The Power of Prioritization: Building a High-Growth Business with Jack Delosa

Episode 51 Jack Delosa
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[00:00:00] Jack: The question I'm, always asking myself, Allan, is this, what's the number one challenge in this business right now that if solved, would make the biggest difference? Mm.

[00:00:09] Jack: And the reason why that is the most powerful question you can ask in business is all business is a game of growing from constraint to constraint.

[00:00:18] Jack: And so what I encourage every business owner to do is ask themselves that question every single day.

[00:00:24] Jack: And then you want to focus on any given constraint until it is solved. Whether that's two months, three months, six months, just do one or two key initiatives at a time until they are unlocked, and then move on to the next one.

[00:00:40] ​

[00:00:45] Allan: Jack, welcome to the podcast. So good to have you.

[00:00:49] Jack: Very good to be here, mate. Thank you for having me,

[00:00:50] man. The reason I wanted to have you on is, I mean, I've just been following your trajectory over the years and it's just been so impressive. I remember attending [00:01:00] unconvention must have been decades ago.

[00:01:02] Allan: But I remember always walking away inspired, which is really why I wanted to have you on. For those who may not know you what would be the two sentence intro that you'd introduce yourself to someone on the street who asked who you are?

[00:01:14] Jack: Well, I'm an entrepreneur. I'm an investor these days. The kind of center of my world is a business called The Entourage, where Australia's largest growth agency.

[00:01:21] Jack: And then around that I've got a group of companies and I also invest in. High growth private companies that I think, you know, have a bit of growth potential that I can help 'em realize.

[00:01:30] Allan: So you've been instrumental in the growth of a lot of Australian businesses taking them from six figures to seven, seven to eight and beyond.

[00:01:39] Allan: I'd love to know, what are some of the commonalities of high growth businesses that you've seen? what are the things that really move the needle when taking someone from one kind of income level or revenue level to another?

[00:01:51] Jack: I think the main thing is great entrepreneurs are very good at identifying signal through noise.

[00:01:59] Jack: And [00:02:00] so in any given business, there's a thousand things that one can do. Mm-hmm. but there's very few that you should do. Yeah. And so. even if we look at it in the micro, right? If we look at how a founder runs their day,

[00:02:15] Jack: you know, founder comes into the office, first thing they do is they open their email inbox. Yeah. And your email inbox is a list of other people's priorities for you. Yeah. And so when your day is dictated by your email inbox, you're literally putting other people's to-do lists ahead of your own.

[00:02:31] Allan: Yes.

[00:02:32] Jack: And so what I see is it's the behavior of the entrepreneur and the vast majority of entrepreneurs are behaving and operating in a way that is reactive. Yeah. And so the rest of the day pans out like that. It's email notifications, it's slack notifications, it's interruptions from team. It's getting pulled into any vortex that might look dramatic. What it really is it's chasing dopamine.

[00:02:55] Jack: The great entrepreneurs are really good at identifying what are the core things that actually move the [00:03:00] needle. And how do I create as much space as possible so I can dedicate as much time to the things that are gonna make the greatest amount of impact?

[00:03:08] both: Yep.

[00:03:08] Jack: Just about every business thinks they have a cash problem, they don't, they have an attention allocation problem. And so there are really three or four things that move the needle in business generating leads, making sales, delivering well mm-hmm. to ensure that people come back. Mm-hmm. And so you're either doing one of those three things, or you are recruiting people to do those three things.

[00:03:33] Jack: And that's pretty much it. And so if you can maximize the time that you spend on revenue generating activities, maximize the time you spend on winning and keeping and retaining customers. Then eventually, even if your business model isn't sound to begin with, eventually you will find one and it will scale because you are being proactive in looking at the things that make the difference.[00:04:00]

[00:04:00] Allan: Yeah. So that's kind of the 80 20 rule, right? So Exactly. Pretty much 80% of the stuff we're doing makes no difference, right? Exactly. Doesn't really move the needle. It's the 20% stuff, and I haven't heard that refined on itself. So where you can apply the 80 20 rule to itself and it becomes the 64 4 rule, the 4% of things give you 64% of the results and

[00:04:21] Jack: 100%.

[00:04:22] Allan: And that's absolutely been my experience. I mean, you know, when I look at. My day one of the filters I use is in a year, am I gonna care about this stuff, this, email, this, to do this, whatever. And, you know, some of them, yes. But a lot of them is a no. Yeah. Like in a year if I didn't do this or if I didn't respond to this or didn't act on this, it'll make practically no difference.

[00:04:46] Allan: Yeah.

[00:04:46] Jack: Yeah.

[00:04:46] Allan: So, and when I look at some of the things that actually were big needle movers in my business it's a few little moves that I did maybe five years ago, six years ago, you know, a year ago, whatever, that [00:05:00] made all the difference. So, it's just been such a great filter to really help me prioritize my time.

[00:05:06] Allan: And 100% makes a huge difference.

[00:05:08] Jack: The question I'm, always asking myself, Allan, is this, what's the number one challenge in this business right now that if solved, would make the biggest difference? Mm.

[00:05:18] Jack: And the reason why that is the most powerful question you can ask in business is all business is a game of growing from constraint to constraint. Yeah. And so you unlock a constraint, you go to the next level, you realize a greater constraint, you unlock that, you go to the next level. And so when we start out, the constraint is we don't have a product or service.

[00:05:35] Jack: Yeah. We don't have a product or service. The constraint is nobody knows about it. Yeah. So we start marketing and at that point the constraint is our sales conversions are too low, and then we tighten our sales conversions. And then our constraint is, well, our marketing's working, our sales are working.

[00:05:48] Jack: But we haven't scaled our delivery to keep up with our growth. So at this point, our constraint is we've just got a growing base of unhappy customers. And then you unlock that constraint, and then you're marketing well, and you're selling well, and you're delivering well. And then the constraint becomes, [00:06:00] I'm doing everything myself and we're bursting at the seams.

[00:06:02] Jack: And so the constraint at that point is the leadership and management capability and capacity inside of the organization. So you need to build a leadership team. You unlock that constraint and you go to the next one. And so all we're ever doing is growing from constraint to constraint. And so what I encourage every business owner to do is ask themselves that question every single day.

[00:06:20] Jack: And then you want to focus on any given constraint until it is solved. Yeah, until it is fixed. Whether that's two months, three months, six months, just do one or two key initiatives at a time until they are unlocked, and then move on to the next one.

[00:06:38] Allan: Yeah. I 100% agree. I believe a CEO's job is exactly chief constraint un blocker, right?

[00:06:44] Allan: Yes.

[00:06:45] Jack: And all A CEO is doing, like, if I was to summarize a CEO's job in one word, it's prioritization. Yeah. And so there are a thousand things you can get done today.

[00:06:55] both: But

[00:06:55] Jack: there's one thing

[00:06:57] both: that's going

[00:06:57] Jack: to move the needle than the other 999 [00:07:00] combined.

[00:07:00] both: Yeah. And

[00:07:00] Jack: if you don't know what that one thing is, then you are the constraint.

[00:07:02] Jack: Your ignorance is the constraint.

[00:07:04] both: Yeah.

[00:07:04] Jack: And so it I think the number one skill of the entrepreneur is to be able to look at your business from a 30,000 foot view. Look at it like an assembly line or a conceptual production line. Go, what's the number one roadblock that if unlocked would make the most difference to the rest of the production line.

