 5 clients, which would be $5,000.
That's having the right offers so that you can go get the right clients.
That's right. And so then you're sitting there going, well, if I don't. If I don't, I won't.
Yeah, yeah. Um, the coach don't play thing you mentioned before, um, what do you mean by that? I mean, I think I have an idea, but I love the terminology.
Great question. So for me, uh, and I'll use, uh, it's a generic example, but it's a representation of a lot of clients that I've worked with. Which is when you start to add more people to your team, the amount of access that they get to you directly is less.
Yes.
So what tends to happen is when we start talking about becoming a consultant to a business, it frees uh, up the business owner to choose where they spend their time. For me, it's about giving the business owner back time to spend directly with individual people within the business. Yeah.
So rather than them doing stuff in the business they spend time with. So for example, um, one of the clients, they had uh, trucks on a road. Uh, so plumbers, um, I said, I said how often do you sit in the truck with them for a day? And he said, oh, never, why would I, it's not chargeable.
I said, well no, it's not chargeable now, but do you think that would be an investment in helping your team feel important? Helping them feel like they matter and you're not there doing it, you're just there supporting them or, or even going to site?
Mhm.
How many, how many business owners go to site and they're there to fix something or they're there to do something, or they're there to, to do that?
Yeah.
What, what is it? Rather than I'm going to site as a way to, to, to pick up a broom and just be with my team.
Yeah.
Not, not oversight, but support.
Yeah, yeah, that's right. And then, and then also, um, go to site and talk to other people on site, other trades or other whatever, just to, or even to the client. I mean, ah, is that an investment in, you know, you're not there to do stuff, you're there to invest in your team.
And part of coaching is inspiring them in a way and part of that is about helping them feel important.
Yeah.
If they feel important, they're going to go over and above or they're going to sit there and say someone's offered me another $5 an hour more. But you know what I get every month? I get to spend a certain amount of time with the business owner. Those guys, you never see the business owners, none of that.
We're clear on the vision, we're clear on the strategy.
You communicate, uh, values. You could sit there, sit there and if you spent even one or two hours with someone, regardless of their seniority and you're a business owner, do you reckon they're going to sit there and go, you Know what? I feel pretty cool. I just spent half an hour, an hour with the business owner.
He didn't tell me what to do. He was there to support me and find out about me.
Yeah.
And to listen to my ideas.
That's right. Do you reckon innovation. Innovation. Innovation's about doing things differently.
Yeah.
Do you reckon that's different?
Yes.
Hell, yeah. Do you reckon it's, you know, they feel less like, you know, you're paying me 30 bucks an hour and charging me out at 110. Do you reckon. Do you reckon they feel important or do you reckon they feel like a profit center?
Yes. Yes.
So for me, when I. When I say, coach, don't play, rather than doing stuff, it's supporting those that are, uh, doing stuff, which means you don't have to do the stuff.
Yeah.
To keep it simple. It's, you know, if we can create opportunities for business owners. Because, let's be honest, you look at kids, all they want to do is spend time with adults.
Yeah.
Yeah. Whether it's fun Uncle Bob. That turns up at Christmas time, they just want to spend time with them.
Or.
So you look at people in a workplace, same thing. If they only ever get shouted at or told what to do or sent to clients that are just going to treat them like crap or whatever, how do you reckon they feel?
Yeah.
But if the business owner spends time and goes, so, Jane, tell me about your. Your space. What's, you know, what's, uh, what. What's working? You know, what's not working. Have you got any feedback? You know, and I've realized that I haven't spent any time with you, and you've been here six months, so I realized that it was up to me to create some time to be able to sit and get to know you.
Because if I know you, I understand what's working, what's not working, what's pissing you off, what you enjoy. And if I'm asking you to do more of the stuff that's pissing you off, Jane's going to sit there and go, why would I say yes to that? You want to promote me.
But then I have to do more of that rubbish. It's like, well, how does that work?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I wanted to unpack because we're going to have to start to wrap it up, unfortunately. There's so many things we could still talk about, but I want to talk about this new program or this new product that you have, which I think is really valuable. Uh, when you told me about it a few months ago, I was like, I'd really love more people to know about it.
Please share.
Yes. And so I'll make it quick because again, conscious of time, um, I ran a full day workshop with one slide. Um, uh, and so I love to share.
Yeah.
Um, my knowledge because if it helps one person, it's worth it.
Ah.
We've. So from July we're um, starting a new product which, which is designed to align the investment for advice with making additional profit.
Yeah.
So it's, it's generally you'll have a set retainer for 12 months. Um, and regardless of results. Yeah, you pay your three grand, four grand, whatever it is, uh, each month for 12 months and it'll end up costing you and you get what you get. So we've decided that there has to be a way that we can align getting results with the investment that we're asking people to make.
