Speaker 1: I'll get a Champs. It's me. Who else would it be?
Speaker 1: So I don't know, this could be a little clunky
Speaker 1: because I've done minimal planning as in kind of well,
Speaker 1: I don't script, you know, I don't script, but I've
Speaker 1: got what I think is a good idea for some
Speaker 1: of you. So I'm going to preempt this with this
Speaker 1: is me talking about so that the topic is turning
Speaker 1: an idea into a reality. So that is taking a
Speaker 1: theoretical construct something in your head, an idea, a plan,
Speaker 1: an intention, a dream, a goal, something that you can
Speaker 1: create theoretically that you want to take out of your
Speaker 1: head and turn into a real world something. And when
Speaker 1: I talk about this for this episode particularly, I'm talking
Speaker 1: more about something in the commercial space. It might be business,
Speaker 1: or it could be a brand, or it could be
Speaker 1: it could be a project, it could be a product.
Speaker 1: It could be a book you want to write, It
Speaker 1: could be a podcast that you want to launch, It
Speaker 1: could be a program that you want to run, an event,
Speaker 1: a service that you want to develop. But it's about
Speaker 1: taking that idea, that that intentional, that desire or that
Speaker 1: drive and figuring out how do I move that out
Speaker 1: of my head and into something that the world can see.
Speaker 1: Not only I cannect see and not only can the
Speaker 1: world see it, but they can experience it, interact with it,
Speaker 1: and maybe even I can make a few bucks from it.
Speaker 1: So most of you know that I stopped working in
Speaker 1: inverted commas for somebody else thirty five thirty five years ago,
Speaker 1: when I was twenty six. That's not a recommendation, that's
Speaker 1: not a good thing or a bad thing. But it
Speaker 1: was a good thing for me, and it was a
Speaker 1: good thing for me because I realized, while I wanted
Speaker 1: to work, I wanted to have a career, I wanted
Speaker 1: to build something for me personally, going and working for
Speaker 1: somebody else and being part of their vision rather than
Speaker 1: part of my own vision, or creating something for myself,
Speaker 1: Building something that I wanted to grow and inhabit and
Speaker 1: literally take out of my head and push out of
Speaker 1: that theoretical nest into the real world. That was what
Speaker 1: I wanted to do. Not everyone has suited to that,
Speaker 1: and a lot of the things that I did, a
Speaker 1: lot of the things that I tried didn't work initially.
Speaker 1: There were many many failures, many fuck ups, many problems,
Speaker 1: many hurdles, many embarrassing moments, many two out of ten results,
Speaker 1: But for me, that was all part of the learning
Speaker 1: and growing and developing and building skill and competence and
Speaker 1: resilience and awareness and understand of what would work and
Speaker 1: what would not. So I'll share a few of my
Speaker 1: experiences just to give you, I guess, some real world
Speaker 1: practical examples. I guess we could start with this show.
Speaker 1: As most of you know, this wasn't my first podcast.
Speaker 1: I had three podcast attempts before this, three different shows,
Speaker 1: and while they didn't turn into a commercial success any
Speaker 1: of them, for me, they were great training. They were
Speaker 1: like putting on my l plates and then eventually my
Speaker 1: PA plates in the world of podcasting, and it was
Speaker 1: for me an opportunity to begin to understand how the
Speaker 1: industry and the science and the art of podcasting worked.
Speaker 1: And from those first three I really learned a lot
Speaker 1: about having conversations with people, having meaningful exchanges, doing a
Speaker 1: deep dive, being a better interviewer, being a better active listener,
Speaker 1: understanding my audience, understanding my show in contrast to and
Speaker 1: context of the other millions of shows in the world,
Speaker 1: and trying to figure out what was, if anything, my
Speaker 1: unique selling proposition my usp if not unique, then somewhat
Speaker 1: different selling proposition. Why would people listen to this? And
Speaker 1: trying to figure all of that out? And I think,
Speaker 1: if we're going to build a business or brand or whatever,
Speaker 1: a project or a product, or push some new service
Speaker 1: out into the world, or write a book or build
Speaker 1: something of which there are already many similar things existing.
