Speaker 1: Hi, everyone, and welcome to this week's episode of Money with Alpha. Today, I'm joined by the lovely Jodie Eade, who is going to share all sorts of great things. We met recently, and she loves systems probably even more than I do. So welcome, Jodi.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Thank you for having me. I do love systems.
Speaker 1: Yes. Yeah, I don't... So 'cause when I first heard you talk and, and we was, we were chatting, like we had a conversation last week, and I thought, "Oh, yeah, this is really cool." 'Cause I mean, systems makes things so much easier but you've got to kind of have a brain to help kind of bring it together and, and then help people run it. And then once it's in place, pretty much anybody can, can work with the system because there's so many systems in our society anyway that we're not even really conscious of. We just kind of work with them anyway. So before we get stuck into that, though, do you want to tell us a little bit about who you are, what you do, and how you came to be doing what you're doing, and why you love it so much?
Speaker 2: Okay, so who I am, I'm a business consultant, but I specialize in systems, so that's my thing. I think I specialize in the in them because I understand them. It just is it's just something that I get, and I don't, didn't realize that it was something that I got that other people didn't. I just thought, "Well, why can't they make this work? Why aren't they seeing it?" But it's just that's, like, what I see. I started in, a long time ago, I was in sales, et cetera, et cetera. But I had my own business. I had a property tax depreciation business, and that is all about numbers and money and systems, a system that runs everything. And like you say, we have systems that we use every single day that we don't even think about. Brushing our teeth is a system. We clean our teeth, it, we do it every day, but it's we're automatically doing it since our mom and dad trained us when we were little kids.
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: And money and finance and your systems of your business can become that simple. It's just about finding the way that it makes sense for your brain and your business to actually function. So I am also a nurse I still work as a nurse. I've been working as a nurse on and off for the last 20 something years. And again, that's another system. It's a body. The body is a system. The body's systems need to be in equilibrium for us to feel good and healthy and well. And when they're not, our body certainly tells us that our system isn't working. And the same thing happens with your business. If things are going well, you're making money, you're getting clients, things are flowing through, your follow-up is great, you're doing all of the things that need your business to continue to, to grow and flourish. And when it's not, your business tells you and your clients, they really tell you. So I work with business owners, service-based industry predominantly they have to have employees, they have to have had a business for a while and be actually proof of concept of what they're doing in their work. Anywhere between three and kind of 20 employees.
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: At the moment, my focus is really targeted on trades because I have a launch coming out in January for that sector.
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: but I do work with anyone in the service based industry, and it's all backend.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's really interesting 'cause I often make parallels between health and money. And a lot of the systems and the way we sort of function and the kind of the health has to be there. So it's, it's really interesting that you combine both of them 'cause there's a caring factor that comes with it. So the system's not there just to kind of rule your life, it's there to support life, and life's the, the, the point.
Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So just when you said something about brushing your teeth and that, so 'cause I, I, I love habits. I'm fascinated about how our brains work with habits. How do you see... This is just more of a little bit of a sidebar, but how do you see habits and systems? Like are they the same thing? Are they a bit different? Like what's, what, what's your take on that?
Speaker 2: Mm. I can... I guess they can be a habit, like brushing your teeth. It's like a good habit. You need dental hygiene.
Speaker 1: Hygiene, yeah.
Speaker 2: But for some people, a system to run their business is never going to be a habit. It will always be something they really consciously have to think about. Like we can't assume that that's gonna be something that someone will find easy. Like example, as a tradesperson an electrician is really good at being an electrician. That's what their skill is. I'm never going to be an electrician, no matter how many times I get shown it. It's not my skill. But I can show that electrician how to use systems, and he can, or she, sorry, can turn some of those things into habits. And one of those things might be the habit of every time they quote, on the third day, they pick up the phone and say, "Hi, Alpha, I quoted on some electrical work at your house. How's it going? Would you like to go ahead?" That's a great habit because 25% of the work from quotes happen by making a simple phone call.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The fortune's in the follow-up.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So yes, they... It's just, it can become a habit, but it depends how, I guess, important it is you know, how much they want to do it, or whether they want to just offset that all to their implementer, their admin, whoever.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. So with... 'Cause systems are extremely important as, as you, as you know. How do you see automation and AI kind of playing into this space? 'Cause AI, oh my gosh, it's everywhere, and it's, it's a matter of embracing it rather than trying to avoid it. So how, how does that play out with the system side of things?
