[00:00:00] Fiona Johnston
Where am I leaving money on the table?
Cam Elliott
Mm. Definitely start with the mindset. Have a look at the last week of what, where you spent your time, and ask yourself a, a good, honest question of how many hours did I actually dedicate to activities that are designed to grow my business? And so I would start with that.
Then obviously the next step in all of that is setting the goal of what it is that we really want to achieve, and working backwards from there to figure out how to get there. Yeah. It's only the first step, unfortunately, but it's definitely the one that's gonna put us in that right direction. Yeah.
Intro
Are you a small business owner who'd love to be making more money while making positive change in the world? You're in the right place, friend. Hi, I'm Fi Johnston, a chartered accountant and money coach obsessed with small business. In The Money Secrets podcast, I share strategies that you can use to make more money without working harder. You'll hear successful small business owners share what they've learned about money and business, and I'll help you to [00:01:00] think differently and shift your perspectives about money so you can grow your business and your impact. My mission is to get more money into the hands of good business owners like you.
Acknowledgement of Country
This podcast episode was recorded on the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation, and I'd like to acknowledge them as the traditional owners and custodians of this land and water that I live, work, and play on. I'd like to pay respects to elders both past and present, and note that sovereignty has never been ceded. This always was and always will be Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander land.
Fi
All right. So I am really excited to have Cam Elliott on the Money Secrets podcast today. So, hey, Cam Excited to be here. Thanks for having me, Faye. Pleasure. So Cam Elliott has been making money since he was six, obsessed, when he sold pencil shavings in [00:02:00] the schoolyard. Since then, he's built and sold a string of businesses from content marketing to craft beer brand Let's explore that.
Surf fins and a corporate training firm. So welcome, Cam. Um, first of all, how do you sell pencil shavings? I don't think we really thought that part of it through very well, to be honest. Okay, what do people do with them? We were... It's, it's, it's a very early memory for me, but I've-- but it sits really strongly with me.
When, uh, I was in first class, uh, at school, and me and a couple of the guys got together and decided to start a business. And I don't know if you remember, like, when you used to do coloring in at school, you would... You could either kind of get the pencil on its side and use it to shade- Mm ... or you could take the pencil shavings and rub the pencil shavings- Ah
to be able to- Yes ... So we came up with the idea to be able to sell the pencil shavings, and so we, we nailed production. We basically just went and got [00:03:00] all of these long Derwent pencils and ground them all down. Our parents were probably- The fancy pencils. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, and then I remember having them in shopping bags of, of pencil shavings, but we-- I don't think we ever collected a dollar for any of them.
So, well, not the best, but, you know, we, you know, we learn from our failures, Fi. So maybe know your market. So you learned your first lesson of business, which is that if there's no demand for the product, it doesn't matter how good it is. That's right. That's right. Or we didn't- ... or our marketing spin wasn't quite what it should have been.
Possibly. Mm. And so tell me a bit more about these businesses that you have grown. So did you work somewhere in a, a sort of employed role, or did you go straight into entrepreneurship? Yeah. Tell me more about this string of businesses, especially the craft beer one. Mm-hmm. Yeah, so I won't, I won't tell you all.
I had a career in, you know, bigger business, but it's a bit boring. But I was a sales director and in that sort of world. Yeah, a lot of it in media. [00:04:00] Um, but, uh, the, the big thing that happened to me actually happened just before that, which was when I was... So I was 19 years old, and I'd just finished my first year of uni, and I was just hating it.
I didn't like that style of learning. Mm. Um, as a, as an adult, I'd been diagnosed with ADHD- Mm-hmm ... and sitting in lectures and trying to absorb information or rote learn information just really didn't suit me. Yeah. And so I went, and I spoke to my dad. And my dad's a good guy. Both my parents are lovely.
Cha- challenging divorce earlier on, but both of them really love me and looked after me, so that's sort, you know, big, good grounding for any person and businessperson as they get older. Mm-hmm. Um, but he, uh, I went and said this to him, and he said, "Look, why don't you come and work for me for the summer?" Mm.
And so he gave me a job, and the job, he said, was that he had to do some public speaking to some organizations- And he wanted me to create some PowerPoint decks for him. This is in [00:05:00] 1997. Mm-hmm. And so we actually had a plastic slide and so- I remember those. I... That's the good ones, yeah. Yeah. And so I went and created these PowerPoint decks for him, and he...
See, and the way that he- it happened was he said, "I want you to summarize these books for me and then turn them into a PowerPoint deck." And so the first book that he handed me was How to Win Friends and Influence People- Nice ... by Dale Carnegie. Yeah. Um, and the second book was, uh, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.
Wow. Uh, and so you can probably see where this story's going. But, um, he eventually, you know, I think I did maybe 10 different books over the summer that I summarized, and I fell in love with them, and I fell in love with learning in that way because they were topics that were really interesting to me. Um, and they were very much...
I'd al- I knew I, even back then, I wanted to be an entrepreneur. Mm-hmm. And so, uh, I, I saw a lot of relevance in all of that, [00:06:00] and it wasn't necessarily even the style of learning that was the problem, it was actually the, the topics. And so- Mm ... that really, like, sh- set my life up, up to take a different direction, I think.
And I did go into corporate and I had a, a, you know, a mi- mildly successful career doing that type of thing. But then in about 2012, I decided that it wasn't for me, that I, you know, wanted to go back to what I'd always knew in my heart that I wanted to do, which was to- Sell pencil shavings ... own my own business.
Sell pencil shavings mostly. Just, uh- You never let go of that dream. Just... That's right. Basically, a, um, a, a reseller of Derwent in a, uh, that they are... The reused version of their product. I decided to go jump right into it rather than, you know, do what people say, which is, you know, keep your job and then, um, see how you
You know, try and start up the business. And I think that that is a good idea, and I think a lot of people should do that, but it's just not the way that I roll. And [00:07:00] so I, I decided that I was all or nothing. Yeah. Um, my wife at the time was still working as well, and so we had a little bit of income there, and we had some savings, and I decided to go all out.
And so I, I decided to start two businesses at the same time. Never a good idea. Okay. But, uh, there you go Uh, one of them was a content marketing business, uh- Mm-hmm ... called Sales Systems Consulting. So I resold Marketo, which you, you probably know, the marketing platform. Mm-hmm. And I went to the first ever Content Marketing Association, uh, event in Sydney.
I think I think there was about 30 of us in the room. It was- Wow. We were a bit ahead of the time, bit ahead of the curve at that point. Uh, I- Well, 2012 was an interesting time, you know, in terms of content and- Content, SEO ... how much everything was changing. Yeah, all of that. And I'd come out of a business, the media business I was in was pretty strong in that stuff, so I had a bit of insight there, and I'd actually started a content marketing division in that business and so on and so [00:08:00] forth.
So, um, so that was... And that was a really good business. I sh- if, if I'd just kept that business and done nothing but that, I probably would've had a, uh, a more successful, in, in, uh, inverted commas, type, uh, career. Maybe the ADHD was getting i- ready for something new, though. Yep. And, uh, so, so I would, you know, I would resell the platform.
I'd have- Mm-hmm ... a good commission side of re- reselling, and then, you know, re- recurring revenue. And then I would, when I would sell it to somebody, I would also do... sell the content marketing piece. And so- Mm-hmm ... kind of what's now, you know, pretty typical agency style of business. Um, and then at the same time, I, I noticed that there were two things happening that really interested me.