Speaker 1: If we just want to do it as an exercise
Speaker 1: to do something and create something and turn a theoretical
Speaker 1: idea into a real world thing, then that is fine.
Speaker 1: But if we want it to become a successful version
Speaker 1: of something that is potentially even commercially viable, then we
Speaker 1: need to understand the context. We need to do research.
Speaker 1: We need to understand who else is doing a version
Speaker 1: of what I want to do, How are they doing it,
Speaker 1: why are they doing it, what are they doing well?
Speaker 1: What are they not doing well? Are there any holes
Speaker 1: or gaps in the market as I see it? So
Speaker 1: for me doing the U Project, my idea was to
Speaker 1: step out of radio, which I've done for quite a
Speaker 1: long time and basically have now. I remember I started
Speaker 1: my first show about probably nine years ago. Now the
Speaker 1: You project about six six and a half years ago.
Speaker 1: But my first show around nine years ago, and so
Speaker 1: it was almost like to me, having a podcast was
Speaker 1: almost like having my own little radio show that I
Speaker 1: could just pop up on the Internet and people would
Speaker 1: listen to. And I didn't need to run anything by
Speaker 1: you know, a program director or you know, any kind
Speaker 1: of authority. I could talk about what whoever I wanted to.
Speaker 1: I could talk for as long or as short as
Speaker 1: I wanted to. I didn't need to worry about ads
Speaker 1: because I had none. I didn't need to do station
Speaker 1: IDs or time checks. I could talk to whoever I wanted,
Speaker 1: and that gave me a lot of flexibility and freedom.
Speaker 1: But I also needed to which I wasn't very good
Speaker 1: at the start. I really needed to understand the listener experience.
Speaker 1: So obviously, all of my experience, one hundred percent of
Speaker 1: my experience of the U Project is from this side,
Speaker 1: and I've never once been you know, yes, I've listened
Speaker 1: to my own show, but I've never been truly a listener,
Speaker 1: you know, in that everything that I listened to of mine,
Speaker 1: I've already heard it out of my own gob. And
Speaker 1: so for me to try to get an insight into
Speaker 1: the experience of the listener, that for me was really important.
Speaker 1: I remember when I developed my first gym, or more accurately,
Speaker 1: personal training facility, the same thing I needed to figure out.
Speaker 1: I was lucky in that I got in on the
Speaker 1: ground floor. I literally had literally had zero competition in
Speaker 1: terms of other personal training facilities. If there were any
Speaker 1: in Australia, I had never heard of them. There were
Speaker 1: definitely none in Melbourne or Victoria, not in the late eighties.
Speaker 1: In I think eighty nine to ninety I set up
Speaker 1: my first one, So you know, a quarter of a
Speaker 1: century ago. Oh no, it's more than that. Fuck thirty
Speaker 1: five years ago. So old, thirty five years ago. And
Speaker 1: so I already understood that there was that there was
Speaker 1: a need, that there was a market because I was
Speaker 1: already training people, I already had clients. I was already
Speaker 1: doing this thing for which there was actually no qualification
Speaker 1: at that point in time. There was no registration, there
Speaker 1: was no insurance, there was no personal training industry. So
Speaker 1: my idea, the construct, the theoretical something in my head
Speaker 1: was what if I hire a space aka rent a
Speaker 1: commercial premises, and I turned that into essentially what would
Speaker 1: be a private gym, so there would be no memberships
Speaker 1: there would be no classes, there would be no most
Speaker 1: of what you normally get in a gym. What there
Speaker 1: would be would be one on one training. Obviously it
Speaker 1: developed more than that into different things, but my initial
Speaker 1: ground zero was appointment based one on one and periodically
Speaker 1: two on one training. Eventually it became two and three
Speaker 1: and four on one and then small groups, and it
Speaker 1: was in the studio and out of the studio, and
Speaker 1: it was half hour and forty five minute and sixty
Speaker 1: minute sessions, and you know, it kind of morphed into
Speaker 1: a bunch of versions, but it was all essentially appointment
Speaker 1: based exercise with a fitness professional, that professional being me,
Speaker 1: and then that developed into me and another train and
Speaker 1: then me and another trainer, still no qualifications, still no course.