Speaker 2: Okay, so AI is going to be absolutely fantastic. However, the... Have you read The E-Myth?
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 2: Yes. So, he was the guy that I mean, he wasn't the first person that talked about systems, obviously, but he's written about it, and he says, "Systems run the business and the people run the systems-" "... that's how it works," right? So AI is fantastic, but AI, at this stage in AI's development, if you said to AI, "I need I want scrambled eggs-"
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: AI will make its definition of scrambled eggs. AI needs you to say, "Get the eggs, scramble them with a whisk." Like, it needs the method, the ... to make scrambled eggs. Say you like chili flakes and you like the salt sprinkled on it at the it needs the method. So the method of the recipe and that is the system. So the system and the process need to be built first, and then everything needs to be streamlined. So say, again, use a tradie, he's got his whole system of the client lead comes into the nurture sequence post, that's all streamlined. Then once it's streamlined and we know it works, we can then turn on automation tools to start to refine the process, shorten the process, et cetera. But if we don't have a method or a system, you've got a hot mess express that's going to go faster.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 2: So, you're going to end up with a big hot mess
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: and that, yeah. So, AI is going to be
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: ... but we need to tell it exactly what we want.
Speaker 1: Yes. Yeah, 'cause it's interesting as well, like, if you, if you, like I've, I play around with it as well. I use it for little bits here and there. The bulk of my content I write, but I give it some ideas sometimes depending on what I need or if I, if I need an idea and I'm feeling stuck just for some inspiration. But one of the things I notice when I do this is it will scour whatever's already out there and give me a version of
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: ... rather than
Speaker 2: It's not your voice.
Speaker 1: ... yes, thinking about it in a different way or what I want, because what I do doesn't fit in like a box.
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1: when I, just as an example, I asked for coloring sheets for money coloring sheets for children. It sent me back pictures, but they were all boys in the pictures. And I was like, "Well, where the girls?" But it's scouring the internet seeing money attached mostly to men and males and coming back with that information. So it, it is, it's really, really important, as you say, that we tell it, like, we are still the drivers of this.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: And even though it's got the word intelligence in it, it is also artificial.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: It's still not the human intelligence. And I think that's also, there was a post I read this morning on LinkedIn actually, where someone was going, "Oh, well you know, I'm, I'm seeing a lot of posts on here that you can tell AI has written it. I joined this platform to, to gain knowledge and learn from other people, not from AI bots." I mean, that's, that's a paraphrase, but it's essentially what she was saying. And this is where you can have the systems around it. You can even have automations to schedule things.
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1: the scheduling part is, is great because then you don't have to like be sitting there hitting post and doing the same thing every single day, but the system that goes into it, the human has created, so
Speaker 3: Love that.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. And if you have If you go too fast and you get AI on board with doing certain things and you already didn't understand the system that you
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: and then there's a problem, you've got no way of working out where it is and how to fix it, because you didn't know what you had in the first place.
Speaker 1: Yes. Yeah, that's really important too. And so how does strategy then... 'Cause there's, there's a lot of words you're using there. I was like, "I think there's a lot of strategy behind this." I mean, there's, there's tactics and plan, but ultimately you have to have that bigger picture first.
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1: Is that... Yeah?
Speaker 2: For AI or for systems?
Speaker 1: Or for, just for systems in general.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I, I call it a playbook, like some
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 2: you know, out there people are, are throwing around lots of kind of things, but I just call it a playbook. And basically how it works for me is it's actually, again, I'm going to use a health analogy, it comes back to the same principle that as a nurse, when I come in and see a patient in a room and I might say, "Oh, you know Mrs. Jones, how are you feeling?" ... so I feel a bit sick and go, "Okay, so we're assessing how Mrs. Jones is." Then we say, "Oh, well, what have you tried?" she says, "I can't drink much." "Okay, well, how about I get you something to help you not feel sick?" You know.