One was that craft beer was on the rise. Um, you know, I'd spent most of my life drinking schooners of VB and- Yeah ... all of a sudden there was all this amazing variety, and I really, I really loved that. Um, and it, and the other thing that I noticed was this [00:09:00] online subscriptions, uh, were starting to take off.
And so I was like, "Okay, I see those two trends, and I think that there's an opportunity here to launch a subscription style craft beer business, a bit like a wine club." And so, you know, 'cause no one ever knew what I was talking about. And so- ... but as soon as I'd say it's like a wine club, they'd be like, "Oh, okay, I get it."
Mm. And so I ran both of the businesses for about a year, and then I realized that it was too much for one person to be doing. I had no staff even. The, the craft beer business I had a partner in, but, um- Mm-hmm ... staff. And I decided that I needed to make a decision, and I chose the craft beer business because it sounded way cooler at parties than, I mean, content marketing.
So cool. Um, and that's how you should make all business decisions. Agree. Yeah. Uh, and so I ended up running that business for, like, six years, and it was, it was a good little business. We had, uh... Actually an interesting story. We had [00:10:00] a- Uh, when we'd been running it for about nine months and we'd got up to about 30 or 40 subscriptions, and we were doing everything we could to build it, you know, SEO, we're doing some outreach to like, uh, we'd done an event.
We'd, uh, speaking to, uh, corporates to see if we could get them to buy them as a subscription for their staff, all that sort of thing. Um, it was a real slog. And then, uh, my mate had... We'd converted his daughter's bedroom into the storeroom for the beer, right? So we'd moved his daughter in with his other daughter.
I was gonna say, where was she sleeping? Yep. No. So they were now... The two sisters were now sharing a room. Okay. Yep. And, uh, we had like a whole wall of different cases of beers, and we would basically take them out of those boxes and put them into our own beautiful packaging that we had. And, uh, and we would, um, you know, go, go down to the post office and post them.
And we'd, we'd engaged a PR firm at this stage, and [00:11:00] I said to my mate Andrew, I said, "Mate, I've-- apparently we're gonna be in this, this thing called Broadsheet later on today." "I've never h- I've never heard of it." Well, just a little old thing. Yeah. You know- Yeah ... I've never heard of it. But anyway, the, the girls were excited, so...
And it was coming up to Father's Day, right? And so they ended up doing a special on us being, you know, the best Father's Day gift that you could get. Mm. And I had my phone set up at that stage so that it dinged whenever Shockify, you know, got a, uh, got a, got a, got a sale. And so we're sitting there and like 12 o'clock comes around, the thing goes out, and we're sitting there packing beers.
And about 12:10, my phone goes ding, and then ding, ding, ding. We went from like 30 subscriptions to about 400 over- Wow ... you know, the period of a day. Jesus. And, uh, yeah, we just sat there and went, "We're, we're gonna need more beer." Yeah. So... [00:12:00] And we were literally running around bottle shops buying beer at that stage to- Wow
try and, yeah, didn't have all of our network of, uh, of craft beer suppliers kind of tapped in, uh, like we eventually did, so. So we did that and I ran that business for a while. I, then I moved to Bali where we... That was always a little bit part of the plan, was we wanted to build a business that we could run from anywhere.
So we moved over to Bali, uh, ended up spending four years there, and about two years into it, the business was good. It made enough money for us to live there and pay the, you know, international school fees that my, my kids went to school. Uh, but it, I mean, it was never really gonna be what I was hoping it could be if I wasn't on the ground in Australia running it.
Mm. So I had started a corporate training business. Uh, I'd done a bit of corporate training, mostly kind of sales training for another organization just on the side, on and off. Uh, I never thought that I would really wanna do that, but I actually really loved it. I loved being in front of a, a class and, um, getting, getting people [00:13:00] involved and engaged and trying to, you know, run a show.
So uh, enjoyed that. Uh, and that became, uh, probably my, my main business really, and I sold that in 2021. Mm-hmm. And the craft beer business, it stayed or you sold it or...? The craft beer business I kept going. Just basically ran it until it didn't really run anymore. I think it ended up down with about 100 subscribers.
Mm. Uh, and I sent out a nice email at some stage saying, "Thanks for being part of it-" Yeah ... "but, uh- Mm-hmm ... it's over." I had two goes at selling it. I won't go into the details of who they were and what the... all of that, but both of them took probably three or four months off my life . Uh, really close to the end of, of getting a sale and didn't get a sale, and so then after that, it kind of...
I just lost interest in it, ran it down a bit and let it go. Yeah. I, I wanna kind of like, um, zoom in here because- Mm ... what I really love is how you're talking about, you know, I saw opportunities and kind of just went with [00:14:00] what was happening, but you're doing it in a really smart way. So your dad taught you how to learn in a way that actually made sense to you.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And I totally remember those PowerPoint slides. You literally wrote on them- Mm ... with texters- Yeah ... and put them on a machine- Yeah ... and they went up on the wall. Yeah. Apparently, if you call something a PowerPoint instead of a deck, it means you're over 40. So- Yeah. ... the, this term slide deck is actually quite young.
Yeah. But then I love how, you know, you've seen this opportunity in the craft beer space, and people may not know this, but I worked in the craft beer world for three years. This was before your business started. Mm. And the thing that's interesting to me is that, you know, the craft beer world took a really long time to get going in Australia, so- Yeah
there are a couple of original breweries. Um, Mountain Goat was one of them, which is where I worked. They'd been going for 10 years before they started getting any real level of kind of interest or success. I remember I [00:15:00] was there planning, you know, part of planning their 10th birthday- And they had a, a media piece talking about their overnight success.
So, you know, the craft beer world did take quite a long way to get going because it's a really difficult... Financially, it's a difficult business to get off the ground, or it certainly was back in the '90s and early 2000s. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But then I love how you've seen these two things colliding, which is subscriptions and online, you know, e-commerce, which is still a relatively new concept in Australia- Mm
and craft beer, and kind of pairing the two together. Mm. But I also love that you acknowledge that it's actually really difficult to run more than one business at a time. Mm. And I think this is a mistake that a lot of business owners make- Mm-hmm ... including myself. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. I've done this many times.
But throw in, throw in a festival while you're there. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But, like, it's really, really difficult to run more than one business at a time, and it is really [00:16:00] difficult to run something when you're not physically there. Mm. So yes, you can have a lifestyle business, you can have an online business, but- Yeah
really focusing in on, like, how does this business actually maintain its value to the world? Mm. And you know, not every business is gonna last forever. Like the craft beer subscription world, that's probably been replaced by each brewery having much better marketing and sales distribution systems themselves- Mm-hmm
which, you know, wasn't really the case in 2012. So yeah, I really love... Just, just wanted to pull those thoughts out. So Yeah. Uh, and, and I think you're, you're right, and we see it a lot. You know, uh, my business now, I essentially help other small businesses to grow, and I do that mostly by helping them embed systems that can, um, ensure they're gonna have good quality recurring growth in those systems.
And so I s- I say, uh, I'm, I'm sharing that because, uh, I see inside a lot of people's businesses now, and even if it is [00:17:00] just the one business, there's often actually more than one that's in there, you know? There's like, there's... It could just be a product thing. It could be that we, you know, we've- we've- we're distributing something, and we see that there's another market that's aligned to that market, and so we've decided to launch into that as well, and they end up with two businesses.