Speaker 1: I ended up writing the first course with a friend
Speaker 1: of mine and getting that certified through I think it
Speaker 1: was called vic Fit then and so on and the
Speaker 1: rest is history. But but that you know, for me,
Speaker 1: that first three four five years between the time when
Speaker 1: my first client walked into the public gym that I
Speaker 1: was managing. When he walked in, we met, and then
Speaker 1: I started training him in a one on one kind
Speaker 1: of capacity, and he gave me one hundred bucks a
Speaker 1: week for three sessions, which was thirty three dollars, give
Speaker 1: or take. I thought that was fucking incredible, because I
Speaker 1: think I was making about twelve dollars at the time.
Speaker 1: Some of you heard this story, I apologize, but the
Speaker 1: bottom line is that was my starting point. My idea was,
Speaker 1: I'm going to do this thing. I rented the space,
Speaker 1: I bought the equipment, I got counsel approval, I chatted
Speaker 1: with real estate people and accounting people, finance lawyers and
Speaker 1: so on and overtime, the thing that was an idea
Speaker 1: in my head, the thing that in fact I kind
Speaker 1: of gave birth to for one of a better term
Speaker 1: in my head four years before become Australia's first personal
Speaker 1: training facility. I guess the same when I wrote my
Speaker 1: first book. I know a lot of people have written
Speaker 1: a book, but I didn't know where to start. I
Speaker 1: didn't know anything about publishing. I didn't know anything about
Speaker 1: branding or marketing. I didn't know anything about distribution. I
Speaker 1: didn't know how to have a conversation with a publisher
Speaker 1: or a potential publisher. I didn't know what was attractive
Speaker 1: to people in terms of what people might pick up
Speaker 1: in a bookstore, and look, I didn't realize the front
Speaker 1: cover really mattered. I didn't realize that the words on
Speaker 1: the back of the book really mattered. There were so
Speaker 1: many things that I knew that I had an idea
Speaker 1: and a message, but that initial, that very very raw,
Speaker 1: fundamental concept. I've got some knowledge, I've got some stories,
Speaker 1: I've got some messages that I think might be a
Speaker 1: tell you to people. That initial thought, I'm going to
Speaker 1: put it into a book, versus down the track one
Speaker 1: two years later, where that's now an actual book in
Speaker 1: bookstores and selling, and we've got distribution and and it's
Speaker 1: actually becoming mildly I will say, commercially viable. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of space between the original, the initial idea, the
Speaker 1: theoretical something, and then now I can walk into a
Speaker 1: shop and that thing that was an idea in my
Speaker 1: head that is now a book on a shelf that
Speaker 1: people are buying. But that that initial to that final
Speaker 1: that is many steps. That is many peaks and troughs,
Speaker 1: that is many new lessons and so on. And so
Speaker 1: I could bang on about you know, my first paid
Speaker 1: gig and opening other you know, other businesses that I've
Speaker 1: opened and how I got my first, you know, gig
Speaker 1: in radio. I remember being interviewed on radio and then
Speaker 1: I had an idea, I want to do radio, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't even know how do you get
Speaker 1: into radio? So I got a meeting with a program
Speaker 1: director called Mark Johnson. Shout out, if anyone knows John
Speaker 1: O from what was then SCN is still SCN. I
Speaker 1: had a meeting with him, which was just I don't
Speaker 1: know how I got that meeting, but I clumsily told
Speaker 1: him about my idea, which was to be kind of
Speaker 1: the exercise science guy on this sporting network. They had
Speaker 1: a lot of sporting people, but they didn't really have
Speaker 1: a regular exercise science person to come on. He was
Speaker 1: a bit dubious. He said, send me a proposal with
Speaker 1: the first twelve episodes. I literally went home. I wrote
Speaker 1: it all up. I spent six or seven hours writing
Speaker 1: this concept, this proposal. I sent it to him, and
Speaker 1: within two days I got a response from him, and
Speaker 1: I got a green light. I had no idea what
Speaker 1: I was doing. I was so underdone, I was so
Speaker 1: ill prepared, I was so unskilled, I was so unaware.