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: "Or what have you... Have you eaten something?" You know, whatever it is. so we're assessing.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And she agrees, we make a plan, we put some things in place. We might get some medication or some peppermint water, or whatever we try, we implement it, and then we I come back in half an hour and go, "How are you now, Mrs. Jones? Has your nausea settled? Has it got worse?" You know, and so that cycle, that ... kind of step
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: that's the strategy and I apply that to people's businesses. So what's working?
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: Where are you? Where do you want to be? What's working? What isn't? What have you tried? This is what we're going to try. All right, we're agreeing we're going to try this. We're going to work on it, we work on it together. It worked, great, that's our evaluation. Or it didn't work, or look at this result, we could get a better result and we keep tweaking it. And so that is cyclical. It never kind of we because that's business growth.
Speaker 1: Iterative. Oh my goodness. And, and when so many times I hear people say, "Stop throwing spaghetti at the wall." I was like... Whether it's spaghetti or not, you kind of have to, to... You don't know
Speaker 2: have to try some stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you have
Speaker 2: one has got the same exact business as you. Yes, there's people out there doing similar
Speaker 1: Mm.
Speaker 2: but what works for me and another business coach, it's going to be different, because I'm me.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. No, no, it's it's always an interesting thing when you see how that's that sort of goes. Now, I had a question in my head as you were talking, and I should have written it down. So in terms of, like... Oh, that's what was going to ask you. So what do you see is the main resistance that people have around setting up a system?
Speaker 2: People are
Speaker 1: I smiling.
Speaker 2: People are the bottleneck. Honestly, they're, they are the bottleneck of their business, and the biggest resistance is, "I don't have enough time."
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: It's going to cost me a lot of money."
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: "I'm going to have to do more work and I'm already, like, absolutely flat stuck on what I'm doing, and I do it better than everyone else anyway." And so, you know, "Oh, if I had to stop and tell him every time that I needed him to do a thing." "Well, how about we write a standard operating procedure?"
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: "Oh, yeah, but that'll take time." Yes, but if you and I sit down over a coffee and you tell me all the steps that are needed to do that to
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: ... it'll take 10 minutes, it's done. I put that somewhere so your staff can access it, and guess what? You don't have to have that conversation anymore.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: "Oh, really? It's that simple?" "Yep, actually it is." So the, that, the business owner often the biggest bottleneck.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, it's like with everything, to... Like, the mindset or the perception of something is, is the, is the stopper. And the, the bigger we make the problem, I think 'cause our brains are designed to, to find problems, because
Speaker 2: Mm.
Speaker 1: ... you know, we want to find the, the thing that's going to kill us or going to hurt us. And, you know, we, we want to be able to, to plug all the holes so
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: ... aren't any, or that there won't be, or if there are, we know how to plug them quickly. So we, we kind of invent all these problems that are actually not getting in our way. And that's, that's where I see in the money space a lot.
Speaker 2: And
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: ... while we're doing
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: we have a system process bucket over here that's got massive amount of
Speaker 1: Mm.
Speaker 2: ... because our brain is telling us all these potential problems that can happen, but there are real ones over here, and because we're focusing on these, we're not actually prepared to look at any of these ones, which once you fix them up make your business flow better. And like you said a minute ago with mindset, one of the mindset things around that is, "Well, what if I do succeed?"
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: "What if I do make more money?"
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: "What if I get so so... might get so many clients, they all love me? I get... Oh my God, I never thought I'd make a million dollars. What if I do?" Like, there's all of that next step mindset
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: money
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: that keeps people in that, you
Speaker 1: Quantitation.
Speaker 2: under 300K, I'm safe kind of, or whatever it is, you know?
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it's an interesting one actually. I remember one time listening to... Was at a, at a conference and, and the speaker was talking about her experiences around, you know that, like fear of
Speaker 2: Mm.
Speaker 1: sort of the imposter syndrome kind of thing. And then I was like... And she's like, "What actually is the thing more often than not is people fear success."
