Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: So, yeah, today we're joined by Ray Corcoran. Ray, who are you? What do you do?
[00:00:05] Speaker B: Yep. So my name is Ray Corcoran. I have a marketing agency based out of Sydney. We service clients mostly in Australia and then, you know, we do have a handful abroad as well.
Yeah, I've known clap for 12 or 13 years or something like that. It's been awful, honestly, the whole way, but somehow we keep catching up and the universe must want us to hang out. So that's why, that's why I've been. Yeah, that's why we're still in touch. But yeah, the main thing we do in our agency is primarily paid ads for people, Google Ads, Facebook ads. And I also. The other side of the business is marketing consulting. So I work with brands to define the marketing strategy and then either A, execute it for them or B, work with them to execute it in house.
So that's kind of my main focus. That's pretty much what all I've been doing since about 10, 2010, 2012 is just pretty much getting leads. Primarily service based business, a little bit of SaaS here and there, but mainly like established service based businesses are the ones that we work with the most.
[00:01:06] Speaker A: Right on. So a bit about your background and your story. We met each other in the call center in the Optus heyday. The good old days.
[00:01:15] Speaker B: The boiler room.
[00:01:17] Speaker A: The mobile technical support boiler room.
[00:01:20] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:01:22] Speaker A: So how did you go from frontline customer service to now having a pretty impressive property portfolio. You're a guy that I think of that has heaps of time, freedom and flexibility, generally text you and you're, you know, at the dentist, commenting on the cleanliness of the floor or something like that.
[00:01:44] Speaker B: It's a good question.
So in terms of background, I originally went to university for marketing and that was kind of my, my plan.
So I ended up totally bombing that and I just wasn't applying myself. I think I was just young and I wasn't. I should, I wish someone just slapped me and told me to leave. Like you're either all in or all out. And that's advice I'll give my kids if they choose that route to be like, I don't care if you go to uni or not, but if you go to uni, do it properly or just start working somewhere and get three years of experience instead.
But I kind of fumbled around with that. But the main reason I got into marketing was it probably aligned with my strengths the best because it was a common. Like all my best subjects at school were like maths and art, like creative sort of topics and marketing is kind of a good mix of that. You've got the analytics side but you've also got the creative side as well. So that kind of was one thing.
And my parents, you know, I don't come from money or anything like that. So a big priority for me was to make a lot of money. Like I didn't really know how and, and I would go to Borders Bookshop at Macquarie center near my parents place with my skateboard. We'd skate, go skate at the skate park nearby and then go up there and I'd sometimes I'd go by myself to the skate park and cruise around but then I go to the bookshop after and I just started pulling books off the shelf in the business and finance section. Like just, I just look at the COVID and be like, oh that sounds interesting. I just sit down and read for free for two hours and then just get a vibe of like what people were saying. And probably the biggest common theme was like the richest people in America.
All these books were like American focused was they were like most millionaires have a business.
And so that was like one big takeaway. And my parents were, you know, my mum was a nurse and dad was a mechanical engineer. So they weren't like there was no business people in business in our family that I knew of. And the other side was a lot of them recommended like if you can help someone else make money then you know, basically be close to the money and you should be safe to make money yourself.
So I had a year nine careers advisor. I originally wanted to do architecture but she said there's no money in architecture. Most people don't make money. And that's like true if you're like a dumbass. Like there's lots of people that don't make a lot of money in architecture. However I wish she said if you're going to do it you need to be in the top 5% because only the best get good money. That would probably be more accurate statement about that industry. But I got scared off. I was only young so I didn't really, I was like okay, well I can't do that. And then marketing kind of became the thing that I ended up going with.
But because I had to drop out of uni I couldn't get. I don't know why, but I didn't think about trying to get like a marketing role at an agency, like an entry level role. But my best mate Alex, another Alex that, you know, Alex Ross, he was working at Optus, you know, big telco. And at their head office in customer service, they're paying like 45, 47 grand a year for like no experience, which in whatever year that was, was actually quite good money. Like to get 50k nearly and, and have no credentials, like literally no credentials, that was appealing to me. So I was like, well, I'll just go work with my mate while I figure this out.
And while I was there I had a lot of quick promotions. So like I would kind of, you know, six months and I would move into this new role and like only small salary increases, but I was kind of bouncing around quickly because the early roles you can move up quick and then it kind of slows down as they get to more serious stuff.
And eventually I got into a low level marketing role there. But it's kind of funny, when I left to start my own business, I learned more about marketing in six months of self employment than I did like at every year at uni and every year in a corporate marketing role doing basic stuff.
So it was kind of funny in that regard. But then fast forward a bit. I've been in corporate, I did business, business analyst work and stuff and I kind of just looked at guys that were like 45ish in my role. Like basically people that were further down and this is probably where I was going to be and they were making really good money but they were all like out of shape, miserable. Like they just looked like the life had been taken out of them. And so I knew that I was like that, like I can't do that. And I also. One thing I was bad at in corporate was understanding the politics around me. I just thought if I do a good job, people will notice and then I'll move up. And that was half true, but the other half was I needed to proactively build relationships with key people.
So I just kept getting frustrated because I felt like my metrics of my job, I was doing a pretty good job, but I was getting looked over because the boss's mate got a job instead of me and I was like, what's like, I just kept getting frustrated by that and I was like, I need to be out of this system. And yeah. And then from there I left and started doing WordPress websites that my buddy showed me. Kiro, who you also know, I love that guy.
[00:06:38] Speaker A: Let me pause you there.
[00:06:39] Speaker B: Yeah, sorry, that's a bit too much.
[00:06:40] Speaker A: But yeah, no, that's awesome. That's exactly where I want to go with this.
I think that the stair stepping and bouncing around, like, that's. That's a good early signal for someone that's like, wants to progress, is just like a little bit restless in their role.
Do you remember the books you were reading, like, way back in the day? Are we talking, like, rich dad, poor dad type stuff? Do you remember any of them?