[00:07:19] Jack: And then you as the business owner micromanage that. Yeah. That's how I operate in my businesses. I, I micromanage the number one constraint at any given time. Yeah. Every other aspect of the business is already being managed and by definition is performing better than the one thing I'm working on.

[00:07:34] Jack: 'cause I'm working on the hardest thing at any given time. And so I create a lot of space in my life and in my business. I create the space in my business that I can work on the hardest challenge at any given point. And I create a lot of space in my life so that I can spend as much quality, present time with my wife and my daughter at any given point.

[00:07:50] Jack: Yeah. And so it really is that. The fundamental paradigm shift is stop operating reactively. And take control of your time because how you [00:08:00] spend your time is how you spend your life.

[00:08:01] Allan: Yeah. 100% agreed. The really excellent CEOs that I find are like, you know, they just look at what is the actual constraint and let's fix that.

[00:08:10] Allan: unless the business is kind of like majorly got a, a blockage in one specific area. But yes, That's rarely ever the case for a long period of time, or shouldn't be.

[00:08:20] Jack: 100%. And I've made that mistake a couple of times, I think the key things that A CEO needs to be as good as possible at marketing, sales, and delivery, you know, I don't think that, the road to the CEO should go through the CFO's office, which happens a lot in public companies. Mm-hmm.

[00:08:38] Jack: So I think if a CEO can be good at winning customers and pleasing customers, they're gonna be pretty good.

[00:08:44] Allan: Yeah, I agree. I'd love to get your take on a personal brand, because this is becoming a much, much bigger thing. You know, back in the day, you'd build a business brand, a corporate brand, you know, the business name would be what you would promote. Now more [00:09:00] and more we we're seeing the rise of personal brands and. Business brands being derivative of that personal brand. Even, you know, when we think of an Apple, we don't think of that as Tim Cook's company. Right?

[00:09:10] Allan: Yeah. He and he came from CFO kind of background. Yeah. Yeah. We think of that as Steve Jobs company or Virgin is Richard Branson or Tesla as Elon Musk. So what are your thoughts on personal brand? Where are we in that journey? How important is that gonna be.

[00:09:24] Jack: It's a huge accelerator and it's a huge advantage.

[00:09:27] Jack: People connect with people more than they do with businesses. Mm-hmm. and the other thing is you don't need to be a charismatic extrovert to have a personal brand today. What people value is authenticity. Mm-hmm. And so,

[00:09:42] Jack: You know, you don't need to be Tony Robbins to build a personal brand. Yeah. You just need to be you.

[00:09:49] Jack: And often it's the very imperfections that either prevent somebody from getting started on the personal brand journey, or it's the very imperfections or insecurities that are preventing them from stepping into it and stepping up from it. [00:10:00] Those imperfections, those insecurities is what your audience is going to connect most with.

[00:10:06] Jack: Yeah. And so, I, I encourage anybody that has that feels the whisper or feels the inner calling.

[00:10:14] Jack: To show up greater and to share their message, whatever that might be, do that feeling really comfortable, just turning your true self up.

[00:10:24] Allan: Yeah, and I think you know, now with ai, with automation, I mean, it used to be production, it used to be the product or the service or whatever, that was the big differentiator.

[00:10:34] Allan: And now more and more that's getting commoditized. It's more or less the same across providers. Yeah. And the story, the personal brand, all of these things are what really differentiates you at the end of the day. In most markets the differentiation between actual products and features and benefits and all of that is very small. But yeah, it's a lot of the things that surround it, the story that people tell, that's really [00:11:00] making the big difference in.

[00:11:02] Allan: Perception. Yeah. And perceived value is value. Yeah. That's something that's not well understood. And you know, now a lot of these e-commerce startups are taking you behind the scenes, and they take you on that journey with you and it makes you feel so much more invested than if it was just a faceless brand that uh, you saw on the shelf.

[00:11:20] Jack: There's so much there. I could not agree more with everything you just said.

[00:11:24] Jack: You know, people think branding is like the color of my. Logo. Yeah. And the color of my website and the on hold music that I make people listen to and none of that is brand in its true sense. Mm-hmm. Brand is the feelings that your customers and your market associate with your business.

[00:11:44] Jack: Yep. And that comes from a range of things. That comes from the story and the narrative and the positioning of your brand, but most importantly, it comes from every single touch point in my experience with your brand. And so brand isn't what you say it is. Brand is how your customers experience your business, and therefore what they say it [00:12:00] is.

[00:12:00] Jack: The other thing that, that you said, which is so profound, is a lot of the time people think making a product better is about changing the intrinsic features of the product.

[00:12:07] Jack: Yeah. One of the fastest and most effective ways for business owners to increase profit is to increase their price.

[00:12:15] Jack: And the reason for that is if you charge a hundred dollars for your thing and at the end of the year you, you're operating a 20% net profit Yeah.

[00:12:23] Jack: Before tax margin, and we increase the price of your thing from a hundred dollars to $110. That $10 goes straight to the bottom line. And so your net profit. Just went from 20% to 30%, which is a 50% increase in net profit. You didn't spend any more time doing anything else. You didn't spend any more money doing anything else.

[00:12:41] Jack: You don't have more customers. you didn't do anything other than implement the price increase and you increase the profitability of the business by 50%. And so the reason why increasing price is such a impactful profit driver is as business owners we're really good at undercharging.

[00:12:58] Jack: Because. Of [00:13:00] our own sense of imposter syndrome. And so you had the call with the unhappy client last week. Yeah. You know the operational flaws in the business, you know that one of your key people might be on the way out in three months. You're really familiar with all the operational holes in the business.

[00:13:13] both: Yeah.

[00:13:13] Jack: And so we need to stop pricing based on operational perfection and price based on perceived value and outcomes for customers. And so you already have permission to increase price and we don't help people increase price by 10%. We'll often help 'em increase price by anywhere from 40 to 200%.

[00:13:27] Jack: Then if you also improve the quality of your marketing and your sales and the positioning like we spoke about earlier, then you have double permission to increase price. And so this is where it comes back to what you were saying earlier. Often when we're having this conversation with business owners, they say, okay, great.

[00:13:43] Jack: What should I add to the product? To make it worth that. Yeah. And what they don't realize they're doing is when you add to your product, you are probably adding complexity Yes. Confusion. Yeah. And more effort from your customer or client to consume your product. [00:14:00] Yeah. And so we think when business owners think about products and services, we think more is better.

[00:14:05] Jack: And I call that negative value. Yes. You are putting more stuff on it. Yeah. And that is increasing either the time it takes your client, your customer to interact with you, or the effort required that they need to exert to interact with you. And so you've actually created negative value. Yeah. And so a lot of the times the unlock for a business owner is strip your product down.

[00:14:26] Jack: Yep. Strip your service down. do less and charge more. You will be happier. The business will flourish and your clients will be happier.

[00:14:35] Allan: It sure is. I mean, I've got a few books in the pipeline, but a pricing book is definitely one of them, dude.

[00:14:40] Allan: I'm your first reader. It is such a lever. It is such a massive lever because price is much more than just supply and demand. Price is a signal. Yes. Right. So a lot of times if you have no other information, you see two products, one's a hundred dollars, one's $200. Yes. You assume the $200 one's.