So we've got a product which we've launched, uh, first of July, where there is a monthly retainer, but it is 50% of what it would normally be.
Mhm.
And over the 12 months we will agree, um, what the starting profitability is and then it will be a percentage of the profitability that we add over a 12 month period. If the profit doesn't show up, then it will only ever be half of uh, the investment on the monthly go forward.
If the profit shows up, then we're feeling that we're aligning the investment for that with when the additional profit shows up, there is a percentage of that that would go towards the extra profit showing up.
Yeah. So someone called it a success for.
Yeah, that's right. And so the reason we're doing that is because what it does is it, it actually shows that we have skin in the game.
Mhm.
Rather than we turn up, we have two hours a month, three hours a month, four hours a month, whatever it is. And at the end of the 12 months, whatever is showing up shows up. It's like there is no accountability around results. So this is a way to say, well, our results, um, are aligned with that of the business.
So it's not for everyone. And not everyone will want to jump in and have a crack at it. And to be honest, we won't, we won't offer it to everyone. No, because we go back to the comment before. What is growth?
Yes.
Some businesses are focused on adding profitability to their business because they're going through a transition. Yeah, they've got, they've got to resize, uh, right size to then be able to go forward and it may not be something for them, but for those that are ready to go, I want to add profitability to my business.
And a perfect example of this product hadn't been available. There's a business that turned over $3 million. They added $800,000 profit. They were ready to add profitability, but they didn't know how to do it. This is a way for us to be able to align those that want to add profitability to their business.
This is a uh, way to do it but not pay in full along the way. It is a uh, it is investment and It'll be over three months at the end of the 12 months.
Yeah.
Where we're scaling it so there'll be uh, an equal three month payment of whatever that looks like.
Yeah.
So you know, would you, would you spend, for example, would you spend a hundred dollars to get 1000?
Sounds like a good return.
Yes, that's right. So you get to keep, tend to, you get to keep 85% of the profit you make. Um, and there's an investment for that, but we just scale it so it's at the end of, end of it when we make the profit as opposed to along the way through.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, I think that that's a great, um, great option for, for, for the right business.
Absolutely.
I think it's, that's right. And it's different, it's not for everyone. But at the same time for those that feel like it's appropriate for them, then, you know, we're happy to have a conversation about, about what it looks like, um, what the process would be. And they get us for 12 months.
Um, because most of our other products are uh, they're designed to be three to six month maximum. Then we give over the choice of whether we continue or not to the clients. We don't do 12 month contracts. We do ongoing. But within three to six months we're, we do what we need to do to help them be able to do it themselves.
Ah, then give them the option of whether we stay with them or not. That's up to them, not us.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Fantastic.
So how do people. We'll put, we'll put details in, show notes. But is the best way for people to give you a call, um, and.
Have um, an initial chat? Is that.
Yeah. So what we do on our website, mentoristgroup, um.com we have a 20 minute, um, uh book a 20 minute free no obligation conversation. Um, so that's probably the easiest way. And if they, they reference this podcast, uh, then It'll. I'll know where they've come from. Um, and so we give everyone that would like to have a conversation.
We'll give them 20 minutes just to see. Generally, it'll be to see whether we would be a good fit, whether we are the right people for them, and if not, that's okay. We'll be honest and open. But we may know someone that might be more appropriate or someone rang the other day to have a chat about strategy.
Um, but what they really needed was they needed some legal advice before we talk strategy. So I introduced them to a legal person that I know. So it's the element of what is it they need now? And we'll be honest and open up front and go, I recommend you do this and then come back to us once you've done that, because that is more important than talking about your strategy at this point.
Yeah, wonderful.
Uh, continue talking because there's so many things. So thank you so much for, uh, your knowledge and wisdom today. There's lots of things in there, I think, that will give people things something to think about.
Um, and then also, as I said, if there's one thing that people take away from today. Yeah, that's. That's why, you know, I openly share podcasts or speaking or whatever it is. If I can help one person do one thing and take one action, then for me, and if someone's resetting a strategy, reset it.
But don't just sit there and go, geez, that's a good strategy. Uh, we've done. We've done a great job. Set your strategy. Create a plan, whatever it is, but then take one piece of action to start making it happen. Yeah, that's the thing that will change a picture on a wall.
Like the thing behind me. It goes from being a picture on a wall to an active plan.
Yes, yes.
The, uh, the juggernaut that. That starts momentum.
That's right. It doesn't. A rock doesn't roll itself.
No. Fabulous.
Thank you so much, Paul. And thank you, everybody, for listening. And, um, I will catch you all next week.