Speaker 1: But I think for me, part of part of the
Speaker 1: blessing of ignorance is that I'm so ignorant sometimes I'm
Speaker 1: so unaware of what I don't know that it's kind
Speaker 1: of a gift because if I realized how hard it was,
Speaker 1: if I realized sometimes how ill prepared and ill equipped
Speaker 1: and underskilled I was, I might never have taken the
Speaker 1: first step. But it's like, once you dive into the pool, well,
Speaker 1: now you're wet, you're going to sink or swim, And
Speaker 1: so I always did my very best to swim. And
Speaker 1: so for me, that kind of initial idea, that theoretical something,
Speaker 1: the dream, the vision, the hope, the desire, the intention,
Speaker 1: the plan to be able to take that out of
Speaker 1: my head and breathe life into that, so that would
Speaker 1: be a real thing in the world that people would
Speaker 1: intersect with. I've literally been doing that for the last
Speaker 1: thirty years. And I'm not saying I'm the high watermark
Speaker 1: as an example here of what to do or what
Speaker 1: not to do, but it's how my career has developed.
Speaker 1: Have an idea, figure out how to turn that idea
Speaker 1: into something that's more than an idea. So I want
Speaker 1: to give you kind of a bit of a guide.
Speaker 1: Some of this will be a no brainer to you.
Speaker 1: Some of it might be irrelevant, some you will already know.
Speaker 1: Feel free. For those of you who this idea, this
Speaker 1: topic is relevant, you might want to take notes and
Speaker 1: revisit it. But my first, my first piece of advice
Speaker 1: is to clarify your idea, your vision, your goal. So
Speaker 1: get really clear about what it is that you're going
Speaker 1: to do, create, be, sell, offer and why it matters,
Speaker 1: Why it matters, Why does the world need this, what's
Speaker 1: already out there? And what will I add? What problem
Speaker 1: am I going to solve for the world? Be the
Speaker 1: what problem am am I solving? Or how does this
Speaker 1: add value to what is already there? What is already there.
Speaker 1: It's like, if you live in Hampton Street or you
Speaker 1: live in Hampton where I live, and you decide you're
Speaker 1: going to set up another fitness based business, it better
Speaker 1: be fucking incredible, because there's already too many. It's there's
Speaker 1: if you take into account stretching and PT studios and
Speaker 1: mainstream gyms and group exercise centers and a plethora of
Speaker 1: other fitness options exercise options, there's probably something like twenty
Speaker 1: within either direction of my house. Definitely within a kilometer
Speaker 1: of my house. There's probably twenty different or fifteen to
Speaker 1: twenty different fitness type businesses. That's not say there couldn't
Speaker 1: be sixteen. That's to say, if you're going to come
Speaker 1: in with something new, you would want to be really
Speaker 1: adding value to what is existing, or you would want
Speaker 1: to be filling a hole that a gap that exists
Speaker 1: in the market in this area, or solving a problem
Speaker 1: that isn't currently being solved by what's already here, Which
Speaker 1: brings me to point number two, which is research, research
Speaker 1: and validate. I guess, So do some research. Who's your
Speaker 1: target audience, who's doing a version of what I want
Speaker 1: to do. Identify similar ideas or similar businesses or programs
Speaker 1: or whatever it is that you're creating, and have a
Speaker 1: look at how they're going, analyze their success or failure.
Speaker 1: And also, this is probably a good idea at about
Speaker 1: this time to bring somebody in that you trust, a peer,
Speaker 1: a friend who's got some knowledge and skills, an advisor,
Speaker 1: somebody professional perhaps to give you some I guess, unbiased
Speaker 1: feedback or input or advice, especially if this is going
Speaker 1: to be something that you envisage being a significant part
Speaker 1: of your life moving forward. So research and validate that.
Speaker 1: Who's out there? What are they doing? Does the world
Speaker 1: need what I want to bring into it? Is it
Speaker 1: already being done? If it's already being done, how can
Speaker 1: I do it better? How can I do it different?