Uh, and there's different marketing. There's a slightly different ICP for each of them. There's- Mm. And so it becomes really challenging. It's not impossible and, but it, but if you wanna be a solopreneur, I think it's very challenging. Yes. And if you are going to do it even as a small business, make sure that you set it up in a way that it's gonna be successful.
So that it's o- obvious. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of people hate me when I tell them that the most successful business has one product and one ideal client. Boring is rich. And they're like, "That sounds so boring, Bee. But what about when I wanna do this?" Yeah. "And what about when I wanna do that?" And it's like, look, you can have as many income streams as you want.
You can have as many target [00:18:00] markets as you want, but each one of those takes away from the others. Yeah. So until you get big enough that each of those products or each of those markets has its own dedicated sort of team or- Mm ... you know, marketing and sales team, like each one is basically just cannibalizing the others.
Yeah. Yeah. I, I think it comes down to value. You know, how much value can you deliver? And- With you, with limited resources, whether that's money, time, people, your own energy, if you have those limited resources and wanna put them into multiple things, the chances of you being able to provide that same level of value across, across that spectrum is quite, quite low.
Yeah. It's almost impossible- So true ... really. So. Yeah. Yeah. I used to work for some venture capitalists, like, before I started Peach. Mm-hmm. Was like a small family venture capital firm. They invested in other people's ideas, and they had their own ideas too, [00:19:00] and one of the things that, that they said when they were looking at investing in something was, "Who is the 61% person?"
And what they meant by that is one person needs to spend at least 61% of their working life- Mm ... on that project- Mm ... or we're not funding it. Mm. And it's- Mm ... I mean, it's an arbitrary number, but- I, yeah, I was gonna ask how do they get to 61, but, but I like that it's not 50. Yeah. Yeah. 'Cause 50's not enough- Okay
'cause then you're- Doesn't have to be 90. That's right. But, yeah. Yeah, and I- Yeah ... I come back to that thought often, and I think, you know, that that strategy is really true, that if we're... If we want somebody to invest in us, whether you're a startup looking for funding or you're looking for your, you know, next team member, or you're asking somebody to invest in this idea that you have in some way, they're either a customer, a supplier, or an investor, who is going to actually make this thing happen?
Yeah. D- do you think... Is it, uh, I feel like there's something, uh, around here [00:20:00] for people as well, like that, uh, and the 61 is, is what's making me think this way, right? So like when we talk about, you know, uh, an ICP, your ideal customer profile, and we're trying to get as, as tight as we can on the type of person that we're gonna be able to add the most value to or that we want to be our customers, right?
But then generally when I'm, when I'm speaking with, with my clients, it's about... It doesn't mean that you don't take anybody who's not in that. It's just about, like, that's who we're going after. Mm. And I feel like there's sort of, maybe there is some, some equation or something of like this still can... You can have your core business, but it needs to be 61%.
It doesn't mean that you won't pick up other things. It doesn't mean you can't, you know, add another product on or something like that. But, but at least that 61% has to be really highly focused on that. The same way with an ICP, like, yes, you'll take in other clients, but we're... the ones that we're really focusing on are in this particular category.
So yeah, I think [00:21:00] maybe that's- I think we've just created a whole new business philosophy here. We are. And I, I'm picking up what you're putting down- Good ... which is, yes, having an ideal client makes your marketing more effective. Mm-hmm. It makes your business strategy more effective. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Having a product that is your main focus makes your business more profitable and easier to run for so many reasons.
Yeah. But yeah, maybe we need to allow ourselves the 39%- Yeah ... of other- Yeah ... so that we can keep our, you know, ADHD and other types of brains, you know, interested and keep our energy. Creativity- Yeah ... and the, uh, uh, the fun. You know, like it's gotta, it's gotta... We've gotta enjoy it as well. I like it. Let's trademark it.
61% Club. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. We're on. Tell me more about the business you're running now. Yep.
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You know, clearly you're passionate about this kind of idea of finding demand and filling that [00:23:00] demand, and working with the right clients, and being strategic about how you're bringing revenue in. So tell me about- Yeah ... your business now and, and what you're seeing with your clients. Well, I guess, uh, you know, it, it kind of
Forget how it started actually, because it's, it's quite interesting and I ... You know, I had this training business, and it was corporate training, but we did a lot of sales training, and I had a client call me after I'd ... I, I went in-house for a, an organization as a country director for a while. Mm-hmm. And I left there, and I was thinking about what I wanted to do next, and these guys called up and said, "Hey, do you wanna do some sales training for us?"
And I was like, "Yeah, sure." You know, "I've got a bit of free time at the moment" . So, um, went and did two days of training, and they called me up about a week later and said, uh, "Hey, Cam, we don't think that worked," you know? And I was like, "Well, what do you expect?" You know? It's like a two-day sales training course.
Like, it's, it's been five days since. Like- Mm. And they're like, "W- w- what else can you do?" You know? And I was ... [00:24:00] I sorta thought about it and I was like Really don't know if I wanna do this. So I'm trying to... You know, at that time I was thinking about opening up a pizza restaurant so- As you do ... as you do. By the way, don't open up a pizza restaurant.
I did a lot of research. Unless you're really, really passionate about it. So anyway, I ended up, uh, like coming up with a bit of a ridiculous offer where I'd go into their office for six weeks and just review their entire revenue system. So everything from the sales team to the marketing team to who they were trying to attract, what was the messaging that they were using, uh, you know, what sort of rhythm do they have?
How, how do sales and marketing overlap? Those types of items. So- Mm. And I ended up spending six weeks in their office. So I'd fly down to Sydney on a, on a Monday morning, do, you know, a half day, then three more days and fly home on a Friday afternoon. Uh, and did it for six weeks, and came out of it just loving it, and I was able to really move the needle for them.
They're- Mm ... [00:25:00] actually, I'm back in with that organization doing things again with them now. Um, and they're, they're still seeing results from what we did in that, uh, in that s- in that sprint. And- Mm-hmm ... all of a sudden I was like, "I actually really like this." Uh, they actually offered me a job at the end of it, and I turned it down and I said, "I'm sorry, but I'm turning the job down because I've realized that I actually have got something to add value to lots of businesses here- Mm
and you're the ones that, that opened my eyes to that." And so, so that's essentially what I, I try to take the flavor of that- Mm-hmm ... and put it into other businesses now. And that, that comes from a lifetime of experience of running sales teams, of being a salesperson, of reading, of, um, working in big businesses, having my own businesses, selling those businesses.
And all of a sudden I was like, "Oh my God, all of that- Mm ... it's all culminated in this place where I could actually add some real value to [00:26:00] people." And I actually enjoy doing it. I, I, you know, I loved speaking to small businesses. And so- I started, uh, the business which I, which is called The Growth Engine.
Mm-hmm. And it is essentially taking the essence of that and putting it into other organizations. And so what I've now done is look at, okay, well, depending on the size of the business that I'm dealing with and the stage that they're at, they've got slightly different needs. That although a lot of it is, it is similar, but they're at different stages of business, so I need different ways of working with them.
And so I came up with kind of a couple of different ways that I do that. Mm-hmm. One is, uh, it's a bit more of a, a, a coaching model, I guess, where we do a growth strategy workshop, half-day workshop. We, uh, at the end of that, they get a 12-month roadmap with every month mapped out of what are the things that they need to do in order to be able to hit a certain target, and then we do some- Mm-hmm
follow-up stuff. I do, uh, I've got a team that does like build some stuff for people, like some lead gen stuff or, uh, i- [00:27:00] integrations between different systems that they use and things like that. Mm-hmm. And then a, a bigger offering, which is much more of a I do it for you kind of a solution. And so that can be- Yeah
anything from implementing CRMs, to running sales training, to doing strategy, to all of those different pieces of the puzzle, and so- It's almost like a fractional sales director or something like that. It is. It is. It's a bit more like a fractional... Well, I- it's probably even above that. It's more of like a chief fractional CRO probably.