[00:07:03] Speaker B: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. There was one of the books, which I cringe at the title now. It was Seven Years to Seven Figures by Michael Masterton. And that, like, it's so, like, I'm like, what are you thinking? Like, because I was legitimately, like, I don't know how old I would have been maybe. I don't know, I was like, 19, 20, but somewhere around there, like, give or take a few years. And I was like, well, fuck. Because I was like, by 30, I want to be at this point. And I was like, well, I'm only 20 or whatever it was, so I'll be there. Like, I got three years to spare. I was so wrong. Like, I was just like. But one of the good things that showed me was that was one of the big books that does emphasize business ownership.
Million Next Door, that book. Like, a lot of these books have a lot of corny, like, Americanisms in them, but they do have some good lessons. And the way I look at it is I just average out all the advice to be like, all right, If I get 10 books and seven of them say this thing is a good idea, then that's kind of how I use. That's the signal I'll use to be like, all right, there could be something in this.
And.
And, yeah, but like, you know, Tim Ferriss for our workweek, 48 Laws of Power. Like, just all sorts of, like, classic books in personal development slash finance, slash business. Like, I was kind of just reading probably all the classics.
Richest man in Babylon, all those sorts of books. And the Alchemist, just a bunch of classics, really. And. But that was good. That was good. It was kind of like when, you know, nothing, everything seems, like, mind blowing. So I was devouring books. I don't read as much books these days. Like, you know, less frequent. But back then, everything was new to me. So I was like, this is great. Like, I was kind of starting to learn stuff. So. Yeah.
[00:08:37] Speaker A: Cool, cool. All right, so jumping back to where you were in the story Kiro teaches you or shows you the wonderful world of WordPress, if you could call it that.
And tell me, like, tell me, what did you. What did you learn from that? So he's starting to show you what's going on.
[00:08:55] Speaker B: Yeah, so I was at his place just hanging out and he was just showing me a WordPress website he was building for a client. And I go, that looks pretty cool. And then he goes, man, you could do this as well. And I was like, oh, like I know a little bit of HTML. Like I made some, you know, very basic websites back in the day, but I don't really, like really know this stuff. And he goes, well, you don't really need to know it that well these days because they have WordPress and they have this thing called Themes and they're kind of pre made templates of sites. So all you really need to do is like find a good theme and you can pay a contractor on Upwork, which is now Odesk, or the other way around, it used to be Odesk, and you just pay someone to customize it based on what your client requirements are. And I was like, oh, that's interesting. I go, how much are you charging? And he's like, oh, this one two grand, the other one three grand, another one four grand. And I was like, I was like, if you could do that, like, I'll be rich. I was like, if I can get a couple of these. Because I was working full time, so I was like, if I could get two or three of these in a month, or even just one or two in a month, I was like, that's a whole, that's fully independent. I love the idea of money independent from my job because that felt like a lily pad out of what I'm doing now, which I didn't love. And I wasn't earning like tons of money, so like a few extra grand was like nearly replacing a huge chunk of my low salary.
So it was very exciting. So he started to show me that and the first step was really just telling everybody. Personally I knew, like, hey, I'm doing this thing, if, you know, you or someone, you know, wants a website, I'll do it for free.
And that was how I got my first few customers for that. So I could sort of grip my teeth without practice, without the pressure of, you know, invoicing them basically. So I could basically fuck up the whole job and they wouldn't matter because I'm like, I'm doing you a favor, dude.
So yeah.
[00:10:46] Speaker A: All right. So you kind of dip your toe in the water.
Yeah, I'm really looking forward to the part of the story where you learn about Pipeline. And I might be jumping ahead a little bit too far because when, when we caught back up after many years and we're Walking through the Botanic garden, you're kind of. There's definitely, like, this, you know, graduation, and you're starting to make some momentum and you're learning some stuff and feeling pretty good about it, and then kind of goes off a cliff. I might be jumping ahead, so keep going. Keep going with the sequence. But I love, like, that part, to me is just such a massive, like, learning moment.
[00:11:21] Speaker B: Yeah. And it was really exciting. Like, you know, like, you're making your first few independent dollars is like, the most exciting dollars you'll probably ever make in your whole business. Like. Like, I have some people I know that have made, like, lots of money, and they will still talk about an early dollar figure being more.
More of a dopamine hit than some huge transaction landing years later.
So.
So, yeah, so I started doing that, and basically I just went from doing a few free websites to practice. Then I charged a little bit, and I charged a bit more. And then I started, I guess, market rate or somewhat for people.
And what happened was I go, all right, cool. I was pretty young, and I was not young and naive. So I go, okay, cool. I kind of got this. I quit my job. Just whatever, let's go. Let's let it rip. And I was just fully. It was like. I can't think of. It was like I was walking into a tsunami, but I didn't know that was one was coming. And I just, like. I basically had a bunch of projects to finish. I finished the projects and I had no pipeline of new projects to do. And I was like, what do I do? So then I tried to, like, get customers. And I don't remember what I was doing, but it was pathetic. And it was very. Wasn't effective at all. Nothing was happening. And slowly I'm like, eroding my savings. And I'm like, fuck, this is getting pretty grim here. I'm like, what do I do?
And then I decided. I was like, oh, this. And this is a big, like, ego thing as well. Because I was like, I thought I was kind of smart. I was like, I could figure this out and I couldn't. Like, I just flat out, I just didn't. So I had to regroup and I had to go get a job. One of the jobs. I actually had to get two jobs because I was like, I wanted to rebuild my savings as fast as possible.
One of those jobs was cold calling, a cold calling job for solar panels. So I'd have to go to this place in northwest Sydney into this, like, tiny, crowded office with a bunch of just Idiots. A couple of cool people, but mostly idiots. I was also an idiot and just hammer, like auto dialer a couple hundred calls a day. Sworn at. All day. Sworn at. Not only by the people I was cold calling, but the manager. That was just crazy, just aggressive with everything.