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: Not necessarily the failure. And when I heard that, I was just like, "Oh my gosh. That's, that's definitely more what I relate to," 'cause I'm thinking, "Oh my gosh. Look, it's going to take more of my time, more of my energy, more..." and then I was like, "Ugh, do I want all of that?" And then when I was actually talking with someone yesterday about, you know, doing a launch and, and, and gaining more clients, was like, "Well, do you actually even have the capacity to, to service those clients? And if you don't, what would you need to do in order to do that? Would you hire another staff member? Do you need some extra admin support?" 'Cause the answer is there and the answer is quite simple, and the answer sits in a system especially if we have those systems set up before we do all of this, because then it gives us the confidence to be able to go, "Okay, well, if this did grow to the point where I need somebody else, I've, I've got all the systems in place, so I can onboard them very easily and quickly." There'll still be teething issues because, you know, it's human interaction.
Speaker 2: It's growth, mm.
Speaker 1: Yes. And with that comes discomfort.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And often I say to people, "If you... If your system can't handle another..." Depending on the system, like if it's a bakery and it's five more purchases, well, clearly they're going to handle it, right? But if it's a a coaching company or a where you're spending a lot of time looking after people, or a law firm, or a financial advisory firm, one of those kind of people, can you handle another 10 leads that came in and qualified in the next month? Are you ready for that? 'Cause if you're
Speaker 1: Mm.
Speaker 2: you've got a systems problem.
Speaker 1: Yeah.Yeah. Yeah, no, it's it's really interesting. I, I love this sort of stuff too because it's, it's so
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1: but yet we over-complicate it and creating like Somebody even told me recently, and this is where AI, they're like, "Oh, you can even get AI to help you write out a like, a, an SOP or a standing operating procedure." You just do the steps on your computer and it will, you know, write it out for you. It's
Speaker 2: Or you just write it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I was just like, "Yes, but then the stuff that's in your head that's going on at the same time..." So, I think it's easier 'cause I'm going through the process at the moment of, of building a software, so I'm having to get really clear about all the steps. So, I've done videos, I've had to write stuff down. I've been... Literally just did another flowchart the other day to try and explain to the developer how it's all meant to link together, and I was just like, "I just realized how complex this is, this," now that I have to write it down. But I'm on the journey, and it'll then end up being something that is very replicatable and scalable, so putting in the work. It's gonna take me like... It's taking me, like, a year to get this thing developed but it'll be worth it in the end, so...
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So where where do you specifically... Like, 'cause obviously my, my main area of interest is, is the, the money side. Do you see, like, from a systems, processes mindset, all of that with the clients that you work with, what's, what do you see coming up regularly in the, in the money space?
Speaker 2: Well, the three things that they all say very, like, clockwork
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: is, "I need more clients."
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: "I need more money."
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: "And I need to free up my time." And those first two are money.
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: Like, they're money, and so their thought process... And these are people that are often overwhelmed already. "I just don't have the time to do any more things. This is where it's at."
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: So, I very much see money/leads is the thing that is driving these people, and often the money is not quantified into profit. That's the other side I see is that they're just seeing it as cash. Cash, and then they talk about... Use any tradie as an example again, "I'm gonna buy another truck." It's like, "Okay, but how are you gonna buy that truck?" "Oh, well, I thought I would just... I've got money in the bank." "Well, why would you use your cash flow? 'Cause you need cash to pay your staff. So, if you're gonna... if you've got a team," obviously my guys have teams, "you need to pay them. So, think about ways that are gonna be more efficient for you monetarily to use your-" "... to use your cash flow." So they're conversations that I have often and it's I then send them to talk to somebody else because it's not my zone of genius at all, but I know enough about
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: ... to say, "You know, you can get a delay on your baths. You can get use these things that are gonna float you for another six months while we do some stuff to really tighten things in your systems and processes to get you more cash flow."
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So yeah, there's ways, but money, money is kind of the big, the big two of the three.
Speaker 1: Yes. Yeah, and do you ever see, 'cause I'm, I'm always keenly interested in the, the personal side of their finances as well as business owners. Does any of that stuff come up when you're, you're building their, their business systems? 'Cause obviously if they're, they have a lack of systems in their business, it's pretty likely they've got a lack of systems in their personal life as well.
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1: Do you see, like, the, the stress kinda coming through from other parts of their life, not just their business life?
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely. A lot of people try to get their partner on board in working with them.