So I have a, my framework that I use, right? Because I focus on systems, and so we think about what makes a system, and the first thing that we need is a goal. Mm. If, if you're just gonna like say, "We wanna make more revenue," then you've got nothing to aim at. Like, it's just, it's- Just more. I just want more, Cam.
I want more. Yeah. That'll make me happy. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, so, so we've got, uh... So I always start with a, a number or a goal. It doesn't [00:28:00] actually have need to be a number. It might be that we wanna sell the business in five years, or it might be- Yeah ... we wanna get, bring on a new investor, or it might be that we wanna generate X revenue, or that I want this business to be a cash cow that, you know, um, you know, brings me half a million of profit without me only doing a day every two weeks.
Whatever it is, right? So I speak to the, the owners generally, or the leadership team figure out what it is that they're trying to get to. Once we've done that, we then reverse engineer, well, if you're gonna be there in three years or five years, where do you need to be in 12 months? Mm-hmm. Which is where the 12-month, uh, strategy ro- so roadmap comes out of.
Um, so it's tied to a particular point. So the first thing we need is that goal. Second thing is a process. Mm. And so when people are designing systems, often, well, they don't even know if they're designing a system because no one really uses that word that much. Yeah. It sounds really nerdy. I'm so not a systems guy either.
Like, I'm a big picture day- daydreaming looking out the window kind of a guy. But [00:29:00] then I realized that systems are actually make the rest of your life so much better. So different story. Yeah. But so when you're designing the system, start with the goal, then we've got the, uh, the process. Map out exactly what we do.
How do we- Mm-hmm ... how do we generate revenue in our business? Or what's stopping us from generating revenue in our business, and therefore how can we put that into a system? Yeah. So it could be that I'm an owner, and I would love to spend lots of my time doing BD, but at the moment I'm getting caught up with, you know, dealing with, um, customer issues, and I'm, you know, I've got a new team, I've got to train the team or whatever it is, right?
So how do we put systems in place that allow somebody to be that 61% person to focus on revenue generation? Mm-hmm. Or how do we put a system around the revenue? So it starts with the goal, the process. The next is people. Yeah. So people can be everything of, are they capable? So, and if not, do we, can we, can we invest in them so that they are capable?
Do they understand what they need to do? Are they incentivized in the [00:30:00] right way? It can also just be about where do we actually need people in the process. So- Mm ... it's all very well to have as much automation as we can, and to s- you know, use technology, et cetera, so to be able to run things. But there are parts where humans are really important, and so we identify the parts of the process that need the humans, the right people to go in there, and the right investment in those people.
And then at the end of all of that is technology and, and AI- Mm-hmm ... really. And so, and I, I love my AI. I'm a-- I've run, um, several AI small business retreats up here in Byron. So- Mm ... they've been really successful. Um, but, um, what I see most people doing is that they're reaching for a tool or AI or, or technology to solve a problem without doing the process and the people part of it, and, and also having that goal.
And so i- in that situation, they're, um, they're, they're, they're much less likely to [00:31:00] succeed because the tool, the tool is just there to enhance the rest of the system. It's actually not the system itself. I love that. Yeah, you're speaking my language here. So in order to get to the revenue that we want to, we need to...
a goal, we need a system- Mm-hmm ... we need to remove roadblocks, and we need the right people. Yeah. And only once we have looked at all of that, we can go, "Cool, is there technology or AI that can assist here?" Yeah. And then we bring it all together. So what are the- The one thing I would add, sorry, is, is just a mapped out, written down process.
Yeah Which- Not just floating in someone's head ... yeah, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. So it's on a piece of paper, it's on a spreadsheet- Mm ... it's somewhere So what are the things that you're seeing that are... Like, obviously, if you're working with an organization over 12 months, you're probably making, like, a thousand small changes.
Mm. But what are the things that you're seeing commonly that particularly small and medium businesses, which is who listens to this [00:32:00] podcast- Mm ... what are the things that you're seeing us-- Where are we kind of stopping ourselves from making revenue because we're not thinking about this or that? Where are the areas that we can be looking to improve our revenue generation?
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. The biggest one that I see all the time is actually mindset. Oh, yeah. And I know, like, that's, uh, it's probably not that helpful. Oh, I think it's so helpful. It's not like a silver bullet, just, uh, we'll just do this thing and you'll be fine. But it's actually mindset. Like, it's- it's having that conversation where the- the- the question that- that- that gets most people a lot of the time that I'll often start with is, "W- Give me-- Write down, like, everything you did in the last week that was designed to grow your business," or, "How many hours do you think you spent on activities that actually grow your business in the last week?"
You know? And- and most small business owners that I speak to- Not many ... it's- it's around zero. Yeah. You know? They're-- They're-- And it's not because they're not [00:33:00] working hard enough. Yeah. I was just gonna say, I think-- See, mindset and... I call it money psychology 'cause I think it's more than just mindset, but it's a really big part of the work that I do.
So I'm really glad- Yeah ... you brought it up. But I think that one of the most prevailing mindset issues in Australia is, "I'm already working so hard, I can't work any harder." Mm. "So Cam, stop telling me that I wanna make more revenue, because I can't work any harder." Yeah. And the truth is, that is what's actually stopping us, because we think that working harder is the only way to make more money.
Mm. And it's because, if you look back at, you know, the past few hundred years in Australia, 97% of the people here are migrants to this continent. Let's start there. Mm-hmm. But a lot of the different waves of migration that have come to this country have come as either convicts- Mm-hmm ... they've come as refugees, they've come as migrants.
And really, when you come with that as your starting point, the only way to make money is to work really fucking hard, right? So this- Mm-hmm ... it makes [00:34:00] sense that that is why that prevails- Mm ... in Australia. But I feel like this is- Mm ... the thing that holds back the most businesses that I see, is like- They know that their business could be better.
Mm-hmm. But there's this block there that says, "Cam, you've asked me what I was doing in the last week to grow my business, and it's zero. So what are you telling me? I need to work five more hours a week- Mm ... so that I can spend five hours on business development?" Mm. It is. What do you think? At least 10 more.
No, I'm joking. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But are you seeing that with your clients too? Uh, definitely. Definitely. And I think-- I find that the penny drops pretty easily, you know? I think that most people kind of go, "Yeah, I know. I, I know that. I know that inherently that the, the..." I mean, it's a loaded question for starters, you know?
And so it feels loaded. And- Yeah ... uh, so I feel... And I, I get what you're saying. I, I don't necessarily, and maybe it's just in the way that I ask it, but I [00:35:00] don't necessarily have them saying to me, "I don't want to make more revenue." And maybe it's even just the, the way that people are coming to me, if they're coming to me.
Um, they've already kind of identified that that's a need that they have. Mm. Whereas you're probably more focused on working with them in their, you know, financial component of their business, and so having that conversation with somebody who's not at that growth mindset point already might be more challenging.