And yeah, it was just crap. And it was funny because at my time, I thought I was a big failure and everybody cared, but really nobody cared. And it was just me putting a lot of, like, you're a. You're a. Basically, like, it was all being placed. Can I say that it's already too late? I. Yeah, this is.
[00:13:40] Speaker A: I'll fix it in. I'll fix it in post. Let her. As you say, Ray, let it rip.
[00:13:44] Speaker B: Nah, nah, let it rip. Let it rip. This is all the people want to hear. So, yeah, so basically, I was humbled. I had to regroup my savings and then I'll go again. But at that time, I'd learned the lesson that I need to build a pipeline and I need to be doing monthly activities to have a continuous flow of people calling me, do work with me.
And that was probably a good thing that I got to, like, see the, you know, touch the flame, essentially, and realize that it's. It's. It's no joke. Like, you really do have to have monthly activities to generate business, and things will fluctuate. But if you do a baseline level of monthly activity, then you should be able to drive regular work. And eventually you'll optimize later once you realize what specific things really do drive the most outcomes, and you just do more of that. And then after a while, a few years later, I'm not worried about new work coming in, whereas I was, what, for a long time, I would be worried about work coming in, Even if it would come in like clockwork every month. I was still in the back of my mind. And then one day, I looked at my revenue per month for a period, and I was like, I've never actually gone under this minimum number for like an extended period. I think it was like 20 grand a month or something like that. And I was like. That was kind of like the day where I was like, all right, maybe I should just chill a bit. Like, things will be okay. You know what I mean? So that was a big awakening. I guess so, yeah.
[00:15:10] Speaker A: And so when you came to this realization that you needed to do, like, steady monthly or even weekly marketing activity, what did you actually do? Like, what were the activities that you did to get things. Get. Just get stuff moving, get leads coming?
[00:15:24] Speaker B: Yeah. So early on it wasn't very efficient. I just decided to do everything and then whatever stuck, I would do more of it. And to be honest, that's a great approach for most people. It might be exhausting, but that will probably do it. Some of the early stuff that I did was I would speak at, oh, pardon me. I would speak at random events. Like, pardon me. I would speak at like little business. Any little crappy business event I could do or even just attend little business events. They were super hit and miss. Some would be like, I'd pick up a couple people, others I could go to several in a row and get nothing, like, zip out of it. But generally speaking, the more people I speak to, the more stuff could happen. Whether it's them becoming a customer or someone they know. And it might be three months after the event, I'll be like, I'll meet some guy called Chris. And Chris is like, hey. Three months later he emails me and goes, hey. I remember we spoke a little while back and then that, you know, I got someone that is my auntie or whatever runs this and she wanted to get a marketing person. I thought of you.
So stuff like that, I've always kind of been, I guess, playing to my own strengths is content driven.
So just publishing. And I tried to publish everything almost as I was learning it, especially early on. So if I discovered anything that would. Would work, I would post about it, whether it was on LinkedIn. Facebook was more of a thing back in the day, less so now.
And, you know, emailing had a small email list and I would email them and just do stuff.
A lot of that content definitely felt like, you know, you're talking into an empty room a lot of the time. But one thing I definitely learned is people are watching every post and you kind of have to have like internal faith that you're like, when I press publish, is this good stuff? And if you feel like, you know what? I feel like this is valuable for the right person. It might not be mass market appeal, but this is valuable to like a real legit customer, like a proper estate, you know, the type of person you really want to do business with. Not just some like, dopamine hunting, you know, lowest common denominator, sort of Derek person.
So.
And that's hard to sort of wrap your head around, you know, like, if you really love the likes, it's hard to just do the post to get proper customers. And I think I always tell people, you got to market for the right customers, not marketing for mainstream appeal, because mainstream appeal usually leads to the opposite, you just get a bunch of like low level people. And I mean everyone's equal as a person, of course, but in terms of financial impact potential to your business, the real proper people are not, you know, liking some really stupid basic post that might get 50 likes but doesn't help anything. They're kind of, they've been around the block.
So yeah, it was kind of, I would say events, a lot of content, especially video. Early on I feel like I did more than others on that.
And then a small bit of emailing and then Facebook, early Facebook ads. So I would boost some of my content and get, you know, mixed feedback. But I was like, the more people were seeing it, so I was kind of like, I didn't really care. I was like, sometimes I get some brutal comments.
Some guys like, why would I listen to someone with 400 likes on their page about marketing? And I was like, that's rough, man, that's rough. I also wanted to hunt that guy down also. I was like, I will get that guy later on. You know the story. I won't share it here because it's sensitive. But that guy got his comeuppance. Let's just say that sucked in, buddy.
But yeah, that were kind of like the main pillars of stuff. And then also the last one that I mentioned was referral relationships. So who already has my customer that doesn't compete with me.
So people like web designers. Because I wasn't building websites by that point much, I was really focusing on the marketing services.
So they build a website, they only build websites. They deal with my exact customer, but they don't compete with me. SEO companies, business coaches. Yeah, any, anybody that I would kind of just reach out via LinkedIn and that sort of stuff, try and do like a short, almost like call like this short call, learn about them, see if I can refer them business.
They were kind of some of the main things I did back then.
[00:19:34] Speaker A: You made a really interesting point. I think it's like the trap of a reality, which is you write, you create something hits, it goes mainstream, you get tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of eyeballs and then that becomes almost like a threshold that you want to hit on content that you're producing.
It's been funny jumping back into creating on LinkedIn. I found that the things that are the most generic that I've posted. So sometimes not even my opinion, just someone else's point of view, but with some analysis around it, we'll just go mainstream and people blow up and there'll be lots of traffic.
And it's actually been a massive distraction. Like, it's a huge distraction.
[00:20:16] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's so tied to your.