Speaker 1: Is there a gap? And so on? Number three is
Speaker 1: short term goals and objectives. So what is it that
Speaker 1: you want to achieve in the first let's even say
Speaker 1: one three, one comma three, comma six months? What do
Speaker 1: you want to do? What are you what are your
Speaker 1: kind of outcomes, your practical outcomes? What do you want
Speaker 1: to see happening? How many bums on seats? How many
Speaker 1: people through the door? What's your turnover? What are your
Speaker 1: cap bies? How do you know what success is for you?
Speaker 1: Is it only about money? Is it only about people
Speaker 1: coming through the door? Is it about some other kind
Speaker 1: of metric that you can use which is pertinent to
Speaker 1: your business model and your business product or the service
Speaker 1: or whatever, or the book that you're writing or the
Speaker 1: program you're developing. So short and then eventually some longer
Speaker 1: term goals as well. Around that. AS always created a plan,
Speaker 1: so break it into manageable steps at a timeline. Accountability,
Speaker 1: all those things I always talk about and the plan
Speaker 1: needs to be something that is ultimately doable, not so complicated,
Speaker 1: not so overwhelming that you get back into a corner
Speaker 1: where you do not know where to start. My experience
Speaker 1: is that some people create plans that are so multi dimensional,
Speaker 1: so complicated to manage that that's almost the problem. Not
Speaker 1: their talent, not the potential that's out there in the market,
Speaker 1: but just that they have an overly complicated strategy to
Speaker 1: operationalize whatever it is that's in their head and around that. Obviously,
Speaker 1: set some timelines with deadlines for each kind of particular
Speaker 1: phase or stage of the thing that you're developing. Right,
Speaker 1: So the next one is about resources, So gather resources.
Speaker 1: What do you need? Identify the skills and tools and
Speaker 1: materials that you're going to need. It could be financial stuff,
Speaker 1: so budget for financial needs. Maybe you need to go
Speaker 1: and get some finance. Maybe maybe not. Perhaps you need
Speaker 1: some other humans, You need some collaborators and or supporters.
Speaker 1: You need a network or a team of people around
Speaker 1: you that have got skills and knowledge and experience that
Speaker 1: you don't to support you through this process. If I
Speaker 1: didn't have the team of people around me that I
Speaker 1: do with certain skills and knowledge and abilities that I
Speaker 1: do not have, I would not be I wouldn't even
Speaker 1: be doing this right now. I wouldn't be doing this
Speaker 1: right now. So find the people, find the tools, find
Speaker 1: the resources, find all the things that you practically need
Speaker 1: so that when you press the trigger, you're good to go.
Speaker 1: So my next step is to develop a prototype or
Speaker 1: draft or create a minimal viable product an MVP or
Speaker 1: a conceptual model, a conceptual model of what you want
Speaker 1: to bring into the world. What does that look like,
Speaker 1: how will that work? Like I said, run that by
Speaker 1: different people. So you're going to test and refine or
Speaker 1: execute and iterate. You know, you're going to keep building
Speaker 1: on the idea. You're going to take things for a
Speaker 1: little bit of a test drive and see what happens.
Speaker 1: But you're going to start small. You're going to start small,
Speaker 1: but you're going to keep taking action because as long
Speaker 1: as we do something, as long as we're making a
Speaker 1: decision and taking some action and creating some momentum, then
Speaker 1: we're getting data, we're getting feedback, we're getting information which
Speaker 1: speaks to what we need to do and what we
Speaker 1: need to stop doing moving forward. So the next stage
Speaker 1: is execute and iterate, which means launch the idea, launch
Speaker 1: the thing. So you've now opened the door, you're taking action.
Speaker 1: So in the case of typ that would be episode one,
Speaker 1: or even before that, episode one of the first show ever.
Speaker 1: So that's launching me into the world of podcasting my
Speaker 1: first ever show and getting in, getting feedback and getting
Speaker 1: data from that and realizing, wow, we only had seven
Speaker 1: people listening to that episode, or I said too much,
Speaker 1: or I overtalked and under listened, or I can't remember
Speaker 1: what my feedback was all these years later. But where
Speaker 1: we just keep iterating, you know, we repeat the process,
Speaker 1: the action with the goal of improving it. So in
Speaker 1: the context of creating something out of nothing or turning
Speaker 1: an idea into reality, iteration just involves refining the product,
Speaker 1: the idea of the process based on testing, retesting, feedback,
Speaker 1: new insights and outcomes. And each kind of cycle of
Speaker 1: iteration brings hopefully incremental improvements, helping you get closer to
Speaker 1: where you want to be with a final product, a
Speaker 1: final result. And that's exactly what I've done, you know.