And then maybe there's even something in there for the way that I am working with people, because maybe there's even more value if, if someone hasn't reached that mindset to, to that point yet, so. Yeah. What are the mindset blocks you see the most of, like, you know, if mindset is the biggest- Yeah ... blocker- Yeah
what are the ones that you see most commonly? Yeah. Look, look, it's still, uh, it's still that my job is to deliver the best product or service that I can possibly deliver, [00:36:00] and I'm not saying that you shouldn't try and deliver a great product or service, but if it's the only focus- Yeah ... then... And, and this idea that, "If I do really well, everybody will come to me."
Yeah. And it, uh, like, unfortunately, it's just not true. Yeah. Like, if you look at all successful businesses, like every one of them, they have gone after it. Yeah. You look at any small business owner, like anyone that you know in your own network, you know, that, that has, you know, made, made a business that does 10 million in revenue or more or whatever it is, you know, like, th- th- they've, they've gone after it.
Mm. Yes, they're-- Yes, they're focused on delivering something that's really good, but they've either like- Become incredibly good at SEO- Yeah ... you know, to grow their business. Or they've, that they've worked really hard to be able to position their product in their market and to form the right partnerships with different organizations to be able to grow that way, or whatever strategy it is [00:37:00] that they're using.
They've kind of picked something and gone, "That is where I wanna go." Which is, which probably brings me to the second mindset shift, which is often we think that we need to be doing everything when it comes to BD. Yes. And so very similar to, I mean, we're gonna 61% our way through this whole call, Fi. Yeah.
But, you know, like maybe we can put this there again in it's okay to have more than one business development strategy. Yeah. But one of them has to be amazing, right? Like if, if you're not- Yeah ... in the top 2% of some particular strategy, you're probably not gonna do very well. Mm. If you're okay at SEO, and if you're okay at buying AdWords, and you're okay at, you know, you do a, a talk in front of a group every three months, or you, you know, you occasionally do some networking.
Whatever its strategies are, like- But if you're like in the top 2% of networking, or you're in the top 2% of SEO, or, you know, if you rank on the first page of Google for your business, uh, you know, for the, for the relevant [00:38:00] keywords, uh, you know, for all of them, then great. Like, you can actually grow a business out of that and it can be successful.
And I actually have a, have a menu that I've used with, with companies of, of, of strategies around lead gen. I'm sounding like I'm a lead gen company. Uh, it's a fraction of what we do, but- Yeah ... it's, it's the one everyone always gets as well, and it's like often the one people are so- sometimes a bit afraid of even, so.
I, I love what you're saying about business development. I wanna just pull into something that you said earlier, which is this idea that if you're really good at what you do, customers will just find you. That is a prevailing mindset that I see too. Mm. And the businesses I work with that are in the multi-millions- Mm
they've w- moved well beyond that. Yeah. And they're like, "Yes, maybe in the early days we knew that our product needed to be amazing, but now it is actually about being amazing at marketing and business development." Yep. And I also just wanna note for people listening that not all marketing and business development, I know they're different, [00:39:00] but let's put them in the same category for this moment, it's not all about Instagram and LinkedIn.
So some of my best clients that I work with, their business development is having coffees with the right people at the right time- Mm ... and getting in the car and going out to see your best client. So a lot of my biggest clients aren't even on LinkedIn, let alone on Instagram. Mm-hmm. So I think that's something that kinda blows people's minds sometimes, that in the multi-million dollar business space, it's not necessarily happening on Instagram- Yeah
or LinkedIn. It's happening over coffee. That's right. I'm a coffee guy, so I don't know, um, if you read my newsletter that I released yesterday- Oh, I'll have to go back and read it ... but it spoke about exactly that. Oh, awesome. So very nice timing. It was about, uh, and it was also about overdoing it. Uh, this is a little bit of a tangent, but, uh, so I, you know- Too much coffee?
I was in Sydney. I did, uh... Well, yes. So I did... And I did 15 meetings in 3 days, 15 coffees in 3 days, so I was well over-caffeinated. Did you get any sleep on those [00:40:00] days? That's right. Yeah, yeah. And, um, and I was bouncing around all of Sydney, Western Sydney, everywhere, right? And, uh, and the last meeting I got to, the guy- Said, "Cam, I, I stopped a long time ago trying to be everywhere all at once.
I just wanna be- Yeah ... the right place at the right time." I was like, "Fuck, that's good." Yeah. Yeah. I'm gonna use that on a podcast. Yeah. Well, you now have. Yeah, there you go. Yes. So- I was talking to a client of mine about that the other day. We were looking at, you know, all of the things that she's spending time on, including going to different networking events, and we were just crossing them out.
You don't need... Like, that- Yeah ... community is not for you anymore. Yeah. That's actually just taking time away. We've put a, a pin through a lot of the networking and groups that she was part of- Yeah ... and focusing in on, like, one coffee with one of your repeat clients- Mm ... is worth, like, 100 of those- Mm
networking things where you're not actually meeting the right people. Yeah. So yeah, [00:41:00] right place, right time, for sure. Mm, I like it, and, and it brings me to, uh, mindset shift number three- Yeah ... is, uh, that it's so much easier to make money from your existing customers than it is from- Oh, yeah ... new ones. And, and having obviously spoken a lot about lead generation at the start of this conversation, uh, I know for me, within my business, it's probably 5% new business, 95% recurring, uh, or, or, uh, existing business.
Yeah. Uh, in every business that I've ever run, it's probably 80/20. Yeah. Uh, you know? And people feel like that their, their job is more people, more customers equals more money, more revenue. But they're hard to get. They don't trust us yet. Um- Mm. They're less sticky. They're less likely to stick around more than just buying something as a one-off.
Uh, whereas the people who already know us, the people who already trust us, we've already delivered value to them. If we can find ways to be able to continue to deliver that [00:42:00] value, to extend on what we've already done, then we're gonna have a much better chance of growing our business. And, you know, one of my favorite sayings is, uh, is, uh, revenue equals vanity and profit equals sanity, and I think this sort of applies to customer numbers as well.
You know? Like, say how many cust- I've got, we've got over 1,000 customers. That's a revenue statistic. Who cares? I, I wanna know, like, how much value do you add- Yeah ... to your existing customers- Yeah ... and how much of revenue is generated from those. So that's, that's where the value is in a, in a business, and especially if you're looking to sell a business, um, is being able to show that you've got that obviously.
Uh, uh, whether it's recurring revenue or repeated revenue- Yeah, absolutely ... it's still important. Yeah. So for people listening, I think that, you know, this point you're making is so relevant and it's, you know, yes, we wanna bring new clients into our businesses, and you can't stop marketing. But- Yep ... the marketing tactics you use, [00:43:00] you know, depend on you and your market.
But what we really need to be focusing on i- is how can I deliver more value and ask for more revenue- Yeah ... from each of the clients I already work with? And another w- thing for people to think about is if you're finding that you have capacity in your schedule and you're looking for more work, the first thing you need to do is go back to people you've worked with before and say, "Hey, loved working with you two years ago.
Let's have a coffee." Right? We- these are things that aren't being talked about enough- Yeah ... on Instagram and LinkedIn, but these are the things that actually work to bring more safe, profitable revenue into your business. I just, yeah, I'm so over with the Instagram small business messages. Yeah. Like, uh, and I'm on there, and so, and, you know, I'm, hopefully I'm, you know, staying true to what, what I believe when I'm, when I am.
But- This kind of, if your [00:44:00] business isn't set up to scale, then you're go- then you're gonna fail, uh, idea, I just don't buy into. Like, that... This, this you have- Mm-hmm ... to be able to bring in new clients while you sleep, you know? And I'm like, I'm not saying that... And look, it can work- Yeah ... uh, for sure, you know.