One of the hardest things is separating your emotions from your content performance and not being like. It's kind of just having that kind of stoic approach where it's like, if it goes well, I don't care. If it goes bad, I don't care. It's kind of like they're just numbers. And they're also. I think one thing I remind myself of is, like, I don't even know how half these impressions. I don't know who these people are. I didn't care about them yesterday. I didn't know who they were yesterday. I suddenly care that all these impressions happen. I feel like I try to be very, like, internal. It's hard not to be affected by it, but I did, you know, because, you know, as a numbers guy, I think, oh, that's doing well. But also, I just try to use my internal compass of like, what, what my real cut. Like, the people that are already paying me right now, the. Which are a certain type of people, they've been around the block, they're established, they're not, like, new to things.
What would they like? So I try to write for those people. And I might do an occasional mass market post, I guess you would say. But I just, you know, you want to use the right bait for the right fish. I don't want to be using lowest common denominator bait. Even if it gets me some sort of big personal brand or whatever, I. I don't want to work with them. Like, I'm just building an audience of the wrong type of person. So I think that guy, James Smith, he's sort of like a fitness influencer. He actually, I don't know if he deleted his old profile or he just started a new Instagram profile called James Smith Business and he did a video saying that he built a big audience and a big chunk of them were offended when he tried to start selling stuff. They go, oh, you sold out all this? And he was like, this is who I was the whole time. So he's kind of created this second almost like a burner profile which has got like maybe 10 or 20,000 followers instead of a million or something. And he loves posting on that profile so much more because he can just be himself. There's no weirdness about selling because he's kind of. He's building it with the right bait now. And I think that, yeah, every brand should, you know, be conscious of what bait, you know, especially when you got no following, you have that desire to have the following. But it's like build, yeah, building the right type of audience will be crucial because you don't need millions to do, you know, pretty solid revenue. You just, you know, so that Kevin Kelly thousand true fans, like you just need a handful of people that love you.
[00:22:27] Speaker A: But yeah, so, so you, you said before this idea of like speaking to an empty room and also not getting too caught up on the metrics and the numbers.
What are some of the like, are there like thoughts or frameworks or ways that you kind of make sense of that in your head so you don't get discouraged because the biggest thing that we're going to get into in the second half of this call for me, for you is consistency because you are just like the steady as she goes execute, daily weekly type person. And I think there's something really interesting to understand about how that works for you, like maintaining that momentum.
[00:23:06] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, it's probably like, I would say it's, it's probably partially like I, I judge it based on like in terms of content performance, I judge it based on who likes and how many DMS I get from like real people, like real like quality leads basically. Because you can have someone that's a $30 million company CEO and you can have someone that owns a very, you know, a brand new business, for example, doing 20, 20 grand a year or like they're really, really early stage.
I kind of judge loosely based on who messages after those posts, who clicks like on those posts. And sometimes mass market can reach some good people.
But I generally prefer, you know, if, like, if I see who likes it and I know that person runs a, maybe a successful company or a company that's, you know, they've done, they've done it right so far. They're usually, you know, for me, at least for my business and how it's set up, they're the people I love working with because they do a good, like in my head I want someone that does a good job. They're not new to business because I'm going to have to explain all the new to business stuff to this customer as well, which I'm happy to do, but not really that much these days. Like, you know, I can do it, I have done it many times, but I'd rather just spend that time really, you know, scaling up what they're doing rather than telling them some stuff, rudimentary stuff about ads that they probably should already know by now or they all they, they will know themselves after a few more years.
So that's kind of how I guess loosely assess performance in terms of the consistency thing. Like, I guess it's like, it's sort of like the analogy of like a hotel. Like once, once the day has passed, they can't sell that hotel room for Thursday night, once it's Friday, so that opportunity's passed, they can't go back in time and make that right. So I think it's like a wasted opportunity. If you have a day where you could have posted something, then you don't post something. It's just like a day that could have been the perfect day for someone to see your content. I've had times where people have seen a post and two things happen. One, they either see it and be like, I'm dealing with that exact thing right now, let's chat. And it's, it really resonates. Or B, I've got a different issue. But seeing you pop up in my feed reminded me I needed to speak to you about it, about this other issue. So not even the same topic.
That happens to me all the time. So I think that I don't want to miss that opportunity. And I also find that it's easier to post regularly because you don't get stage fright of posting consistently because you. Like, when it's been six months since you posted, like, I would guarantee that you probably would have had that feeling. Haven't posted in ages, now I'm posting heaps. You got it. Like, I would have that feeling. I've had that feeling where I haven't posted in a while. You almost want to make the best post ever as your comeback post. And it's not going to work because the Argo is saying, hey, you've been inactive. We're gonna, we're gonna give your first couple posts some shitty reach.
So it's just, I don't like having that, like, stage fright. I think the, it's like I'm full of analysis, shitty analogies today. But like, you know, it's like, like, you know, when the water's flowing, then algae can't build up. You know what I mean? Like, if, if you're posting regularly, the algae can't build up, whereas if you be stagnant, the algae starts building up because there's no flowing water, there's no flowing posts coming out.
So that's, that's, I guess, one aspect to it. And also I write the more that you write, the better that you get at writing or the more videos that you do the better. Like, I've done hundreds of videos now and I could show you some terrible, many terrible videos that I've done, but that was so long ago now because there's been hundreds since.
So I guess it's a proficiency thing.
Helps me not overthink my posts because I'm just shooting from the hip quite regularly. And also you never know what's going to work, so I don't want to wait for that one big swing that I think going to be a home run, which is always a physio. The ones that you think are your home run. It's always the fizz up and the one that you think a shit post that you half asked it and people were like, oh, I love that post. Like, what the fuck? So it's. Yeah, I just can't be too connected to how stuff performs because I have no idea sometimes all I know is my North Star is what my customers, my existing customers want and what I've seen work. And I feel like it's good stuff. Then I'll post it and I just try to do it as frequently as possible.