Speaker 1: I like when I started radio, I didn't start in
Speaker 1: commercial radio. I started in community radio, and I knew
Speaker 1: no one was listening or virtually no one was listening.
Speaker 1: But I also knew that by me stepping into any
Speaker 1: kind of radio, that would give me skill and time
Speaker 1: in front of a microphone and confidence and competence to
Speaker 1: when I would finally, if I would ever finally get
Speaker 1: a chance to do some kind of commercial radio as
Speaker 1: a host, which I eventually did, then I already had
Speaker 1: I actually had probably three or four years sitting behind
Speaker 1: a microphone doing a community version of that, which still
Speaker 1: using all the same stuff and developing the same skills
Speaker 1: and getting miles on the old clock, so to speak.
Speaker 1: All Right, so we've got three more. Third last one
Speaker 1: is promote and expand. So whatever it is that you're doing,
Speaker 1: figure out how you're going to share that with the world,
Speaker 1: How you're going to get bums on seats, how you're
Speaker 1: going to get eyes or ears on your product using
Speaker 1: social media, using email, mailouts, marketing, or whatever platforms that
Speaker 1: you're going to use for your audience. For me early days,
Speaker 1: of course, it varies depending on what it is. But
Speaker 1: for a lot of what I did, it was really
Speaker 1: just about testimonials and people talking about my business or
Speaker 1: my brand or my podcast. It was about people out
Speaker 1: there saying I'm training with this guy. He's good or
Speaker 1: we get great results, or he's funny, or he knows
Speaker 1: his stuff well, whatever it is. And then people reaching
Speaker 1: out to me, not because I had a business card
Speaker 1: or a website or not because I advertised, because I
Speaker 1: did not, but my first one hundred clients, in fact,
Speaker 1: all of my clients over the years, I'll be absolutely honest.
Speaker 1: I once I got told by somebody that I should advertise,
Speaker 1: and this is twenty five years ago, and I remember
Speaker 1: I paid some obscene amounts to put a quarter of
Speaker 1: a quarter of a page ad in the Yellow Pages.
Speaker 1: That's how long ago it was. It was essentially pro
Speaker 1: the internet. So I spent I don't know why, but
Speaker 1: the figure twelve thousand dollars just came into my head.
Speaker 1: I think I spent twelve one thousand dollars. I think
Speaker 1: it was around the mid nineties. And to my memory,
Speaker 1: I don't think I ever got one client. I probably did,
Speaker 1: but I definitely got somewhere between zero and five. I
Speaker 1: can't remember one, but there probably was one. So my
Speaker 1: entire business of harp as the personal training facility, which
Speaker 1: for a period of time was the biggest business of
Speaker 1: its kind in the country. That was all through word
Speaker 1: of mouth, that was all through doing a good job.
Speaker 1: And of course it's different times now, but we got
Speaker 1: to the stage where we over the years, employed hundreds
Speaker 1: and hundreds of trainers, We had thousands of clients. We
Speaker 1: had three different centers. At one stage we had Hampton
Speaker 1: and Brighton and Corefield. We were doing over a thousand
Speaker 1: sessions a week between the three centers. They're all profitable.