You can set a business- Mm ... up that way, but, A, life's quite long, right? The amount of time that we're gonna have these businesses is quite long. And if you just think about how do I exit, like, are you really- Yeah ... gonna enjoy running that business anyway? Um, whereas I feel like this is my life. I spend- Mm ... I actually spend way too many hours working, but um, you know, I've got, I've got, I've got two daughters that are 16 and 14.
I love taking them to soccer and doing all those sorts of things. I've got a healthy marriage, um, wanna be able to keep that up and occasionally see my friends and all of that too. But I work a lot, like, and [00:45:00] so- Mm ... I wanna have a business that I enjoy doing. And if, if copies is my way of doing new business- Yes
or even e- e- meeting with my existing customers to be able to deepen those relationships, then that's something that's enjoyable to me, so I'll go and, and I'll focus on that. Um, am I making revenue while I sleep? Probably not, I guess, but, uh- Do we need to be making revenue while we sleep? No, just, just sleep.
Just sleep. Yeah. I mean, the thing that's funny about this is most people don't actually know what the word scale means- That's right. Yeah ... either. Yeah. And I, I don't wanna pull that apart- Mm-hmm ... too much, but, um, yeah, I mean, there's growth and there's scale, and I think- Yeah ... most of the businesses that I'm working with that are in business for the long term are looking for growth, not scale.
Yeah, yeah. They're looking for profitable revenue growth, knowing that it comes with expenses, but- Yeah ... the goal is let's just keep our expenses less than our revenue- Yeah ... and we will continue to grow our profit each year. Yeah. But that, that's too simple and [00:46:00] sane to be a popular message on Instagram, Cam.
It is, isn't it? It's not, not clickbaity enough. What about, and I'm interested to hear your opinion on this too, for a lot of small business people that I speak to, there's, th- there, uh, th- there's never a written down process. I actually did a talk for a group of CEOs recently, and I asked the question at the start: Who thinks that zer- that out of all of the things in their business, none of the processes are written down, right?
And they were mid-tier companies, and, like, 80% of them put their hands up. There were some that were actually ... Right. A couple that were very process driven- So that was one thing. But, but then I was thinking about targets and like what are you actually aiming for? And now if you're a m- mid-tier business, you're probably, depending on if you're listed or you've got a board and those sorts of things, but I'm probably talking more about companies that don't have a board.
That's probably the kind of level that I'm thinking of here. And what sort of targets have you actually got? Like, and do the people in the business know about what all of those targets are? Or if, if you're a solopreneur, what, [00:47:00] what are you aiming for? And I am very guilty myself of a lot of the time that I've been working for myself, I haven't had, um, targets.
But I feel Way more energized when I have something that I'm going after. Mm. And I also actually like to, uh, incentivize myself with the targets that I've got. Do you see... Like, do most of the businesses that you're working with, do they budget? Do... And, and on the other side, do they have, do they have the goals that they're going for?
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I could talk about this, just this one topic, for hours. I'll try to break it down into the type of clients I work with. So in Good Money Club, I'm working with solo and small business owners, and my thoughts about, I call it money making, which, you know, is just a different way of saying revenue generating.
I talk about the fact that we need- A bit more normal. We need self-belief, and we need a plan. [00:48:00] And so the self-belief is, like, the belief in the product or service- Mm-hmm ... and the belief in the value that you can generate and the belief that your, you know, marketing efforts will be successful. And then the plan is as simple for me as how many will we sell and how much will we charge.
Mm-hmm. So these two levers that really demystify revenue- Mm. Mm ... which is, you know, we get this really over-complicated in our brain, but you can only grow revenue by either selling more or charging more. And you can do both at the same time, but it's a really bad strategy. Yeah. So for most of my Good Money Club members, our strategy is how do we sell for a higher price?
So how do we work on our brand, et cetera. So we set a goal of- Mm-hmm ... this is the revenue that we're aiming for. We also set a goal around what is the level of expenses that we wanna be budgeting for, and what is the profit target that we're trying to hit. And we look at that every month, right? Mm-hmm. So that's, that's my small and solo, [00:49:00] um, businesses.
Simple and effective. It's simple and effective, and there's so much evidence to suggest that setting goals, and the important bit, monitoring your progress- Yeah ... which is the bit that I think most people miss. Yeah. You set a goal at the start of the year. You look at it 12 months later, that hasn't helped.
Yeah. You set a goal now, and you check in on it every month, that helps- Yeah ... because you're like, "Right, where am I actually sitting against that target?" Yeah. And then with my bigger clients that I work with, some of them I've worked with for 15 years. So Mount Zero Olives is a brand I've worked with for a very long time, and their business has grown a substantial, uh, really grown in that time.
And we have really detailed sort of financial goals. We have marketing goals. Mm-hmm. But we also share a lot of that with the team. So the whole team, not just the sales team and the marketing team and the, like, high-level team. Mm-hmm. Everybody who works there- Has insight into what is our gross profit margin, what [00:50:00] is our wages as a percentage of income, because, you know, the more we grow, the more people we can hire.
Yeah. So that's how we look at it. And everybody in the organization gets a bonus once every quarter- Right ... if we hit a certain amount of business goals. Mm-hmm. And that works so well, and it's not that complicated. Mm. And that just sounds delightful. I, I- Yeah ... I'd consider working for a company again if I - Yeah
was like that. Yeah. Yeah, and like we've developed that system together over about 15 years. Mm-hmm. And we've kind of developed it as we go. Mm-hmm. But y- you can have a business that doesn't set goals and doesn't have budgets. There's no- Mm ... nothing wrong with that, but it's really hard to make decisions and know what you're trying to achieve if you don't have some kind of direction forward.
Yeah. And it means that your decisions take a lot longer to make because you don't know what you're trying to do. Yeah. So that's enough of [00:51:00] a reason, in my opinion, to have some kind of a plan. Yeah. And a plan can look really cool. It can be beautiful. It can have colors. It can be a piece of artwork. It doesn't have to be a spreadsheet.
Yeah. And that's gonna make your decision-making much faster in terms of does this actually get me closer to that or does it take me further away? Yeah. I like it. Yeah. So going back to Stephen Covey, habit number two, I think, begin with the end in mind. So- Mm ... you know, if we don't know it is that where we're going, it's hard to be able to actually get there, so.
And I like the idea of the micro goals as well. When, when I first started the, uh, the training business, uh, we were living in Bali still, and I wanted to grow the business in Singapore so that, like, we could stay in Bali, and so I organized a new business trip, and I set a target for myself that if I, I wasn't...
Until I'd sold two full days' worth of training, I wasn't allowed to spend more than $60 a night on [00:52:00] accommodation in Singapore. Oof. I don't know if you've stayed- That's tight ... in Singapore for 60 bucks, but think I might have stayed in a- Was it a tent? Uh it was, uh, it was pretty o- pretty ordinary, so. Um, in a brothel.
So it was, uh, that was, uh, that was challenging, and I w- and I did two trips on $60 a night. And, uh, and but I found so many meetings, and I really pushed myself to be able- Yeah ... to grow that business there. And, um, it was fun as well. Like, you know- Mm ... it's my own little game. Like, if you're on your own, like, just make the game yourself.