[00:14:56] Jack: Yes. Better. Like 100%. So that's part of [00:15:00] it. But also how price is used as an anchor, having that super high price product, it makes your normal price products look pretty reasonable, right? Yeah.But that's a very important point as well, which is sometimes just having a significantly more expensive option Yeah.

[00:15:15] Jack: Gives a contrast price to the price of your, let's say, your core product or service. Yeah. And to more people end up buying your core product or service simply because you had a more expensive option that is a very effectual lever.

[00:15:27] Allan: And there's a demographic that will always just buy the best version of what you've got.

[00:15:32] Allan: And they tend to be often the best customers and the most profitable customers as well.

[00:15:37] Allan: Yep.

[00:15:38] Allan: So price will also dictate the quality of customer that you have. And you know, high price, low volume is one strategy, low price, high volume is another strategy You wanna be very deliberate about that. And probably the worst place to be is that middle, you know?

[00:15:51] Allan: Yes,

[00:15:51] Jack: 100%. And I see this a lot, particularly with business owners that, let's say in their first kind of 10 years, [00:16:00] is their pricing low because they want to be. Accessible to everybody. And so the conversation I have there is when you're undercharging, you're not being generous. You're being selfish. Because what you are doing is you're allowing your own insecurity and your own sense of imposter syndrome from you charging what you are worth. Yeah. And in so doing your. Exhausting yourself. You're exhausting your team and you are destroying any margin that you might have, which inhibits your ability to deliver well to the end client.

[00:16:34] Jack: Yeah. And so everybody loses because one person wasn't bold enough to make the necessary decision. Profit is not an option. Yeah. You make a profit or you are gone. Yeah. You make a profit or everyone in your team is out of a job. Yeah. You make a profit, or every person that's paid you money over the last three to six months that you might still be delivering to loses their money

[00:16:59] Jack: Like if [00:17:00] you are listening to this podcast right now, now there's gonna be 1% of people listening to this podcast that operate in an extremely price sensitive industry.

[00:17:08] Jack: Or they like tendering to government and stuff, and the government gonna look at the tenders and they're gonna pick the cheapest option. Yeah. That's a slightly different game. That's 1% of business owners. Mm-hmm. Whereas 80% of business owners will tell you that they operate in that dynamic. Yeah.

[00:17:20] Jack: And they don't. Yeah. And so if you listen to this podcast right now, if all you do is increase your price, and I'm not like, it has to be more than 10%, I'm talking like 20%, 40%. If that's all you do, it will change your business and the lives of everybody in it and around it for

[00:17:35] Allan: Yep. A very simple model to increase your price is just do what you're currently doing, but do it faster. Do it easier, do it with less risk or perceived risk? I just can't tell you how often I've chosen a supplier that was significantly more expensive just because they said, I'll get it done by next week.

[00:17:57] Allan: Yep. Or I'll get it done by this date. Yep. And I [00:18:00] think affluent buyers and people who really value their time. We'll make that trade every time. They will pay you more just to get it done faster, just to get it done. Easier with less friction. So if I can take an existing business, but it allows me to book online or it allows me to do it in a faster, more frictionless way, or definitely remove some kind of risk.

[00:18:21] Allan: Yeah. Really easy win. And 100%. So my view is that business is one of the most profound personal development tools there is. It'll take your personality traits, it'll magnify them 10 x, right? So if you are late all the time, that'll be magnified. 10 x. If you are if you don't deliver, well, that'll be magnified.

[00:18:41] Allan: 10 x. Yeah. If you are bad with managing money, that'll be magnified. 10 x. Yeah. If you are bad with people, that'll be mag magnified. 10 x. So, what are the things that kind of keep people stuck at their level, you know, at six figures, at seven figures, at eight figures? Because I often see it requires you to [00:19:00] kind of shed your old personality and have a real mindset shift to move from one tier to another.

[00:19:06] Allan: And that's not necessarily every business because some businesses deal with very high ticket, maybe like construction companies, you know, a build for them might be $2 million, so they're already at seven figures. But yeah, for the most part to break through some of these bar, first of all, what are those kind of barriers?

[00:19:22] Allan: And then what's stopping people from breaking through at each level?

[00:19:26] Jack: Self-identity. You'll never make a dollar more than you think you are worth. And what prevents us from elevating self-identity is. At a fundamental level, the number one thing that prevents human beings from achieving their goals is human beings avoid hard. When something is difficult or challenging, we are wired to avoid it

[00:19:54] Jack: if you can train yourself to seek out what is the most challenging thing that [00:20:00] I'm avoiding and do that consistently. You'll be in the top 0.1%. And then if you can train that as a muscle and part of your identity then funnily enough, doing hard things actually becomes easy because you've trained your brain that you are comfortable and Okay when you do 'em.

[00:20:17] Jack: And so counterintuitively, the more we train ourselves to lean into what's difficult, the better we get at it and the less willpower we chew up in doing it. And so. What keeps most people stuck is, I am comfortable at the level that I am at, and I say I want to go to the next level, but there are things that I'm required to do in order to get there that feel uncomfortable and I'm procrastinating against doing them.

[00:20:42] Allan: I heard Richard Branson was once asked. they go like, how do you run 20 different companies or whatever?

[00:20:49] Allan: He goes, I don't, he goes there's no way I could I've gotta be the person who hires people who are smarter than me who can run each of my companies. You know, there's no, no possible [00:21:00] way. And I'm like, yeah that's a mindset shift where you're hiring people who are smarter than you to do the stuff that you can't do or the stuff that you just don't have time or resources or whatever else to do.

[00:21:11] Allan: Yeah. So, and I find a lot of people sort of at that technician level often, maybe they hit a ceiling at around. A million dollars in revenue or whatever. They're essentially the centerpiece, they're the genius in the business and everyone is kind of assisting them to some extent. And they'll almost never break through that ceiling.

[00:21:30] Allan: Or if they do, they'll only do it for a short period of time and plateau until they figure out that, Hey, I need to hire people that are smarter than me. I need to let go of some of the reigns. So that breaking through from six to seven figures really requires a people strategy there

[00:21:46] Jack: 100%. You get to a point in business where doing everything yourself becomes really expensive.

[00:21:52] Allan: Yeah.

[00:21:53] Jack: Most people think doing everything themselves saves money. Yeah. Whereas when you do everything yourself, you waste a lot of time.

[00:21:59] Jack: [00:22:00] And time well spent is significantly more valuable than money. Yeah. And so the. Identity shift is from me to we. And so in the beginning, you know, when it's just you and a few people, what the business can produce on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. The business's output is really limited by your personal input, your personal exertion.

[00:22:24] Jack: How much you get done in a day will determine the business's output to a large extent. And so there's no leverage there. Business needs one unit of output. You need to put in one unit of input. It's one to one, no leverage.

[00:22:37] Jack: Where you want to build to is where it's one unit of input from you and a thousand units of output. Pop out of the machine. Yeah. Because you've built a team within an ecosystem and within a structure and everybody has direction.

[00:22:54] Jack: So we're all heading in the same direction where you are able to direct and [00:23:00] conduct and the team produce the majority of the output. And so you build the team and the team builds the business. Yeah. And so in terms of identity shifts, from a business perspective, you go from playing the violin. To being the head of the orchestra, to being the conductor, which is you. You are not playing any of the instruments, but you are conducting everybody. To being the composer. Yeah. And. The team are playing the instruments.