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: So, that's a common one, and to save money or you know, maybe their they've got small children, and so, well, it's sold to the, "I've got this business. You can be my admin. Then you get to be at home with the kids." That has its own circle dynamic 'cause, like, "Hey, she's already working-" ... full-time. But anyway, whatever.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yes, but their personal finance stuff's like, you actually can't draw money out of that that account if you're a company.
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: Like and you can't do certain things if you're a sole trader.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But again, that's not my zone of genius, but it comes up because we are having those conversations. So, as I was saying before, there's like five steps to what I do, but I run people through, it takes six months to do what I do because the first three months are really, really specifically targeted to, "Where are you? Where do you want to be? What's the gap? And let's work on the systems and processes."
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: And in that we talk about finance. And I say things, "Do you have an accountant? Do you have a bookkeeper? Who's doing your payroll? Does your program speak to Xero? When you're out for coffee, are you sending a photo of it to your Xero?" Like that kind of... Yeah, we have I only target the simple stuff
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: ... it's not it's not my zone, but I make sure they're linked to people.
Speaker 1: Yes. Well, and this is exactly it. it's about having having a team.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: So, it's it's always interesting to me when people kind of want to make their accountant and or their bookkeeper, like the one person for their business in the money space. It's like, yeah, they're only going to be able to help you with certain things, and you want to be compliant with all the things you need to be. That's generally where the accountant will play. If they can help you with a bit of that business strategy like the money side, then that's great, but then you also need to make sure you're in the right structure, both from a tax perspective and a liability perspective, which is where a lawyer comes in. Then your bookkeeper will help you with the day-to-day management. They need some help with business strategies, systems, coaching. Like there's so many different areas, and I think that's where people get overwhelmed and they're just like, "You know what? I'm just gonna like step away for a minute or ignore it completely because it's-"
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: "... too much and I don't even know who I'm supposed to ask to do what." Because some people will say, "Oh, I do it all." And I was like, "Nobody does it all."
Speaker 2: No one can do it all.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 2: I have this conversation with accountants all the time, they go, "Oh, no, we've got that covered." And we know you haven't. We're dealing with the history and the future.
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: Not not the middle bit, that's me. The history and the future. Yeah. And I think, like you mentioned, it's and then the first thing that they do when they go, "I can't deal with this," being the business
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: they go, "Okay, well what's gonna really fix this really quickly-"
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: is I will get SEO and I will spend... And advertising and on social media, I'll put some Facebook ads up, and I'll do some marketing."
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: And that's
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: depending on what your business is.
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: But you don't have the systems and processes to cope with what's coming. Okay, we'll see how this goes.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 2: But those systems, those are systems
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: but they're systems that are done for them.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 2: And so, they are attracted to that because they don't actually have to do anything. Whereas what they do with me, even if I do have a done-for-you package, but I still need to ask them lots of things.
Speaker 1: You
Speaker 2: I still need a lot of data. Yeah. and then my people implement, but yeah, the SEO is like, "Let me access your website. Oh yeah, you're getting more clicks. It's great. That's $3,000. Thanks." Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, and it's immediate as well, to a certain degree. I mean, SEO does take time.
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1: ads to a certain extent as well. But yeah, it's interesting. Being on the business journey I've been on, and I've gone down that path where it was like ads, and I probably jumped into them definitely too soon, rather than proving organic first. And then once you can build up that and you know that that's working... And then to be honest, I don't even need ads. So I'm doing better with organic than ads but you know, you listen to all the stuff and you think, "Oh yeah, yeah, this is gonna do it." And you're like, "Oh." And it's
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: becomes an expensive lesson. But yeah.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So, in terms of, if you're comfortable sharing a bit of like your own money journey, like how have kind of worked on your... Like did you learn about money as a child? Like how how did you get to the level of knowledge that you have now?
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think it's a bit like relationships, in that you watch your
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: like everyone, your kids are watching, and you're either gonna be exactly the
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: or totally the opposite.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And my dad was not a risk-taker. So if he didn't have the money in the
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: ... he didn't buy it. They bought a block of land with the money in the bank, then they built a house on it with their own hands. They didn't get a builder. It wasn't approved. Blah, blah. We lived in the country.
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: They could get away with it back in the '70s, you know?