I mean, it's all a game, right? Yeah. So make a- Yeah ... bit of fun- Yeah, I love that ... yourself a bonus or- Yeah ... something to, um, you know, aim for and a little, a little treat for getting there. Yeah. All right, so we've talked through your kind of holistic way of looking at generating revenue for a business. So it's like we've gotta, um, set a goal, we've gotta remove bottlenecks, we've gotta have some kind of a system, [00:53:00] we've gotta get the right people in place, we've got to think about where technology and AI can come in.
And before any of that will be successful, we need to uncover the mindset stuff that's gonna help us to get there. So say for somebody listening who is a small business owner, maybe they're a medium business owner, they're sort of thinking about, "How do I get a bit more serious about my revenue?" Like, maybe they're already doing quite well, but they can see that, you know, maybe they're warming to the idea of a system.
Tell me what somebody could do to start building at least some kind of a sales system into their business. What might that look like? Mm-hmm. Yep. Okay, great. Uh, so I'll kind of just tell you, like, what we do with people, but there's no reason that somebody can't be doing this themselves. Great. You know, the way that I support people to do it, and we've got a bit of insights and that type of thing.
But if you sit down and, and dedicate time and energy to this yourself, there are things that you can do on your own, take you a lot of the way there. [00:54:00] Mm-hmm. I would always start with, as I said, a goal, right? If you haven't got a goal, then there's nothing to go for. And if the goal's not written down, uh, then it's not really a goal either.
So you need to decide what it is that you want- Yeah ... and you need to write it down, and make it even better, share it with other people. So even if you're in the business on your own, share it with your partner, your dog, your friends, whatever it is, right? Tell people 'cause it makes them-- The accountability becomes much greater when we share with people.
So start with that. Figure out what it is that you want and really think about what you want. Maybe it's just like, I don't... I'm re- I'm really happy living my life and I like going camping. Um, so if I can go camping three times a year and make enough money to do X or Y, then that's what my goal is. Or I've got aspirations to build something amazing.
But what is, what does that actually mean, you know? Yeah. What is amazing? That's right. You know, it's- And how will I know that it was amazing when I look back? That's right. So it h- it has to be quite specific. So start with that, so and [00:55:00] dedicate time to that. When we run it as a session, it's a half-day workshop, and- Mm-hmm
uh, it's not all spent on finding out where we're trying to get to, and we actually do a bit of work before the workshop that helps us to be able to, um, pick that quicker. Mm-hmm. But that's certainly where we need to start. So the second thing would then be process, and so figuring out how we do things now is imperative if we're gonna be able to improve them.
Yeah. So if we have a process that's written down about anything in our business, it can be about how we do invoicing, you know, and, and how quickly we get paid. So if we just do invoicing and we're like, "We've got a cash flow problem in our business," but we, we, we just do invoicing, there's no written down process, then how do you improve that?
Whereas if you can say, well, we send it- them out on the first of the month, or we send them out one week before we deliver our service or whatever it is that we do, they get a follow-up. Uh, it's a 14-day invoice, they get a follow-up after 14 days [00:56:00] and again after another se- seven, and then they get a phone call certain days after that.
Then we can measure that. We can figure out Why it's working or why it's not working. So the first thing is get a process and write it down. Same, uh, if, uh, that was obviously not a sales-related one, but if it's a sales-related one, how did we get all of our current customers? Write it all down. Figure out how we did it, where did, where did it work, where did it not work.
Include the deals that we, that we lose in all of that so that we can start to see a pattern- Mm ... of what that process is. Because once we've got that, and it's never gonna be right, like there is no right or wrong, it's a, it's a scale, it's a spectrum of, of, of terrible to amazing, and, uh, we're gonna be somewhere on that spectrum.
And so our goal is to write it down, understand what it is that we're doing, and then look at how do we optimize it. What if we were to put in a discovery call before we actually meet with somebody face-to-face? What if we were to, uh, rather than only reaching out to people by [00:57:00] email, if we also did LinkedIn outreach, or if we called people after we've messaged them a couple of times, or whatever the thing is that we could potentially do.
Mm. So write the process down, look at where we- where it's working, where it's not working, make some ch- small changes if you want initially, but then start to measure it, and start to actually have the, uh, measurement tools in place to be able to figure out what works and what doesn't work. Where are things dropping off?
Where could they be better? So once we've me- once we've done that, we've measured it, we've written it down, we then look at the people part. So firstly, where would people be helpful in this process, and where can we not use people? Where is it a waste of somebody's time- Mm ... to be doing that? Go back to the invoice example.
If I am sending out the seven-day reminder and the 14-day reminder, that is not a good use of a person. That's something that can be automated, and maybe I could actually write something personal. You know? So actually, maybe it could be where I say, "Hey, it's Cam here, you know, just chasing this up." Like, um, but [00:58:00] yeah, arguably probably not the best use of my time.
So- Yeah ... so where can we use people to be able to make it better? And then what do we need to do with those people to make them better? Can we invest in them from a development point of view? If it's just yourself, you know, how much time do you actually spend listening to podcasts about how to, um, sell to customers or how to do marketing or anything like that?
So we're looking at that from the people perspective, and then there's the tech that sits all over that. Where c- where can we use technology to be able to make this better? Hmm. I, I've got an example of this. It comes up for me quite a lot, and it, it ties into what you were talking about with measurement.
Mm-hmm. One of the solutions that we offer people is a, a dashboard, right? And there's the dashboard of all of the areas of their business. Love a dashboard, right? Love a dashboard. And they're a little bit complex to make. They're getting obviously much easier because of AI and that sort of thing, but- Hmm
there's still some complexities, and there's a lot of wiring up a lot of the time, you know? If we wanna be able to pull something from Xero, something else from your [00:59:00] CRM, some other information from your marketing platform- Yeah ... all that sort of thing, right? All the different areas of our business that sit in different parts, and we never actually look at them in one- Hmm
place all together. And often we pitch this to people and we say, "Well, you know, it'll be X, a few thousand dollars or whatever it is to be able to, um, for us to be able to build this and set it up for you." And they're like, "I just don't think that we really need that." Um, and often sometimes I'm like, "Uh, okay, whatever.
Like, it's a pain anyway for me to do," but but I- I'm starting to push back a lot more on it because it sort of sits over a lot of that whole thing, right? Yeah. If you can't see it, then how can you make it better? How can you- Can't see it, you can't measure it. Yeah. You, y- And it's just an awareness thing as well.
Like, let's say it's something like lead response times. You know? I've got like a client that gets a dozen leads a day, like people inbound on their website. They say, "Can I buy one of these things?" And [01:00:00] sometimes they're really good, and all of those get answered on the same day. I was actually at their office the other day, and there were some that had been in there for a week, and the people hadn't been spoken to.
And they'd just been...
They're like, "What the?" They don't, it's not that they don't care or that- Yeah, just things get missed. Yeah. Yeah, and they're getting pulled off in other directions and whatever else happens, right? But if you don't have something that's kind of in your face that's saying, "Hey, this is going on," then how are you gonna be aware enough to be able to respond well?
And so, you know, things like that where the tech plays this role of bringing all that data and information together and enhancing our ability to then as a person make the right calls on what needs to happen or maybe even where the process is falling down, you know? And that lead- Hmm ... that lead response timeline is a really good example.