[00:23:23] Allan: Yeah. And that is a huge change for a lot of entrepreneurs where you go from the doing, you go from being the smartest person in the room, the person who's got most answers.

[00:23:35] Allan: I call it Superman syndrome. There's a problem. I'll solve it.

[00:23:38] Allan: Yeah.

[00:23:38] Allan: Come to me, I've got an answer. Yeah., It's exhausting. But it's also means you are a single point of failure.

[00:23:44] Allan: There's no way to break above your level of competence. And you're not gonna break through that without a massive, profound shift.

[00:23:51] Allan: And without other people, and often other people are the key to it.

[00:23:56] Allan: You know, I think the levels where I see people kind of stuck. It's [00:24:00] usually at a million, it's often at about three to 5 million.

[00:24:03] Allan: It's often at about 10 million. So they seem to be caps where people tap out in terms of whatever their ability is.

[00:24:11] Jack: Yeah. , If you're doing six figures looking to get to seven, the unlock is well, the constraint is not enough.

[00:24:17] Jack: People know about what you do. And so if you're doing six figures, what you've demonstrated is you are very good at what you do. You've clearly got customers. A portion of them are retaining or repeating. But you are probably doing all of your marketing reactively, which means you're relying on word of mouth and referrals.

[00:24:36] Jack: There's not a lot of proactive customer acquisition happening. Yeah. And so the same amount of obsession you put around your product and service to get to six figures, you now need to place that same amount of obsession around marketing and sales to get to seven figures. It's customer acquisition that will take you there.

[00:24:53] Jack: But a really important point here that I didn't understand for a long time. And I still speak to a lot of business owners who early on in their journey that [00:25:00] don't fully appreciate his. All growth is sales and marketing led.

[00:25:03] Jack: You can have the best product in the world. But if people don't know about it, they can't buy it. Yeah. And so what gets you to six figures is having a decent product and a service. What gets you to Seven Figures is being more proactive with customer acquisition. when you hit, let's say between 1 million and 3, that's where the people piece that we just spoke about really comes into play, which is you've started to do more proactive marketing, which means you are having more sales conversations.

[00:25:31] Jack: Or if you're an e-com business, you're attracting more traffic. Yep. And you've got more customers, but you are the one that's still holding it all together. Yeah. And so you're kind of bursting at the seams a little bit. The paradigm shift there is sub a million. You are really looking for people who can do things 60% as well as you.

[00:25:52] Jack: Mm-hmm. Why? Because. That's who you can afford at that stage of business. Right? Yeah. And that's fine. That's par for the course. That's [00:26:00] stage appropriate. Yeah. but the problem happens is when we get in the habit of. my average salary for employee should be like 70 or 80 grand.

[00:26:09] Jack: and as from a business owner, we kind of place a glass ceiling there. Yeah. And then someone like you or I comes along and goes, Hey, we're marketing well and we're selling Well, if we had somebody in our marketing full time, we actually think the, we could take the revenue from 2 million to 4 million.

[00:26:22] Jack: We think we could take the profit from 200 K to 900 K. Yes. It's going to be a more expensive investment than what we're used to. We're looking for a head of marketing or director of marketing, or probably not a CMO at this point. But, you know, marketing manager of some sort and, you know, fully costed, we wanna pay him 200, maybe 150 base with, you know, some quarterly bonuses of say 15 k each takes 'em to, on target earnings of two 10.

[00:26:47] Jack: It's gonna be significantly more than the business owner is used to paying.

[00:26:50] both: Yeah.

[00:26:50] Jack: But the paradigm shift is you're no longer looking for people who are 60% as good as you. You're looking for people who are 160% better.

[00:26:58] Jack: And the minute [00:27:00] you put somebody. Senior and experienced in either marketing or sales will be one of the biggest inflection points you ever experienced in business.

[00:27:10] Jack: Yeah. Because even if you are fucking brilliant in that function, you are also doing everything else. Yeah. And so if you are chief everything officer, then growth happens when you get to it. Yes. And often it's the last thing that you get to because the whirlwind is so all consuming. And so even if you are brilliant at it and this person isn't better at you, at it, just by virtue of them spending a hundred percent of their time there, they're gonna outperform you spending 10% of your time there.

[00:27:37] Jack: And guess what? You can still spend 10% of your time there, but you'll spend 10% directing and guiding them. Yeah. To maximize their a hundred percent. And so that's the inflection point at that point is between one and three, you will have a leadership and management deficiency inside of the organization.

[00:27:57] Jack: And you need to. [00:28:00] Recalibrate how much you are happy to pay for salaries. The most expensive thing you can be doing at 3 million is paying startup salaries.

[00:28:08] Allan: I'm pretty sure it was you who said I was I think I was listening to something you were saying and it was that, you know, we think of it as like, wow, it's 130,000, or it's Yes.

[00:28:18] Allan: 200,000 or whatever. But they come with a 12 month finance plan, right? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Because you're paying them monthly. Exactly. And if it doesn't work out after a few months or whatever. Exactly. Yeah.

[00:28:26] Jack: And sometimes you need to back yourself in so to your point let's say we go back 15 years, I wouldn't look at it as, okay, I'm taking on a $200,000 obligation.

[00:28:36] Jack: I got 12 months to pay that $200,000. Yeah. I would view it as the first three months. And so I would want to have. Clear, or either a high degree of confidence. Yeah. Their three month salary, runway cash at bank. that's my fucking job as a business owner is to roll the fucking dice.

[00:28:53] Jack: Yeah. Do everything I can proactively to make it work. It's not, will this [00:29:00] work? That's a crappy decision making framework. It's make the decision and make the decision work.

[00:29:04] both: Yeah.

[00:29:05] Jack: and then sometimes we have to let the growth that the person will, that will come in and affect the growth pay for their future salary.

[00:29:14] Allan: Yes.

[00:29:14] Jack: The reason why it's a good risk to take is, the other thing is that in Australia, I'm not sure what the laws are like internationally but the laws are more relaxed internationally. In Australia, you've got six month probation as well.

[00:29:26] Jack: And so if they don't work out. They're gonna know that they're not working out.

[00:29:30] Jack: Have the conversation, let them go do something that they're better at, somewhere where they're gonna be more suited. And then just do it again. But let's say you do that after two months, and that's a long time. You'll probably know after a month. Yeah. Let's say it's 30 days. Yeah. You're paying 'em 200 k.

[00:29:43] Jack: Yeah. What have you lost? 15 K. Yep. You're not rolling the dice on 200. Yeah. You're rolling the dice on 15. And so this comes back to that whole identity piece we're talking about before. There are some people listening to this right now that go, I did this [00:30:00] five years ago. I'm so comfortable with this that I actually forgot that I went through it because they went through it.

[00:30:04] Jack: They were wrestling with exactly what we're talking about now, and now it's just no longer an issue for them. They, They'll recruit people on 200k-300k salaries whenever they need to without blinking.

[00:30:13] Jack: That's the person that goes to the gym. Yeah. And does it easily. Yeah. Right. There's also people listening to this podcast right now that are like, Ugh I, this sounds great in theory.