[00:27:12] Speaker A: Yeah, that's. That's good stuff. Um, I'm chuckling. There's two things that popped up for me while you're saying that. The first is my comeback post to actually get out and write again was it was about 4 and 4,000 words on like, you know what they don't tell you about selling your startup, right? And this is like, I spent a lot of time and it was almost like I needed that. Like, I needed to put something good out that would give me a bit of space to create other things that weren't to that standard. But there was like almost this like mental. Mental barrier. But secondarily, I think you'll get a kick out of this one because I started posting on YouTube again. I had a dormant YouTube account, but I had old subscribers and old followers and a person that had reached out to me in 2020 for coaching when I had kind of wound things up and said like, they'd emailed me, I'd said, hey, I'm no longer coach searching. They saw me pop back up on their YouTube feed and then reached out to have a convo and talk about where they were at and what they were doing five years later, dude, I was just like, that's.
[00:28:15] Speaker B: That is mad. I love that.
[00:28:16] Speaker A: It's always interesting to understand how people hear of you and where they come from. So I think, like, that's always a good question to ask when you get one of those inbounds, you never.
[00:28:25] Speaker B: Yeah, you never know who's. Who's watching. And like, I've had many examples where people have watched my content for six or 12 or even 18 months, which is a bit too long, in my opinion. But they've watched my stuff for ages, never publicly liked anything, and messaged me, ready to buy and spend a lot. And I'm like, what the fuck? I'm like, you throw me a bone. You know what I mean? I got my little post with 2 likes on it. I go, you could have helped me there. You could have helped me when I needed you. But you didn't. But we're going to talk about, you know, Visa on MasterCard now. So that's all good, but it's just.
Yeah, it's just, it's just funny how, you know, I've done videos on this. Don't forget the lurkers. Cause most, Most people on LinkedIn especially are lurkers. They're worried about what they're publicly seen liking. They may not want to even maybe alert their competitors to who they're following and stuff like that. So there's so many little psychological things in the way of that.
So, yeah, you never know who's. Who's watching.
[00:29:19] Speaker A: So I wonder who's going to be watching this. So, okay, you got to 20K. You got to a steady 20K.
[00:29:25] Speaker B: Five or six people, I reckon. But you guys are going to love it. So obviously drop comments for sure, because we're going to need that engagement. This is actually one of my favorite. I think this is one of my favorite interviews I've done. So how many? They don't like it.
Not, not tons. Like maybe 15.
So.
[00:29:43] Speaker A: Let'S keep, let's keep it going. Let's keep the good times rolling. So you get to 20, like, you get to that steady 20k mark and you're saying it, I think you said over the course of a year that you're starting to like, consistently hit that mark.
Where did you progress from there? What happened next?
[00:30:01] Speaker B: I think I made a mistake of thinking more revenue would be more services. So I'd be like, well, I'm making 20 with this. I can add that and that'll be another 20 and another 20. And that was a mistake and a mistake that I kind of. I don't know if I consciously.
I probably gut felt I knew I shouldn't be doing this, but I also thought I just desperately want to get to that next level. So I was like, I'll do anything. I Don't care how chaotic it's going to be or how hard it's going to be for me to manage or how many new processes, because every new product line is going to have. It's not just another product, it's another set of processes for the team. It's another couple of team members that know how to do that stuff. It's another set of meetings I have to do with those team members about that stuff. It's another set of conferences I have to go to related that stuff. So there's. So there's a whole set of things that come with that new product, new product type. Even though it's under marketing, it's still like a whole. It's not the same. There's overlap, but it's mostly a whole thick separate thing.
But I added in, I guess we became a full service agency, adding websites and SEO and other bits and bobs.
And it did work. It did accomplish the outcome. But I guess I got to a point where I was like, this is too many things.
I haven't got the headspace for all these things. And I wasn't keen to hire lots of people and have a big team. Generally, I still don't want to have a big team. And I was like, this is just. Yeah, it was just too much. So we kind of did that for a bit and got to the next level. And then after a while, I kind of just realized that I'd rather be really good at one main service, which is largely the paid ad stuff.
And, you know, I still do consulting, but I would not focus on websites and SEO. We basically don't do anymore unless it's very specific requirements. So it's something that, like, I've. Basically something I've done before. I know exactly what we would do for that client. If it's something where it's like, hey, it's a different industry or there's too many variables, I'll just. We won't. We'll refer it elsewhere. But narrowing down helped a lot. It made that my. The revenue probably stayed the same for a bit. It might have taken us to 40 or so. And yeah, it stabilized, but then it got a lot. It was an easy. There's a hard 40 and easy 40.
So we went from doing like a very hard. Like I had months where like we did like a 32k or something like that, and I was fucking wrecked. Like, I was just like, that was crazy. And then you have months that do double that later and you're like, that was easy. Like, so it is interesting how you can make revenue so much harder than it needs to be.
But I was. But when you haven't had that revenue before, you're so excited to just make that money. So like, you don't care. You're willing to. For me, I was willing to do as many hours, especially pre kids, I didn't give a shit. I was like, I work all day and night. Like, I just want to do that dollar number because that means I can advance my situation.
[00:32:45] Speaker A: So I got a story for you on that one. In the early days of WP Curve, we had to say no to a lot of stuff because we get requests for builds and we get requests for these different things.
And we stumbled into this space which was doing this would have been 2013, 2014, but doing responsive redesigns.
So not all themes out of the box were responsive on phones and tablets. And you need to do a fair bit of configuration to get a site working.
And so I remember this one month where we were like, all right, we're going to offer this as a one off, which broke our recurring model. And we're going to offer it as like a, like a $500 task or whatever.
And we had a few queued up. Cause we had a big enough base of support customers that also wanted to do that.
But what we realized really quickly, there was only one guy on our team who could do it really well. He was our top, top dude. And I think anyone that ever runs like a technical support team will usually have that pillar of knowledge that has all of this. They know everything, right?
So we burn over two weeks, we just burn this guy out completely because he's scrambling to get all these sites done, you know, like basically run him into the ground. And you know, the, like, the, like, the impact to revenue is meaningful. When you're coming off like a 10 grand, like 10 or 15 grand a month base, you're like, oh, wow, I can get an extra five grand. My revenue's gone up 25%.