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Just giving my age away. Yeah. And but, you know, he didn't buy himself a new car till he was in his
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: because he didn't have the money, you know? And that's how he everything was risk adverse.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: He was totally no way. Just no way.
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: And I am very much the opposite. It's like if there is a I'll throw it at the wall and give it a go. And even now, I'm in my 50s, I've got so much life left to live and like I don't mind if I have debt.
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: 'Cause it doesn't keep me awake at night. So in... when we had the when I had the property tax appreciation business, I had a husband at that time and we had a lot of investment properties, and at one point we were in over a million dollars worth of debt. Now these days that's not very much, around the GFC, that was around then, and he could hardly sleep at night. I'm like, "What are you talking about?"
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: Just absolutely freaked out. I'm like, "Look, worst case scenario, we'll just sell two of the houses."
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I was having great fun playing Monopoly with real houses.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Great fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And he couldn't handle it. So, I think my...... experience of it all. It's like, and I'm also very good at I'm I'm good with taking risk, but I'm also very good at just making things happen. So, I think it depends on your personality a bit.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: ... for some people it's they're never going to be able to broach that. They're always going to have to play safe and have XYZ amount of money in the bank
Speaker 1: Yes. And this is very much the risk profile comes in very important and, and being clear on what it is that, that you want in life. And yeah. 'Cause I, I'm, I watched my parents 'cause for them
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1: European coming to this country, they didn't have anything. They had to build up from scratch. So for them it was property, because that was kind of, like, the, the main way
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1: through the, like, the '70s and '80s. And it worked a lot better then. Possibly, possibly better than now, but that's, that's yeah, whether or not, we'll see. But yeah, but it was really interesting. But they never really had any actual money. They lived, in my in my parents' case it was the opposite. They lived on debt.
Speaker 2: Oh, okay.
Speaker 1: everything was debt, you know. Credit card debt, like home loan debt, like everything was bought with debt. My dad earned quite well. He was a tradie, got paid in cash quite a lot. But then the cash came in and it went out just as easily. So because it wasn't kind of a it didn't have a purpose, which is why I'm, like, so passionate now with, with the, the work that I do. I was like, "Your money has to have a purpose." Otherwise it comes in, it'll just go out again. You need to know what you're, what it's for, what you're doing with it. Like, be clear on that. And that links back to lifestyle. So do
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: So when you're looking at the systems does that, obviously that's to help, help them in the, in the the present time. And also, it's a bigger strategy. Does, does it also help you with kind of, like that, that building that future vision?
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely. So in that six-month process, by the time we get to the six-month process, end of the six-month process, we are having the conversation. And for some of my clients they're obviously staying on because they, we've got everything tight and tidy and now we're scaling. That was always the process we were going to. Some people want time to kind of go off and try to do some of the things on their own. But for the people that stay it's, "Okay, now we want to scale." We want what's our ... we have the conversation early about, "What are your immediate goals?"
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: "What are your one-year goals and what are your three-year goals?" We don't kind of go ... Unless someone's saying to me, "I want to do this because I want to exit this business." That's a totally different strategy and we are looking at it a totally different way. And I'm very much involved with their accountant. Because there are steps that are very integral to that.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But if people are, they've bought themselves a job, which is a lot of businesses these
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: they just want to actually work for themselves or they want to be able to mean the empire, we are definitely having conversations that are bigger than the next three to six months. And what does that look like? What do you need if you're going to put on admin and more tradie, more team players and ops manager, how much do you need?
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: ... you know, with different businesses they hit that kind of 300, 400k even 500k mark and then they really not making much more from there until they hit the 1.5 because the rest of it just goes in salary. You know? To all of these people. And people have that thought process, "Well, if I have more people I can make more money." Well, you're not going to.
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: Actually, you're not. And and maybe it's better for you to actually have five staff and a really streamlined business and a really good ROI on everything that you're
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: ... and a really good return rate on all of the work that you're doing so you don't have to go out and get clients anymore. You're just, they just come in through word of
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: far more effective than 20 people in your team and, you know. But it depends what empire they want to build.