[00:30:23] Jack: Yeah. But it's not gonna work for me. And it will, but it's just gonna be uncomfortable for you for a few months.

[00:30:30] Jack: And so the alternative to leaning into that uncomfortability is stay where you are forever. And so that's the choice. Do I do what's hard and uncomfortable and risky and be uncomfortable for a few months, but then eventually master it where I'm just doing it whenever it's required?

[00:30:48] Jack: Or do I stay in the same fucking place for the rest of my life? I know which one of those scares me more.

[00:30:54] Allan: Well, the other part is not just the financial risk, it's like, hang on. this [00:31:00] person is gonna potentially outshine me in the stuff that I'm gonna do.

[00:31:03] Allan: Right. So yeah.

[00:31:04] Jack: Chances are they won't. But if they do, that is like the entrepreneur's dream. That is the dream.

[00:31:11] Allan: Well, I remember when I was essentially, you know, I was running the coaching business. I was essentially myself and a few assistants, and then I hired my first coach and I was watching a recorded call that the coach was doing with a client. And I'm like, oh shit. They're way better at coaching than I am so good. They're taking notes, they're following up. They're doing all of this stuff that I'm not good at that I'm, dude, Allan , even as you just said, that my

[00:31:35] Jack: heart, I shit you not expanded for me.

[00:31:40] Jack: And I didn't even, this is the first time I'm kind of voicing this to myself, let alone out loud. I reckon for me, that's one of the parts of business I love the most. When I find a team member who is so good at what they do, and I can have a 20 minute discussion with them, and I just know that [00:32:00] they're gonna take it, they're gonna run with it, and they're gonna do it so much better than me.

[00:32:04] Jack: That's one of the most enjoyable aspects of business for me. I've got someone in my team right now she's my head of media. Her name's Chloe, and she's just so capable, and she's capable from a left brain and right brain. So with the right brain stuff, she understands consumer, she understands copies, she understands landing pages, she understands videos, she understands hooks, she understands psychology, she understands buying psychology, customers, you name it.

[00:32:34] Jack: Then she's also exceptional at all of the mechanical operational, you know, she's one of the most organized people I've ever met. she told me a month or two ago as a kid, like, you know, three, four years of age, she would have little files and filing cabinets and she'd coordinate 'em by color and all, you know, since the age of three or four.

[00:32:56] Jack: And so when I say that's one of the things that I enjoy most about business, I think about the [00:33:00] conversation, the meeting I was having yesterday with Chloe, big project that we're doing. I took it, let's say the first kind of probably 40%, which is usually more than what I would usually would.

[00:33:08] Jack: And then I hand over to her. But I know that the next 60% is going to happen to a world class standard. It's going to happen so much better than I could do the next 60%. That's what business is about, right? Working with brilliant people to achieve outcomes that are greater than what we could achieve ourselves.

[00:33:28] Allan: Yeah, I mean, I can't remember the name of the guy. Some old guy from history or whatever, but he basically said the job of the entrepreneur is to move capital from a, a lower level of yield to a higher level of yield. Yeah. So that could be an investment. That could be an investment in people.

[00:33:43] Allan: It could be investment in stocks, it could be in real estate, whatever. So we want to go from earning nothing to earning 5%, go from 5% to earning 20% return, going from 20% to a hundred percent return or whatever it is. And so sometimes that's an investment in your own business, in your own people. Sometimes [00:34:00] it's.

[00:34:00] Allan: Taking money off the farm whatever it is. But thinking of people as an investment, like you said I'm gonna roll the dice. And I often find that the real interview is their first couple of weeks. I mean, someone being good at an interview and good at what they do is often two different skills.

[00:34:15] Allan: 100%.

[00:34:16] Jack: and sometimes it's the inverse. Yes. Sometimes people who are brilliant Yes. Don't really play the performative game.

[00:34:23] both: Yeah.

[00:34:24] Jack: And so, yeah. Being able to seek for substance and that, that signal through the noise and not getting distracted by the noise, which in this instance would be the performance or the rapport Yeah.

[00:34:33] Jack: That they build or, you know, any of that sort of stuff. It's literally how well can they do their job and how good are they gonna be from a cultural fit perspective. it's often people who are brilliant. They're not gonna woo you in an interview with charm.

[00:34:46] Jack: Yeah. They will woo you with substance if you know what to look for.

[00:34:49] Allan: Yeah. And more and more now the people we're interviewing and the people we're bringing come through reputation or through prior work. So, I, I heard Seth Godin [00:35:00] say I don't work with anyone who I haven't worked with.

[00:35:02] Allan: Right. So, he'll have seen some of their work or worked with them on a project or whatever, and like, ah I love your work. Yeah. And now on the internet, I mean, you know, everyone's got an opportunity to show their work. You don't have to say how good you are. We can just look you up online, do a Google search, and we'll know instantly you know how good you are at what you do.

[00:35:20] Jack: Yeah. Yeah. It's if you're recruiting a videographer, that's a short interview. Yeah. Watch their fucking videos. Yeah,

[00:35:28] Allan: totally.

[00:35:29] Jack: Right. Like full stop. Totally. You wanna have a chat with them to discuss the role. Yeah. Can they keep up? Yeah. The culture. Are they gonna fit? Yeah. But you don't need to talk to them about videos.

[00:35:40] Jack: Yeah. You just watch their videos before the interview. That's it.

[00:35:43] Allan: That's it.

[00:35:44] Allan: What are your thoughts around recruiting people who've got potential maybe diamonds in the rough versus someone who's been there, done it, executed on it, and so on?

[00:35:54] Jack: I look for people who have both. And so they have to [00:36:00] demonstrate exceptional ability already. They have to be brilliant already. Why? Because I don't have time to make them good. I don't have most of the skills that I employ people for.

[00:36:12] Jack: Nor do I have the time, nor do I have the desire to train them on it. Mm. And so if I'm recruiting you, I want you to be brilliant already. To the potential piece.

[00:36:21] Jack: I look for people who are exceptional and on the up. And so if somebody sometimes you can get somebody that might be in kind of the final stages of their career and it's more about what they've done than what they're doing or what they will do. Yeah. And so they're not on the up anymore, and so they wanna be paid for what they did 20 years ago.

[00:36:39] Jack: Yes. But they also kind of want an ivory tower and they don't wanna get their hands dirty and yada. Yeah. that is probably one of the most dangerous people you can bring into a small to medium sized business environment. Yeah. 'cause everybody will respect them. Yeah. And they will set the entirely wrong example.

[00:36:55] Jack: And they'll probably disrespect you in the process. I want somebody that's brilliant and has the [00:37:00] potential to become even more brilliant. The more I challenge them and the more I give them.

[00:37:05] Allan: Yeah. Probably the word that's in vogue at the moment is agency, right. High agency people. Yeah. So, I've had a lot of luck hiring people who've got really good potential. Yeah. People who, who basically trained themselves, I didn't have to train them. Yes. Because a lot of times I didn't even have those skills as you alluded.

[00:37:24] Allan: Yeah. But who I could tell they would grow into the role. Yeah. They would become leadership material. They would move through the organization and improve themselves like I've never had luck turning a B player into an A player. That's never happened. Ever.

[00:37:36] Allan: Exactly. Exactly. But I've taken an a player who didn't have the skills in specifically one domain. Exactly. Yeah. but I knew they would grow into that.