Yeah, but it is, in the early days, it is really hard to say no.
It's hard to say no to revenue. And yeah, we went the wrong way on that. Also try to create a bunch of different products and services and random stuff because it makes it interesting, like it's fun.
So, you know, I think common path to fall, like common, common misstep to take.
All right, so you kind of expand and then you contract. You get back focused on the things that you were doing.
Were there any major step change moments in the business where stuff really started to hum or click. Like, what I've heard lately is Covid either crushed someone's business or just catapulted it.
It's pretty binary kind of outcome from what I've seen so far. But yeah. Any major milestones or thresholds?
[00:34:55] Speaker B: Yeah, probably a couple of things. I think. One is owning my value and pricing. You know, we've had some clients that have made like a lot of money and me being paid, I don't know, three or four grand instead of two grand would be awesome. Like, it's a big win for me, especially across several customers.
And for them, it would be immaterial to them because the win was so big. So I think there was some times where I wouldn't say resentment, but I would just say like, more disappointment of like, I could have charged this guy double, triple, some people, a couple of them, 10x and it would not have mattered. Like, it would not have mattered. I do wonder whether I would have got the sale initially if the price from day one, before the outcome has happened. That's the tricky. That's the rub. But I think just owning that price earlier, doing price rises. Yeah. Just charging bigger amounts and just kind of backing your own value. I think that was something that I was very slow to do because I guess if I have to default between charging a little bit under and having them stoked and just telling everybody, I do love that. So rather than a bit over and they're like, oh, you know, it was all right. And like that kind of. I feel like there is a factor of that. So just trying to find where that sweet spot of. Because I want them to get a financial win out of it. I want them to be, you know, I spent x and I got 5x back or 10x back or whatever the number is. I want them to be like, that was a clear good decision to hire those guys.
So. Because that's just makes my life easy, you know, good reputation is something that, you know, you can't, you can't buy. So that was super. So pricing, definitely.
I think just generally having an approach that you want to be in the top 5% of your industry. Like stuff like Covid shakes out low, low quality providers. People have, you know, and people that aren't all in. Like, I've been. This is all I've been doing since 2010 is so like, it's not like I just started my agency two years ago and you know, whatever. Like, I'm all in on this and I. And I want to be doing this for a Very long time. And I'm sure it'll evolve, but this is all I do every day, you know, whatever. So that person that started two years ago because they heard they could make some good retainers or whatever, like they're not going to do like, it's not going to be a competitor, it's just not going to be a thing. So a bit of that, um, I'm trying to think what else sort of helped the most. I think just doubling. Yeah, doubling down on client results as well. Just like blowing them away and just trying to like doing stuff that to be honest was out of scope for what we were getting paid for, but just having them feel like I'm there because during COVID everyone was looking at what to cut and so. So I'm just trying to make myself indispensable. Indispensable. And rather than hiding and being like, fuck, I hope they don't cut me like a gym membership. Like it's just like based on.
They thrive on inactivity. I wanted them to be like, we're actually gonna do the opposite and be like the take the leadership position in their business and be like, we're gonna guide you, you know, like hold the torch up and guide you through the storm sort of thing. And we didn't know all the answers, but I was like, I'm determined to be proactive and on the front foot so they know when shit hits the fan, we're gonna be side by side with them and figuring stuff out, adjusting the offers, you know, mitigating cost here and there, maybe only switching to the best performing campaigns and maybe turning down some stuff that's 50, 50 and just showing that, you know, we're taking their, their money seriously, I guess so that they, you know, they really have to second guess. Firing us basically was, was my goal. So probably those, those things helped.
[00:38:25] Speaker A: I would say love it.
Now I think that sort of brings us to today. So you don't have to disclose what you're comfortable with, but you've been doing this thing for more than 10 years, got good momentum, great reputation. I've worked with you personally. I even even gave you a Google review. So that's how good you are.
[00:38:45] Speaker B: What a guy. I appreciate that, mate. Appreciate that.
[00:38:49] Speaker A: I wrote it myself too. It wasn't a chat GPT one either.
[00:38:51] Speaker B: Even better. Even better. You're the only person that can write that well as well. Okay. You can tell when an idiot does chat gbt because I'm like, you've never written like that. But I'm Like I know claps. He's read all those books on writing. Well, I know he's read that. So I know, I know the guy. He's. He's very.
He writes like ChatGPT. ChatGPT. We learn from you, bro. That's right. It's the other way around.
ChatGPT goes to clap to learn how to write stuff. Throws in an EM dash for good measure.
[00:39:18] Speaker A: A clap dash. So where are you at today?
Where's the business at today? If you're comfortable talking.
[00:39:23] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So things are going good, I guess. My business is a lifestyle business, but it's not meant to be like a lifestyle business where I just, you know, pay my bills and get it, get on with it. That's not like, it's not that kind of lifestyle business. Like I do want to make a lot of money and I want to make a lot of money. I kind of, my ethos is like I want to make great money working with great people on stuff that I enjoy doing.
So I think, yeah, the focus like the business will be around 700 revenue, maybe just under our staff costs are super low, but that's usually largely due to my own skill set being building that over a really long time. So I deserve that profit. And then also the staff, I don't have heaps of heaps of staff and they're very dialed in, in their processes and what they do. So we don't need a lot of people to do. And it's. The catch is it's quite, it is partially dependent on me. I can't just take a six month holiday and not do anything. So that's I guess the catch of that. However, I guess in my view I just like I'd rather just collect a high amount of profit and then I take that and I invested in property, I invest a little bit back into the business. Probably I probably underinvested back in the business over the years.
Maybe I could have been triple the revenue by that point, but maybe I'm a little bit risk averse in that sense. I rather just do slow and steady conservative, but get rich for sure. I think that's kind of my ethos is like if I just keep doing a little inch further each day, it's gonna work out.