Speaker 1: Yes. Yeah, and this is, this is the thing too while we're talking about, like the iterative process because I ... think that changes. I know
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1: I was in my 20s, the, the life I sort of thought I wanted was a lot bigger than the not bigger I should say, but different to the one I want now. Like, you know, the, the house bigger and I mean, our house is big enough. yeah, there's three of us and we have four bedrooms and, you know, like it's just more to clean. But even like the, the type of car, all the all the all the trappings that, that kind
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: go with, with life. And I, I feel like even as a money person I was probably almost better at, from the budgeting perspective, I mean it's different for, for other areas 'cause it's more than just about that, when I was in my early 20s when I had less money than I am now. But now obviously my risk profile has changed because, you know, there's money, more money around so I can, I can invest more and take a bit more risk. But yeah, so I think having that, that future vision, but revisiting it on a regular basis to go, "Is this still what you want?" ...
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: And I've had clients who are like, oh, they're a, they're one-person, one-person band with maybe an admin person and they're like, "Oh, I wanna, I wanna sell this business." I was like, "Well, really? Because if you do, you got a lot of things that you need to fix, including the systems and everything that goes with that if you wanna sell it." But if you if you think you do but you don't really, then that, that changes things
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1: if you, you really wanna go gung-ho, you've got to actually almost go all in. Otherwise, it, you're never gonna get there. And if you don't really want it, then don't do it.
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And if you have an exit strategy and you want to ... Like I was talking to a a tradie the other day who has an exit strategy, he wants to be out by like 10 years, but he the, where his initial exit strategy was in "I need this and I need that and I need this and I need that." said, "Oh, you don't." You need an admin who is amazing, you need a system, Service Mate, but you also need all the other systems that are part of
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: ... and you need to build up a really, really great team and it needs to be not about you. It needs to be your company.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Because if you leave and they'll only deal with you, we can't sell that. Whereas if they love the company and every person that is involved in that company ethos, we're on a winner.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I used to work for a small consultancy and it was the MD was, or the managing director, was the, the founder. And everybody, like he was the central he went to every single sales presentation, he was the central part of everything. And then he was getting a bit on in age and he's like, "Oh, I'm gonna, I wanna sell this." So brought in some private equity investors, started to extract him and brought in a CEO, everything just fell apart. I was like, yeah, because he was the face of the business. It was He had lots of staff. Like there were ... Well, it was contractors mainly, but you know, there was probably a team of between 20 and 50 people at any given ... 'cause it flexed up and down depending on the work that was around. But yeah, and I, so I saw that firsthand and went, "Mm, okay, that's, that's a, there's a big lesson there is to not make that, that person like the s-..." And he was the most passionate about it as well because it was his baby. So when, when a CEO comes in, they're there, but they have a completely different energy.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: it's not their baby. It's, yes, they have KPIs and whatever, but it's, it's a different way of running it.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. And it's that whole thing too of like don't fall in love with your product, because you love it, but other people don't value it anywhere near as much as you. And you
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: you might be making 300K and you might think it's worth 300K, but to, if it only, everyone only wants to deal with you, Bob the builder, well, you don't have anything to sell.
Speaker 1: Yes. Yeah. No, no, that's, that's absolutely right. So what's the, I suppose the, the, you mentioned your, your six-month program. So
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1: ... what would people do to, to sort of work with you and how does that kind of ... What, what level of effort, I suppose does it take to get themselves sorted?
Speaker 2: Okay. So there's two options. They either can do a done-with-you program, which is where they have implementers, so their own admin or there's a done-for-you program. And the done-for-you program is I have my own team. So I bring in that team but we, they're our VAs, they're very good at what they do and we have the systems and processes. And if they need, like user, again user tradie as an example, they're Service Mate proficient, that's the one we prefer to use 'cause we know how to use it.
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: And we set them up. We bring across data if they don't already have it, all of those kind of things. And we get everything humming.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The done-for-you done-with-you is still six months and there is, it is a lot of effort. I will say that.
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: It's because it's about understanding where their business is, where they where their business, where they want their business to be. And I the first kind of month honestly is asking lots and lots and lots of
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: getting them to like letting me look at a lot of reporting and saying what things they've done before, what ROIs they've got and things. I needed a lot of
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: that initial phase of things before we can look at what needs to be done. In saying that, my premise and how I practice is I always love to give people quick wins.