[00:37:46] Jack: Yep.

[00:37:46] Allan: Hey, Alan here. Want to dive deeper into today's episode? Head to lean marketing.com/podcast for links to all the resources we mentioned, plus some exclusive ones. Just for podcast listeners, [00:38:00] you can also subscribe to get notified when new episodes drop and receive my latest marketing and business tips right in your inbox.

[00:38:06] Allan: That's lean marketing.com/podcast. Now back to the show.

[00:38:11] Allan: So, you've talked about breaking through the one to 3 million barrier above that, how do we break through Yeah.

[00:38:17] Allan: 10, 10 million. Yeah. beyond what are the key things there?

[00:38:20] Jack: And so from three to 10 kind of view, what I'm about to say is there's three levels, right? The first level is that the entrepreneur, the business owner. Is just stuck in product development and delivery, service development and delivery.

[00:38:34] Jack: They're just doing their thing and they're not yet, they don't yet have a proactive emphasis on generating revenue. So they're not yet focused on marketing and sales. Yeah. They're just stuck in delivery. And I'd say 80 to 90% of business owners are there. And that, again, that's inevitable in the beginning.

[00:38:48] Jack: It's part for the course. It's stage appropriate in the beginning, but you do want to elevate to level two. Level two is you are delivering well, but you are coupling that with a growth [00:39:00] orientation, and you are putting an emphasis on winning new customers. Right? When you get to about three 5 million, you then need to go to level three, which is, I'm delivering, well, I'm winning new customers.

[00:39:15] Jack: I'm also extending the lifetime value of my existing customers. So that every customer is worth more. And so this might be extending the experience of the product or service. It might be we now have a pretty significant customer or client base, past and present. And we've given them a solution.

[00:39:35] Jack: That solution has helped them achieve an outcome. They've now got new problems. What products or services can we sell to their new problems? It can be charging more and then upsells and cross sells, which really fits into that kind of second bucket of offering them more stuff. So three to 10 is about.

[00:39:52] Jack: Ensuring all of those pieces line up. I need to scale my delivery so that everybody's, my customers are happy. Which is very different at 10 than it was at [00:40:00] one. Yeah. Because, 'cause my, at that point, my product delivery or my service delivery needs to be happening without me. Yeah.

[00:40:06] Jack: Nobody's running a $10 million business who's delivering all of the services. Right. I need to be winning new customers through effective marketing and sales. That is also operating under the leadership of an executive or manager that heads up that, and I need to be similar to how I'm obsessed about having great product and service and I'm obsessed about how to get new customers.

[00:40:26] Jack: Yeah. I now need to obsess about. Lifetime value. How do I extend the lifetime value of my existing customers? And if you wanna do all of those three things, you need to be good at having leaders in place to manage those three things.

[00:40:38] Allan: Yeah. I often talk about marketing and business metrics. And really to me, the only two that really matter all the other metrics are kind of to LTVC and LTV.

[00:40:48] Allan: That's it. Customer acquisition costs and lifetime value. Lifetime value, that's it. And by far, lifetime value is the most powerful one. You know, most people when we talk from a marketing perspective Yeah. Is like, I need [00:41:00] new clients and need new leads and all of those sorts of things. Yeah. I've almost never seen a business that we couldn't double or triple just by increasing extending ltv, LTV, either through ascension retention.

[00:41:11] Jack: Yep. Yep.

[00:41:11] Allan: Reactivation.

[00:41:12] Jack: Yep.

[00:41:13] Allan: Upselling whatever it is. Yeah. And that's by far the most powerful lever because if we can take someone from being worth 10,000 to the business to being 15,000 to the business, or 20,000 to the business or whatever.

[00:41:24] Jack: Yeah.

[00:41:25] Allan: That instantly improves all of our metrics.

[00:41:27] Allan: And so all of the other things, the, you know, conversion rates, all of the, you know, bounce rates, all of that's just for troubleshooting campaigns and things like that. Yeah. But by far we want to the LTV to be high.

[00:41:40] Jack: Yeah.

[00:41:41] Allan: Cost of customer acquisition, I actually don't mind it being high because it's often a barrier to other people.

[00:41:45] Allan: In fact, yeah. if you can increase your LTV, you can increase your cac Exactly. Your cost of customer acquisition. Exactly. And that becomes a barrier to other kind of cowboys in the industry who just can't afford that kind of cost of customer acquisition. A hundred percent. A hundred percent.

[00:41:59] Jack: [00:42:00] Yeah, people it comes back to the whole vanity metrics thing, right? Like. Lot of people try and minimize cost per lead, for example. I don't even really look at cost per lead. Well, I look at CAC a lot. But you know, who was it? It might've been Seth Godin or someone like that said it's the person who can spend the most to acquire a customer.

[00:42:17] Jack: Yes. Wins. Yes. To say that I wanna minimize the customer acquisition spend is not the right approach. It's, I want to know what my ratios are to acquire a customer relative to LTV. And if I can get my LTV up and therefore I can put my CAC up and that enables me to win more customers or better customers, or take share from competitors, then spending more on CAC in that instance is actually as you say Yeah.

[00:42:40] Jack: Can be a positive.

[00:42:41] Allan: Yeah. At what stage is product to market fit? The sort of defining characteristic of what you need to get right. It's gonna be a blocker to future growth. Or maybe even define product to market fit as you use product to market fit

[00:42:56] Jack: is, do I have something that people are willing to pay for?

[00:42:59] Jack: In fact I'd make one [00:43:00] amendment to that not willing to pay for, do I have something that people are hungry to pay for. if you were to start a restaurant and if you were to pitch me as an investor to invest in your restaurant, what's the number one thing you'd wanna tell me that the restaurant had?

[00:43:12] Jack: Would you wanna say it has a great menu? Would you want say it has great ambience, great head chef, you know, we're really gonna place an emphasis on service. I would say the number one thing that you wanna point to in terms of the future success of the restaurant is, do you have a hungry crowd? Yeah. And if you have a hungry crowd and you're able to feed them, then chances are, if you can work out the details, you're gonna have a successful business.

[00:43:36] Jack: And so how do I know if I've got product to market fit? It's more about how do you know if you don't? And so, if marketing falls on deaf ears. If sales conversions are too low, if people aren't buying, if people aren't staying, if people aren't referring, if people aren't repeating, then chances are [00:44:00] there's an imperfect product to market fit that can be honed.

[00:44:03] Jack: And so to come back to your first question, when is it most important? It's probably most important in the beginning 'cause it's all that you've got.

[00:44:10] Allan: Mm-hmm.

[00:44:11] Jack: But it continues to be increasingly important. Yeah. That, I know I'm kind of contradicting myself a little bit there, but, as you grow. Yeah. Because you don't want to get to 10 or 20 million and then lose your product to market fit. 'cause the consumer changed and your business didn't. Yeah. Then you're in big trouble. And so you have to have it from the beginning to even get to six or seven figures. You need product to market fit.

[00:44:34] Jack: And so that's where it'll be like the focal point. And then it continues to become increasingly important the larger you grow.

[00:44:41] Allan: And it's also a sliding scale. I mean, there's, it's not binary that you've got it or you don't. Correct. It's like. Does it fit to a degree? Is it a nine out of 10 fit? Is it a six out of 10 fit or whatever?