And I might not ever have a home run business where it's doing 5 million, 50 million bucks or some crazy number. But I know that, you know, I use the tortoise and the hare. Like I'm definitely the tortoise in that approach. Like just squirrel away A little bit of money each, each month and keep adding and then keep buying relatively conservative assets over and over. And then by the time I'm 40 or 45, like I'm 37 now, you know, it's. And I guess I'm getting to the point now where it's starting to, that's starting to pay off like it was, it's been growing and like the property portfolio be around 7mil by in a few months from now. We just bought a property a week ago and we're going to, we'll get another one in a few months and then yeah, I just pretty much planning to buy regional property on a regular basis and then eventually switch to commercial property after that for cash flow.
And then I'll probably change the business in a few years where it's like I'm just doing probably really high priced work with a handful of people and it's very on my terms. Like I'm just taking on projects as I, as I want to rather than trying to be like go, go, go. Cause I've kind of been like that for a long time. Just working every day basically like Saturdays every Saturday and Sunday. I do a couple of hours every Saturday and Sunday and I've been doing that for years.
So that's pretty much the process is really just trying to do like high quality work for legends, make really good profit and take that profit and put it into safe assets and then eventually not need to have the business. And then the business is going to be purely for fun, almost just working, working on cool, mentally stimulating projects for exorbitant fees. So.
[00:42:34] Speaker A: You said something, you said something funny to me when we were in the park and I think it was along the lines of, you know, a mortgage payment of X will like really get you out of bed in the morning or something along those lines.
[00:42:47] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. So we bought our family home three years ago and it was the same. It was already a big, you know, gonna be a big mortgage. The house was about 2.75 mil. And the, we put about 750 grand down. The mortgage repayment I think based on the rates at the time was around 88amonth.
And that was already like, that wasn't, that was like workable. We're like, you know, that's fine. We could. And we, we knew it would go up a little bit. We didn't anticipate how much it would go up and it went from about 8,8ish to 14 and a half in 10 months. So not even within the first year. Like it was like, it was like two seconds after we got the property, it was like several grand more every 30 days. And my wife's on maternity leave at that point, so not stressful at all.
And but to be honest, I gotta say, in hindsight, I loved it. I loved it. Like, there's no optionality. It was, you have to get out. You literally have to get out of bed. You've got like kids in the house. You got your own kids, you got. Your wife's not working right now, she'll be back at work, but not anytime soon.
So. And the business was going fine. Like, it was, it was, it was, it was going good. It wasn't like that was stuffed or anything, but yeah, definitely got me out of bed because it was literally all on me. And a sick part of me was like, I love this. I love that I'm like, it really like this because you have to call that lead or that email that you need to send to the database. It's Thursday night, you're a bit tired.
It's not going out Friday, it's going out Thursday. Even if it's a shitter, we just press send and let it rip. And I feel like that was like, I think that's a good life experience to go through where you kind of just fought your. You're keeping yourself accountable to micro standards all the time.
And then. Yeah, and I just told my. I actually sat my wife down and did a bit of a, like almost a pep talk to be like, look, the bills have gone. Like, our other bills are quite, like, we're quite frugal generally outside of that. Like, we don't have car payments or anything like that, or fancy dinners. We, we don't spend a lot. We have basically a big mortgage, but everything else is very low. So I basically said to my wife, I was like, I'd rather be very strict now and overdo it. Thank you. Then half asset, act like it's all good. And then rates continue to go even worse than they did. And then we're kind of. Because, you know, 14, 14 grand a month can swallow you up pretty far. Like in three months, if you get behind, you're 40 grand in the hole.
So, like it can turn quite quick. And even if you're making like, you know, good money, that's still, that's a lot of money to most people, no matter how you slice it. So I was very focused on not letting the tsunami overcome me. And, and it wasn't. It didn't come down to like the, the wire But I was definitely, like.
I wanted to. I didn't want to be anywhere near the edge. I wanted to be, like, always well ahead of it. Always well ahead of it. But I had to stay on it. I couldn't have a month where I kind of kicked back.
So. Yeah. But now it's, you know, it's come down. It'll probably be around 12 by the end of the month, and. Oh, you know, after probably this. Right. Cut, it'll probably be around 12 and. Yeah. But the business revenue has gone up a lot since, and so it's not really as big a deal. We have cash flow from other properties and bits and bobs, so. So, yeah.
[00:45:55] Speaker A: And you can. You can exhale a bit.
[00:45:57] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. Definitely.
[00:46:00] Speaker A: It's funny that you talk about the goals. So when you and I got together, I think it was maybe four weeks ago.
They're just mapping out from what I'm doing, my content plan and the different things that I've got going on and, like, the commitments that I make on a weekly basis. And I think you get a kick out of this.
So I recorded a podcast with a past client earlier on in the week, but as we got into the podcast, we started to dive into what he's working on now, and he started to talk about some products that he's going to launch and stuff that wouldn't be public until roughly June 1st. So I wouldn't be able to publish the podcast until that time. So I've had it in the back of my head. I'm like, all right, who can I tap on the shoulder at short notice to bring him in for a podcast so I can keep my momentum going? Because I'm a momentum guy.
[00:46:44] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:46:45] Speaker A: So I know that if I keep my momentum going, things will, you know, think good things will happen. Same thing with the post I published last night. I've had the flu for the last week, mostly horizontal. And I was like. I said to my partner, I was like, all right, we can either. I actually called her at work, and I'm like, I can cook you dinner, or we can have burgers. And that allowed me to figure out, okay, I'm going to have, like, an hour and a half to put something together, get it out, and then I can, like, tick my thing off the list. So it's remarkable, like, what a tiny, tiny bit of accountability will do to results. Like, I'd, you know, keep yourself honest with those sort of things. And man, like, yeah.