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: And every time we coach, we talk about the wins, whether they're very small or they're huge. And then we start that from the day dot. So the first win, they invested.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: 'Cause we're gonna change stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The second fortnight win is we are further ahead than we were. You know? Because that, I'll be honest, that first month it it can be quite frustrating.
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: Especially people are timed for because they're spending 90-minute sessions with me and their admin trying to nut out these problems. But honestly, once we get past the six-week mark, I've got ... Again, we'll use the tradie as an example. He was kind of, he got stuck at that kind of six-week period going, "Oh my God, I hate this." I said, "I told you. I told you you would." And he said, "What's-... diminishing? I said, "Yes, because you're not in it all the time." Like his business is a bit has been a little bit quieter, not because of what he's doing with me.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But there is that, because you've changed your
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: you're not out there hounding, you're back in here looking at stuff, and then in the last fortnight, I don't know, we've picked up maybe 20K.
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: So we're winning.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And it's, so it's the little steps that start, that build the big step, and now we're not fishing for goldfish anymore, one, one, one, we're fishing for whales.
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: And we're fishing for the whales that are going to refer him a lot of work, and we're getting them.
Speaker 1: Yes, and that, that part's really important. Like I think back to the way my dad ran his business, and there was work ethic, I think, was probably part of it, because to be honest with tradies, I mean these days it's a bit different, but back in the old days, it was this whole classic, "Oh, they never show up when they say they're going to."
Speaker 2: I mean, that still happens.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but literally my dad was so punctual, if he said he was going to do something, he would do it. If he said he was going to be somewhere, he would be there, and then he also created some strategic sort of alliances, I suppose, with real estate agents 'cause he was a house painter, and he only, yeah, he focused. And this is the other thing too, I think back now, all he did all of this just instinctively, but he ... just on repaints.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then he had like two or three real estates agents, and then he got all the business, and then he just started to get referrals from there. So it's really, really interesting when you, when you actually kind of get clear, and in his mind, it was clear. He just hadn't written any of it down, so it was still very much him. So when he retired, the business just stopped. And think, I think back now, I'm like, "Oh my gosh, it was such a huge opportunity there to to sell the business."
Speaker 2: sold it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And he
Speaker 1: Fortunately it was his name, his name was Boris, and it was Boris' Painting, so it's alright.
Speaker 2: That's alright. You can trade under Boris' Painting, you
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: "My name's Paul and I own Boris' Painting." Like there's a story there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Jim mowing.
Speaker 2: think that's marketable.
Speaker 1: Like yeah, there's,
Speaker 2: absolutely.
Speaker 1: Jim's everything now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean that's clever 'cause Jim probably never existed, but yeah, it's a household name. But yeah, it is very much the, and it is the little things. It is the, if you say you're going to do something, do it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: If there's a problem with supply, let the person know.
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: Because if you get ahead of it and tell them there's a
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: you're going to sort out the issue before you don't show up with the stuff, and they're like, "What's going on? I've given you all this money."
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So yeah, it's it is the simple things, but they're so overwhelmed.
Speaker 1: Yes. Yeah. No, I think it's wonderful what you do to sort of help clarify and make it, make it visible.
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1: that's one of the other things I find with the money space, and very much with systems and health in general, soon as we become aware of it, and it's visible, it's a lot easier to solve once we can actually see the problem, rather just kind of know that it's there but we're avoiding it.
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1: So.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: Wonderful. So we'll put so you've got your, you've got a six-month program, and you have a strategy session we'll links to those in the show notes, and
Speaker 2: Fantastic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so people can call you and have a chat 'cause I what you do is amazing, so, and
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: very, needed.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me on the podcast, and yeah, there's a, there's, the strategy call is free. They can just call up and chat about the business, and there's an opportunity for people who are perhaps only want to solve one problem, so they've got something that's just really, and they want 90 minutes, I do offer that. But my my like the work is is six months.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, no, I think most of us would need more than just one.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, wonderful. Thank you again, and for everyone listening, I hope you got a lot out of that. You might need to listen to to that again, or take some notes, but but there will be information in the show notes so you don't have to take any of that part down. And enjoy your week, and I will catch you next week.