[00:44:51] Allan: Yeah. And that's gonna dictate how much you can charge. Yeah. And often I like to kind of just slightly tweak that it's not necessarily even a product market fit, [00:45:00] because often you'll find there'll be someone selling the exact same product who's crushing and someone else who's just struggling. it's often a message to market, market message to market, market fit. I agree. So where the messaging, the positioning of the product, all of that is, is key. so many times we've taken the same product for the same market, but we've tweaked the messaging Yes. And suddenly, boom we've got a winning campaign or a winning offer.

[00:45:23] Jack: 100%. I would say that's significantly more common than needing to change the product.

[00:45:28] Allan: Yeah. Very rare that the core product needs complete overhaul does happen, but it's pretty rare.

[00:45:33] Jack: Yeah.

[00:45:33] Allan: At what stage am I hiring a CEO replacing myself as the business leadership?

[00:45:39] Jack: My personal view has changed on this. The biggest mistakes I've made in business have come about because I put the wrong two I see in place. that's my fault. Yeah. Not anybody else's. The person or the people were brilliant. Yeah. But I put them in the wrong role. Yeah. And then I had too much distance between me and the [00:46:00] business.

[00:46:00] Jack: And so it was completely my fault. Yeah. And in so assuming that responsibility, I need to think how then can I operate differently? The distinction that I needed to make, which sounds silly. It's like, you know, business is one of those games where you it's, you're pretty much just constantly kicking yourself for.

[00:46:17] Jack: Repeating mistakes that you've learned already a hundred times. Right. And one of the mistakes I needed to remind myself a couple of years ago was there is a difference between being operational and making the decisions. Mm. And so I was delegating the role of CEO. Now, sometimes I would call it gm.

[00:46:38] Jack: Yeah. Sometimes I would call it CO. Yeah. Sometimes I would call it CO but I delegate because I didn't wanna be operational. But the business and everybody in it. Would've benefited if I continued to make the strategic and sometimes operational and tactical decisions. Yeah. [00:47:00] And so how I operate today is I am the CEO of my group of companies.

[00:47:05] Jack: And I will continue to be the CEO of my group of companies, but I've got a leadership team and a team that's absolutely exceptional. And so I'm, while I'm the CEO and I do have a very high kind of throughput on a weekly basis, I'm not operational. I'm making the decisions and I'm guiding and I'm leading and I'm problem solving, but everything is delegated.

[00:47:27] Jack: As we spoke about when we started, the question I'm always asking myself is, what's the biggest challenge in this business right now that if solve would make the biggest difference? I jump in, I obsess about that, I micromanage that. But if a business is that conceptual assembly line that we spoke about and there's somebody managing each stage of the assembly line.

[00:47:45] Jack: Everything else is being managed and being run without me, and by definition is performing better than the thing that I'm focusing on. Yeah. And so I wanna free myself up so that A, I can work on the most important problem [00:48:00] at any given time and often do that in conjunction with the leader of that particular function.

[00:48:04] Jack: I want to free myself up so that I can focus on vision and direction and people development and recruitment. I wanna free myself up so that I can focus on big strategic moves. Like right now, we're in the early stages of launching into the US and I think in a relatively short timeframe, I think our business in the US will be bigger than our business in Australia.

[00:48:26] Jack: We will still be headquartered in Australia. I think from a P&L perspective, we'll be bigger in the States than we are here. And I wanna free myself up so that I can, make content and focus on building brand and building that kind of top of funnel audience. Yep. And so those are the core things that are in my genius zone and where I'm best and where I can add the most value.

[00:48:46] Jack: And so everything else is delegated. And so I keep the role of the CEO, but not so that I can act like a gm. . I wanna maintain that title so [00:49:00] that I maintain a large part of the decision making Nice.

[00:49:04] Allan: My business does, is run by a CEO. I've kind of relinquished that role, and it was a lot of what you said is.

[00:49:11] Allan: I would have a look where is my genius zone? it is. 100% not hiring. It is 100% not running meetings and yeah, operational stuff, all of that. I looked at where's my genius zone? And it was really three things. It was like, I'm gonna be writing books and creating frameworks. I'm gonna be connecting with other people like, we are now.

[00:49:31] Allan: Exactly. I'm gonna be creating content. So, and none of those things need me to be a the CEO of the business.

[00:49:38] Jack: Yep.

[00:49:38] Allan: So, for me, that decision was pretty easy because I want to be working in my genius zone, things that give me energy.

[00:49:44] Jack: And I think what's interesting here, and this is important for the audience to understand, is we're pretty much saying the same thing.

[00:49:53] Jack: And so what I mean by that is this how I operate now, being CEO [00:50:00] is probably the difference. In fact, I'd say there's almost no difference to my calendar than if I wasn't CEO.

[00:50:06] Jack: It's just that in fact, no the difference is every second week I chair a two hour leadership meeting. If I wasn't CEO, I wouldn't do that.

[00:50:16] Jack: So, so the difference between me not being CEO and being CEO from a time perspective is two hours a fortnight. But what that means is I'm closer to the business than I was, I'm the one making the high level decisions and I'm more equipped to make them better.

[00:50:33] Jack: Yeah. As opposed to delegating high level decisions that are gonna impact the business for five to 10 years. Yeah. And so you are probably the same. Like if there's a big decision that's gonna influence your business for Yeah. Three to five years, you are still making it. And so we're pretty much saying the same thing.

[00:50:49] Jack: It's just what I would suggest business owners do is and counterintuitively this is a little bit different to how Branson operates because the [00:51:00] thing is that if I speak for myself in my businesses, we're not flying planes or you know, running voyages or it's more intellectually driven.

[00:51:12] Jack: And there's more nuance to the customer journey. Yep. And so I don't think one could run 20 coaching businesses, growth agencies, digital marketing agencies. Well, I can run those businesses really well, and I can have investments in other businesses similar to a Branson and have them run completely without me.

[00:51:32] Jack: But I think there's a style of business, and that is the style of business that I'm in.

[00:51:37] Jack: Where it requires, nuanced decision making often from the founder.

[00:51:43] Allan: Mm. I view myself as, part of an advisory board to my CEO. So yes I do want to hear about big spends, big changes in strategy, all of those sorts of things.

[00:51:53] Allan: I want to have some of my input, but I want the really smart people that I've hired to come with a plan, [00:52:00] to come up with ideas independent of what I've come up with. And sometimes I agree with 'em. Sometimes I, I don't,

[00:52:07] Jack: that's why I choose to retain the title of CEO these days because if I make somebody else CEO I am obliged to give them space when it comes to strategic decision making.

[00:52:16] Jack: And I'm obliged to an extent to allow them to make decisions that I would otherwise disagree with. that's where I've gone wrong in the past Is allowing things to happen that I knew shouldn't, and I don't mean anything bad or negative Yeah. But like And this may change in a few years.

[00:52:31] Jack: You know what I mean? I'm going through a growth phase right now. Where I'm loving being in the driver's seat. Yeah. And it might change in a few years time, but I don't want to be obliged to enable somebody to make strategic decisions that I disagree with.

[00:52:45] Allan: Yeah. Well, well, so what you're saying, it's ego and you're a control freak.

[00:52:52] Allan: Just summarize, just sum it up. Yeah. Well, it's it's well, well deserved.