[00:47:22] Speaker B: And it's very binary. It's like, yeah, it's Very binary. It's just like you either do it or you don't. And I would rather ship something that it is because of the benefit of shipping something that's okay. Like a post that's only okay. One, it might remind someone to contact you anyway even if that individual post wasn't that good. But two, you get like a little micro win. That kind of. It's a little bit of micro evidence to yourself that you're like even when I'm tired I still get it done. Like I'll just get it done like it's not a thing. And I feel like those building up those little micro wins is really important to shape your identity around like you know, even if I don't really can't be like the can't be fucked. I always talk about the can't be factor. Like generally the moments you can't be is that's exactly the sign that you have to do the thing. Like that's like. That's like that's what separates all the Dereks from all the people that make heaps of money and do all the good great stuff is like I can't be fucked but I'll just, I'll just send it. I can't be fucked doing this event, but I'll do it. And like I think that's a good sign. But like you know, the people that keep spinning their wheels, they can't be. And they just go yeah, let's leave it till tomorrow. And then that's like I just feel like that's such a. You got to pull yourself up for those micro moments. Like otherwise it'll. It'll add up and it creates evidence that other direction which is. Don't want.
[00:48:32] Speaker A: Yeah.
When you, when you find yourself in that zone, how do you like are there. Are there things that you think about or do you anchor to like what goes on in your head when you start to feel that and you're like ah, like couldn't be bothered today. Not happening.
[00:48:47] Speaker B: Yeah. I think probably the, the precursor to that is energy management.
So I try to. I try to avoid things. I try to avoid getting in those situations. So if I. Because that's probably the easiest thing to do to be honest, is just avoiding. Because when you.
What are they called that quote? It's like fatigue doth make cowards of us all. It's like when you're tired it's like that's like the version of you will come out and you can't do this and you can't do that and Whatever. So I'm really conscious of like, the building blocks of like, sleep and going to the gym and I don't eat. Super strict. But like, I don't. Like, I do eat healthy stuff along with the. The naughty stuff. But.
But like, you know, just. Yeah, getting this, getting the sleep, lots of water. All the basic stuff that gives me, like, literally like a base level of energy because that will mean that I'm not compromised, you know, Like, I don't really drink at all. Like, I'm not the occasion. I'll have you know, if I were out at a restaurant or something, have champagne or something like that. But, like, I'm not. Like, I basically never have that stuff because I know that I'm a compromised version, even if it's only like a few drinks. Like, I just. These days, anyways, I can't. I just feel like I'm at 70 for a day and I'm 90 the next day. And I just. I hate that. I hate that feeling of not feeling fully on.
So, yeah, I think it's the energy management. But then also, if it's already happened for whatever reason, I also think there's an element of who gives a fuck? Like, I just think, like, none of this stuff really matters. Like your post, my post, it doesn't. None of it. I don't know. I don't know nihilism or I don't know what the word is for it, but it's like, no, it doesn't really matter. Like, one day we're all gonna be dead in a box. Like it doesn't really matter. Like, it doesn't. It doesn't matter. Like your worst, your most embarrassing moment of your. Your life ever. Like, it doesn't really. Like, I didn't remember half the most embarrassing stuff that happened. You know what I mean? It's just like. It's just some, you know, relic of the past. So I think if, you know, the post goes out and it's not great, or the event wasn't great, or the client outcome wasn't great, like.
Like it's not ideal, but, like, who cares? So I think it's just like, it's just like, start typing. I think if I. If it's content related specifically, I like to walk or I like to call someone about it. Like, I'll just call, I don't know, an industry friend or even talk to my wife about it or just talk to anyone about it and be like, hey, I'm trying to do a post on this and I'm just not sure. How to start it or I don't know how to keep it concise or whatever the issue is. And I'll just, I'll just let, let it out to the universe sort of thing and then see what people think. And then sometimes I'll start that. That will kind of unlock me a bit and I'll be like, all right, cool. Now I'm kind of starting to get into a bit of a groove as well. And even dictating to the phone sometimes you could verbally say it, but translating into type, type content can be hard. Sometimes I'll just do a voice note on my phone. I'll be like, the big thing you need to understand is this, this and this. And then I'll. It'll translate. But I try to always keep a bit of motion. You know, it's like the, you know, it's hard to. What do they call it? You know, it takes time to.
I forget what the, the thing is, but it's like, yeah, I, I like to keep the motion happening because, you know, it's not as if, as soon as you stagnate, that's like, for me, that's like a warning sign. Like if I'm feeling hesitant about content or I'm feeling hesitant about doing stuff, like I just, just, I, I just got to keep, you know, little bits of action. Keep that from stalling because once you stall, then you, then your mind starts going and then you're, you're fucked, basically.
[00:52:11] Speaker A: So yeah, yeah, dude, perfect.
Thank you. If people want to learn more about you, where can they find you online? Where should they look?
[00:52:21] Speaker B: If you want to. Yeah, I'll be jerking myself online on LinkedIn, just congratulating myself about stuff and just client wins stuff. Just really, really just flattering myself on LinkedIn largely. So if you want to follow me, just Google my name. R I Y C O R C O R a n on LinkedIn. But yeah, just grow au is my Instagram.
I post, you know, low quality but high volume content on there. So G R O E A U is my handle and grow.com au gr o e.com au if you want to fill in the form, spend heaps of money with me, I would welcome it.
Um, that's, yeah, that's pretty much, that's pretty much it. And if anyone listening has, you know, marketing questions or anything like that, it just wants to ask a couple questions, you know, no obligation or whatever. I'm always happy to sort of chat with people and help them, you know, refine their understanding and make progress, because sometimes those people become customers later, and if not, it's good word of mouth. So always happy to help.
[00:53:18] Speaker A: Awesome. Yeah. And frankly, man, thank you. Like, you've been really helpful to me, giving me some clarity. It's often very hard to talk about what you're good at as a individual coach or a consultant or whatever else, so I've definitely had the benefit of that. But, yeah, thanks for joining me today, man. I appreciate it.
[00:53:35] Speaker B: Awesome. Yeah, I've had fun. And how's that? 54 minutes, almost on the dot. Beautiful.