The tech is there to give us a good view of h- whether or not it's working, but it can also be there to see when it's not happening or it's breaking down. So- Yeah ... that kind of- Hmm ... encapsulates it all for me. Yeah, I love that. I find that [01:01:00] a lot of the work I'm doing with my kind of service-based clients, doesn't really matter what size they are, to be honest, the work on- What happens before the discovery call, what happens on the discovery call- Yeah
and what happens after the discovery call. These are three parts of small business that we are not putting anywhere near enough time into. Mm-hmm. For example, I mean, it starts with making sure you've got the right person booking the discovery call to start with. Yeah. And then it's like, what information can I send to that person before the discovery call?
Mm-hmm. And that can be automated. It can be an email sequence that goes out before the call, and then that means that the time on the call can be so much better. Mm-hmm. And then what happens after the call? So one of the things we talk about in Good Money Club every week is climbing cringe mountain, and that's, uh, saying comes from my business bestie Mia Feilman.
Mm-hmm. But she uses it from a marketing context. Yeah, [01:02:00] yeah. We use it in the context of, like, one of the most cringe things to have to do is follow up a proposal that hasn't been, you know, accepted yet. Yeah. And what I'm noticing, and I think this is across a lot of industries that operate with proposals or tenders- Hmm
we need more follow-ups in- Hmm ... 2026 than we did in 2024. Mm-hmm. And so having that in a process rather than you having to manually go, "Oh, I've gotta send another email," or, "I've gotta s- to send another voicemail," or, "I've gotta," whatever, that part of the sales process, I feel is actually... It's not actually that hard to make it better because so few people are trying to.
If you don't have the process, and if it's not written down, what are we relying on? We're relying on luck- Exactly ... for me to remember that I need to go in and... Without, like, I, I nerd out a little bit when it comes to CRMs from a sales perspective. I'm an ex-sales director, and so we're, we spend our entire lives as a [01:03:00] sales director, like, trying to make people do the things that you were speaking about.
Yeah. But, like, but it actually, like, if you- If you set your CRM up in, in a way that is useful, and I would even go so far as to say inspirational, right? Yeah. Yeah. Where you got one page that has all of your deals, all of the next steps that are on there. You can see if something's been missed. There's...
Like, I look at that and I go, "Oh, cool." Like, "I'm okay." Like, "I've got this pipeline" and there's- Yeah ... you know, X dollars that are in that pipeline, and I know I convert 30% of it. And because I've got the process and I've written it all down, and I've used the tech, the CRM, to put it over the top. Whereas a lot of people go, "Oh, I'll get a CRM, and that will solve the problem."
But if you don't actually have the process and the people, then the, the CRM doesn't sell anything for you. So- Yeah. Or you set the CRM, but you didn't actually ever use it. That's right. Yeah. You just used this tiny function of it. Which is a huge proportion of the [01:04:00] work that I that I do. People come to me because they're like, "We put in a CRM a year ago," and like- Yeah.
No one's used it ... "Debbie uses it, but she's, yeah, gone." Poor Debbie. Poor Debbie. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Cam, this has been a really cool chat. Yeah. And I think that so many small and medium business owners are leaving money on the table. Mm. I think we could easily be making more revenue just from starting with that point of I am going to set a goal, and then I'm- Mm-hmm
gonna work out how to get to it. So I think that's a really awesome message to take from today, is that having a goal and then thinking about having it written down, having a process, and seeing that process go through, and then working on how can I actually make it better. What thoughts would you like to leave our listeners with around what they could be doing in the next week to really just think about where am I leaving money on the table?
Hmm. Uh, I'd definitely start with the mindset. I'd start with have a look at [01:05:00] the last week of where, where you spent your time and ask yourself a, a, you know, a good, honest question of, you know, "How many hours did I actually dedicate to activities that are designed to grow my business?" And so I would start with that, and then obviously the next step in all of that, as we mentioned, is, is setting the goal of what it is that we really wanna achieve, and working backwards from there to figure out how to get there.
So I think if, if anyone listened to the call and did-- went through that, then there's-- that's probably gonna give you the biggest nudge in terms of- Mm. ... the, the first steps of, you know, or as they say, a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. Um, it's only- Yeah ... the first step, unfortunately, but it's definitely the one that's gonna put us in that right direction.
Yeah. That, that would be, that would be my peace of mind. Um, always welcome to reach out as well, obviously. Uh- So who's your ideal client, Cam? Uh, we predominantly work with, with organizations that have already-- that are already generating revenue, and they're predominantly they're kind of less than 10 [01:06:00] million, but n-not only, and in fact, I've got a few that are, are significantly more and, and going back to our conversation from before, they're a great business, you know?
And, uh, but I love working with small businesses, so I... And I really like working with founder-led businesses. Um- Yeah ... the energy and the passion and the, you know, the inspiration that comes from that- Yeah ... I find really, uh, infecting. Um, so really, it's, it's mostly small businesses, maybe half a million to 10 million, probably in most cases less than 20 or 30 people within the business.
Either they've, they've been through their initial growth and then stalled, and, uh, and that's probably the most common thing that I see Or they've been in business for a long time, they've been through all the highs and lows of, you know, over 15 years of being in business- Mm-hmm ... and they've kinda got, like, an, a last burst left in them, and they're like, "We just wanna go and do...
You know, we just- we've identified that we wanna exit," or, "We've identified that we've got this particular goal, we wanna hand it [01:07:00] over to our kids," or whatever that particular thing is. But they've kind of realized, like, "We're at this point right now, it's now or never, and we wanna do something." 'Cause there's, there's no point doing it if you don't actually have the drive to, to grow.
And so they- they're are fine, those two, uh, more so than even the revenue or the volume of people or any of that. It's, it's that kind of we've, we've stalled after a couple of years, or we've been around for a while, and we've got- Mm ... we've got, we've got an idea of where we wanna get to, and we want some help to be able to do it.
Yeah, I love that. So having that desire to grow or optimize your revenue for whatever the next phase is. And, um, yeah, small and medium businesses. How can people get in touch with you, Cam? Uh, check out the website, thegrowthengine.com.au. Uh, I do a free growth strategy review with anybody. Mm-hmm. It's a, it really is.
It's not a, it's not a sales pitch. I- It's a half an hour where we explore a part of your business, or it can be the whole business, but generally, I find you get the most value if we kinda pick something to really focus in on. [01:08:00] Um, and we, uh, even map out a bit of a process for that. So, um, that, the, the-- you can do that through the website or, uh, hit me up at cam@thegrowthengine.com.au.
I'm on Instagram and, uh, uh, LinkedIn, and, uh, all, all that usual stuff. Uh, and we've got a newsletter that goes out every week, uh, as well as a business quiz that I've developed, and it's on the website too, so you can take that. Uh, and occasionally, we run some workshops. So plenty of ways to, uh, to get in touch.
Plenty of ways to get in touch. Yeah. We'll put all those links in the show notes so people can get in touch. Thanks, Bee. And can I just say as well, like, I really have, uh... I find that you're a very good listener, and you're very good at- ... articulating the message that I'm putting across, so I really a- appreciate that.
And, uh, it was, um, uh, yeah, I felt like you, you really understood- ... and you put it in a way that people can understand. [01:09:00] Oh, thanks, Cam. Yeah, that really means a lot. All right. Well, we'll talk to you later. Yeah. Thank you. All right. Thanks, Bee. See ya. Bye.
Outro
Thank you so much for listening right up to the end. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Money Secrets, where we talk about the money secrets of successful small business owners. If you enjoyed the episode, I'd love it if you'd subscribe to the podcast, could leave us a review or share this episode with one of your friends. I hope you learned something, I hope you got a new perspective, and I really hope you enjoyed the listening experience.