[00:52:58] Jack: We could have just skipped the whole [00:53:00] podcast and got to that's it.

[00:53:04] Jack: Yeah. And let's touch on that a little bit because I think there's a healthy ego in that. Yeah. I get worried when somebody says, I now delegate all decision making to, to somebody else. Yeah. Because it sounds noble, and it sounds elevated, and it sounds Richard Branson.

[00:53:19] Jack: But there's a real risk attached to that. Yeah. And so sometimes ego is healthy again, I would stipulate Allan that the biggest mistakes that I've made over the last 15 years have been when I was trying to be too humble and too accommodating. And so it's interesting, right? It's nuanced.

[00:53:39] Jack: It's not as simple as don't have ego and don't be a control freak. There are gonna be years and sometimes decades where your business will benefit from your ego and your level of control. And then there may be seasons as well where it benefits from letting somebody else take the reins. I think that the Branson era of starting and owning, you know, [00:54:00] 300 different companies.

[00:54:02] Jack: Is it's different today because there's so many founders and so many people driving.

[00:54:08] Allan: Yeah. Well, you also want one really pumping and doing well. Don't have 10 different businesses when they're all struggling. Right. So if you've got one that's just printing money and, you know, run under management's doing really well.

[00:54:21] Allan: Okay, great. Let's look at business number two, number three, number whatever. Exactly. But it's when you hear someone who's struggling and they've got five different businesses and they're all running them and this is a side hustle and whatever that's a disaster. Exactly. Exactly. And

[00:54:34] Jack: then, don't get me wrong, you know, I invested quite substantially in a food business four or five years ago called Mr.

[00:54:42] Jack: Potato who are one of the fastest growing franchise chains in Australia right now. I did a bit of work with them up front to help improve. Some of the fundamentals in their business and that gave them a good uptick in growth at the time. And now I'm not involved at all.

[00:54:59] Jack: [00:55:00] Yeah. You know, I was approached by a team of tech entrepreneurs here in Australia back in 2020. Started a business together. I helped them with a bunch of stuff in the first 18 months. After 18 months, we raised $30 million as a valuation of a hundred million dollars. They've now expanded into America, completely pivoted the business to kind of be the V two version of that business.

[00:55:24] Jack: And I'm involved zero in that business. Nice. And so there are businesses, and this is the Branson model. Branson is an investor. Yeah. It's just He's a branded investor. Yeah. And so he's got the Virgin brand on it. You can absolutely do that. I just think that sometimes when it comes to a. A coaching or a knowledge based business, It can help if the founder is closer to it.

[00:55:47] Allan: Yeah. Yeah. And especially if it's a personal brand involved as

[00:55:51] both: well. Yeah,

[00:55:51] Allan: exactly. over decades, you've seen the inside of so many different types of businesses. Um, You know, grass is always greener on the other side, but, [00:56:00] you know, if you were starting fresh, waving a wand what type of business would you start now, given the opportunities, given the, what you've seen in the past where, I mean, we've both seen the inside of many businesses and some of them I'm like, damn, this is a real hard business to run.

[00:56:15] Allan: I'd never wanna run a business like this and others, I'm like, wow, these guys are printing money. and uh, so, what's your view like what type of business would you start if we were starting from scratch?

[00:56:26] Jack: So, I mean, there's, there's two aspects to this answer. to answer the question I think you are asking is right now I would start a business that was in ai.

[00:56:35] Jack: Okay. And a large part of our strategic direction, you know, as of now is kind of integrating that to become more of an AI driven, AI first mm-hmm. So that's the business that I would choose from a timing and a market growth and future potential standpoint. Yeah. The truth for me personally is the business that I would [00:57:00] start is the business that I have because I love it and it's who I am.

[00:57:06] Jack: Yeah. There's such a deep connection there. Yeah. And that's, a huge strength. Sometimes it can be a weakness, obviously, but you know, we hit some really rough days. In 2016, we became an accredited college. We went into,

[00:57:17] both: yeah.

[00:57:18] Jack: Offering diplomas and advanced diplomas in business, specializing in entrepreneurship went into the space incredibly successfully.

[00:57:24] Jack: Government changed how that space works, wiped out the industry. Sent everybody back to university in tafe. For us that meant we were losing about $400,000 a month and three months away from losing 800,000 a month. Wow. And so, you know, I was visiting administrators and liquidators and they were all saying the same thing.

[00:57:40] Jack: They were saying, Jack, you can't trade through this like you're gone. And there was just something deep inside of me that said, I disagree. And I know that's how it looks on paper. And they were right from a technical perspective, but there was a deep voice inside of me that said, I'm going to choose to create a different reality to that.

[00:57:58] Jack: I'm gonna choose to fight [00:58:00] and fight. I did. And that was the hardest three to four years of my entire life. And. You know, like all of us, I haven't had the easiest trot through life that was probably the hardest period.

[00:58:11] Jack: Why did I survive in a really painful condition for three to four years? Partly because it meant a lot, partly because we are an example to so many other businesses. And from a personal perspective, I would often ask myself what else do I wanna go away and do? And the answer was nothing.

[00:58:34] Jack: Yeah. All I want to do is what I'm doing. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. And so that's the kind of personal answer is. If I was to start any business, it would be the business that I'm in right now. If I was looking at from a purely entrepreneurial commercial lens and it was objective and it wasn't necessarily about me I think the, clearly the growth sector over the next 5, 10, 20 years is gonna be ai.

[00:58:58] Allan: Yeah, for sure. For sure. [00:59:00] I mean to me, I look at where can I have such a big moat, right? And to me it's very hard to get past. Solid intellectual property assets where you've got a piece of intellectual property, maybe it's protected by a trademark or maybe even if it's not true, protected by a trademark.

[00:59:17] Allan: It's like you are known for that thing. Yeah. And that thing is associated with you. I think that's super, super powerful and whenever I think about this, I think about have you

[00:59:26] Allan: ever, ever seen those little yellow smiley faces? Yeah. The, they're on stickers.

[00:59:32] Allan: They're on mugs, on t-shirts or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. There's a company that owns the trademark to that. Yeah. They're $500 million a year licensing yellow smiley faces, which looked like it's crazy. It took someone like 10 minutes to crazy. To put together. Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy.

[00:59:46] Allan: Love it. Jack, thank you so much for, you've been,

[00:59:47] Allan: this was great man. I knew this was gonna be a good discussion. Yeah. Is there anything I haven't asked you that I should have asked you?

[00:59:54] Jack: No, mate. Not at all. If anyone wants to kind of follow along on the journey, the best place to keep up with [01:00:00] me is probably on Instagram.

[01:00:01] Jack: On Instagram. I'm just Jack Delosa. De losa being D-E-L-O-S-A.

[01:00:05] Allan: Perfect. I love your content. I'll continue to follow you and thanks so much for your time. Thanks mate. Appreciate it.

[01:00:11] Allan: Thanks for tuning in to the Lean Marketing Podcast. This podcast is sponsored by the Lean Marketing Accelerator. Wanna take control of your marketing and see real results with the accelerator. You get proven strategies, tools, and personalized support to scale your business. Visit lean marketing.com/accelerator to learn how we can help you get bigger results with less marketing.

[01:00:34] Allan: And if you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review or share it with someone who would find it helpful. See you next time.

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