Speaker 1: It was for a small business, it was a big business,
Speaker 1: if you know what I mean. And none of that
Speaker 1: was through media or marketing or advertising. So I am
Speaker 1: not saying that advertising is bad, of course, especially in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four where we've got so much leverage or
Speaker 1: potential leverage through the Internet and through websites and social
Speaker 1: media and Instagram, Facebook and all of those things. But also,
Speaker 1: I know, depending on the product, depending on the service,
Speaker 1: depending on the thing it is that you are selling,
Speaker 1: if you are really fucking good at that thing, you'll
Speaker 1: get busy. You'll get busy. And I know that's a
Speaker 1: little bit two thousand and three, that advice, but especially
Speaker 1: in the server space, I still see it in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four. Somebody that's great at what they do. They
Speaker 1: could be a massage therapist, they could be an architect,
Speaker 1: they could be a guy that I know. I'll give
Speaker 1: a shout out to Chris. Chris builds fences and he's
Speaker 1: fucking awesome at it. And he's always busy. And he's
Speaker 1: always busy, not because he's got marketing and branding and
Speaker 1: a website, and he's always busy because he's great at
Speaker 1: what he does. So if you were good at what
Speaker 1: you do, people will sell you. People will sell you.
Speaker 1: Second last one, monitor and evaluate, So track your progress
Speaker 1: against your goals. That's having some kind of assessment along
Speaker 1: the way, make sure that you're reaching those intended KPIs.
Speaker 1: And based on your data, based on your outcomes, you're
Speaker 1: going to adjust your strategies and your protocol as needed
Speaker 1: to work through the peaks and troughs and to refine,
Speaker 1: to refine the thing that you're doing to make it
Speaker 1: the most effective and the most successful. And then the
Speaker 1: last one is just scale and sustain. Scale and sustain
Speaker 1: so to expand reach and functionality based on demand. But
Speaker 1: also I think with this there is a point I'm
Speaker 1: going to put a little asterisk next to this. You know, yes,
Speaker 1: we want to develop a plan for long, long term
Speaker 1: sustainability and growth. But also I think there's a point
Speaker 1: with many businesses and many services where it goes from
Speaker 1: being ideal in lots of ways, where it's producing really
Speaker 1: good income, it's not killing me, we've got a really
Speaker 1: good brand, we're busy. There's not a huge amount of
Speaker 1: stress and anxiety wrapped around it. And so I'm not
Speaker 1: saying limit your potential for growth. I'm saying, figure out
Speaker 1: over time what you think, and you'll only know when
Speaker 1: you're in the middle of it what you think might
Speaker 1: be about the right size and capacity for you in
Speaker 1: terms of that business. For example, when I had three
Speaker 1: gyms and I had two other businesses, and that were
Speaker 1: also bricks and mortar businesses, so I have five different
Speaker 1: lots of rent every week, and I was doing a
Speaker 1: million things, and I had other things. I had corporate speaking,
Speaker 1: I was running other programs, I was consulting, I had
Speaker 1: started my first degree and exercise science. I was doing
Speaker 1: way too many things. Business was good if it was
Speaker 1: only about money and business and turnover and revenue and
Speaker 1: profit and loss, then it was amazing. But I truly
Speaker 1: believe that it was not for me the right trajectory.
Speaker 1: I think I should have or I could have potentially
Speaker 1: stopped a little earlier in terms of figuring out what
Speaker 1: was the best fit for me, in terms of the
Speaker 1: size of the business, the number of staff, the things
Speaker 1: that we offered, and I've but again that's just me,
Speaker 1: that's just me. You might you know, sometimes the business
Speaker 1: that's got three employees and it's turning over four x
Speaker 1: is better than the business with one hundred employees that's
Speaker 1: turning over two hundred x because the juice just ain't
Speaker 1: worth the squeeze, if you know what I mean. Because
Speaker 1: you get to the point where, yes, I'm making a
Speaker 1: lot more money or we're much busier, but that's not
Speaker 1: my only determinant of success and or wealth. Again, nothing
Speaker 1: wrong with you know, I've got friends who are absolute
Speaker 1: super duper entrepreneurs and they've got more things going on
Speaker 1: than you can poke a stick at, and then the
Speaker 1: middle of all of the mayhem and the busyness and
Speaker 1: the ever expanding empire, they're good. They're good, and for
Speaker 1: them that model works. But there are people like me
Speaker 1: and maybe you, for whom that model won't work. And
Speaker 1: it's not that it won't necessarily work commercially. Off financially,
Speaker 1: but perhaps emotionally, psychologically, and even potentially from a health
Speaker 1: point a physical health point of view, anyway, Some thoughts
Speaker 1: on turning your idea into reality.