How To Stand Out From The Crowd In Your Industry | #05

Transcript

How To Stand Out From The Crowd in Your Industry

Glen Carlson Interview Episode 5

Matt: [00:00:00] Good day, Jonsey here. On this episode of Power Up Your Business podcast, we speak with Glen Carlson founder of Dent Global.

Glen: [00:00:07] My experience is it’s not hard work people are afraid of, they’re just sick and tired of hard work for no progress.

Matt: [00:00:13] Learn from Glen and how you can confidently present what your business stands for so that you differentiate your business from your competitors, to ensure that you increase sales, profitability and ultimately improve your lifestyle. Today’s episode is brought to you by the Cube software platform assisting business owners how to plan, market and improve their financial decision making. To find out more about the Cube go to www.thecube.network and click Request a Demonstration Now.

Matt: [00:00:52] Welcome to this episode of Power Up Your Business podcast. I’m here with my co-host Craig “Bush” Markham.

Craig: [00:01:19] Good day Jonsey.

Matt: [00:01:19] Craig welcome again. Today really excited, it’s a pleasure to have Glen Carlson in the studio. Sunshine Coast boy, now Bondi boy, co-founded Dent Global with his best mate Daniel Priestley Now 7 years ago and together they collaborated to create the Key Person of Influence, 40 week Brand Accelerator Program, which is recognised by Inc.com as a number one brand accelerator globally. They’ve assisted now 3,000 businesses to really stand out from the crowd. Glen is the host of The Dent podcast with listenership of 50 to 75,000 listeners per month. The Key Person of Influence he has assisted 900 authors to publish their books. I’m one of those successful authors.

Glen: [00:02:05] Rock and roll.

Matt: [00:02:06] Number one, bigger than the Bible they say.

Glen: [00:02:08] You and the Beatles. Me and the Beatles, look out.

Matt: [00:02:12] The team of 50 across 12 time zones. So Glen welcome mate.

Glen: [00:02:18] Mate, it’s stoked to be here.

Matt: [00:02:18] I’ve got to catch my breath after all that.

Craig: [00:02:21] That’s your biggest intro.

Matt: [00:02:22] That is my biggest intro.

Craig: [00:02:23] It is warranted.

Glen: [00:02:24] I couldn’t have had written it better myself.

Matt: [00:02:27] You gave me a little bit of assistance there.

Craig: [00:02:28] Sorry can I just mention we did miss Glen’s sleeve measurement. We’ll get that in.

Glen: [00:02:35] You can help me with that.

Craig: [00:02:36] Looking outstanding. Glen welcome. Great to have you here.

Glen: [00:02:39] Thank you mate. Appreciate being here.

Matt: [00:02:40] Very good having a Bondi boy.

Craig: [00:02:42] Yes. Look new to Bondi over the Sunshine Coast we accept them from anywhere but particularly the Sunshine Coast we’re at because they know the drill. Coastal good style of man too.

Matt: [00:02:51] Nice and cruisey. Glen just getting back to your story is starting your first business on the Sunshine Coast. Did you start on the Sunshine Coast your business or you moved from there?

Glen: [00:02:59] Well so my first business was cleaning boats. My dad was a shipwright in the Navy. He retired when he was about 35. Pulled me out of school, I was six. So my mom, my dad and I we sailed around the world for 7 years. So 7 years floating around on a 40foot boat on sort of dad’s pension so wasn’t a life of luxury but by any stretch 46 countries later came back to the Sunshine Coast. I was 14. Did a stint for about 6 months at Maccas.

Matt: [00:03:25] As everyone does.

Glen: [00:03:26] I’m allowed to swear on this podcast but I won’t swear on the podcast.

Matt: [00:03:28] It’s a tradie podcast.

Glen: [00:03:29] It wasn’t for me, let’s just say. My dad said the only reason people are going to buy something or pay you money is if you’re fixing something for them. He was a shipwright. He built boats. So he said, “Why don’t you walk around the marina and see what needs fixing?” There was a big race on in a couple of days. One of the big issues with the hulls were dirty. We had an old scuba tank on board. I was pre 15 so I wasn’t old enough to legally dive but grabbed the mask and the tank and made about 3 and a half grand in two days. So I’m now walking and I used to make about 300 bucks a month working at Maccas. So I’m now the Mark Zuckerberg of the Sunshine Coast.

Craig: [00:04:03] And scuba diver.

Glen: [00:04:04] Got my swagger on, underage scuba diver. So that was my first business. I did that for about 3 years, hard work though. It taught me that business was the way to go. Dad had the boat that was his vehicle for freedom, travel and self-expression. For me it’s from that moment the switch went off in my head. I became unemployable and business was the way to go. It’s been a pain in the arse ever since.

Craig: [00:04:27] Good pain to have though.

Glen: [00:04:29] Another thing my dad, love my dad, another thing my dad said. I was floating around on the boat with him. He’s up in the Philippines now still got a boat. Dad’s a Navy boy, always working always got something to do. I’m there with my mates and having a drink on the boat. He’s up the mast fucking around with something. I said, “Mate just come down and enjoy yourself.” He’s sweating, swearing and he said, “I am enjoying myself.” That evening on having a few sundowns he’s like, “You got to pick the problems you love to solve.” That always stood with me. Business is a never ending stream of problems. You just got to pick the problems you love to solve and get on with it.

Matt: [00:05:05] Comes out of that passion doesn’t it.

Glen: [00:05:06] Yes, I think so. Like feeling of fulfillment coming from doing good work and serving in whatever way that lights you up. If you’re just in it for the money that wears thin pretty quick but if you’re making money and you’re doing something that makes you feel good.

Matt: [00:05:20] I think you’d agree especially with your business over 7 years now you’ve had some tough times?

Glen: [00:05:25] 100%.

Matt: [00:05:26] And that’s the thing I think a lot of people from the outside looking in especially with our listeners in that trade space, construction business owners, a lot of times you’re in a bit of a dark corner and you think you’re the only one feeling it.

Glen: [00:05:35] Yes like this monkey part of our brain that wants to just come up with any excuse it can to work out why we’re different because it’s hard for us. So we look at the grass is always greener and imagine every other business is just a cakewalk. It’s just a fantasy to try and stop us from dealing with the reality of in the same way that every boat has to struggle to sail through storms every business has to struggle to sail through the challenges of growth and changing conditions and what have you. It’s never easy. If there are problems you choose to play with you can make them a lot of fun.

Matt: [00:06:09] I think that especially in this climate now. In the day and age now information changes here. Change is everywhere.

Glen: [00:06:15] Change has always been here just faster. If you’re not on it, like if you’re not, I’ve been surfing since I was sort of 14 and surfing can be a lot of fun when you skating along the face of the wave and just being powered by this force. You can get smashed, drilled and drown in the soup. I’m really seeing that it’s binary. There’s no middle ground. You’re not kind of half enjoying yourself surfing it either sucks or you’re having a great time. Business is the same.

Matt: [00:06:46] That’s the thing where you go to keep going. That’s one thing as we mentioned before about you’ve got to go through that pain. A lot of people don’t realize how close they are to success. They stop just before they break through. That’s what my belief is that you’ve got to come through with that passion. If you’re passionate about something you’re playing a big game then you’re willing to push through those tough days. As opposed to when you’re not really sure what you’re doing, it’s easy to stop.

Glen: [00:07:07] The bright shiny object syndrome, if you’ve got a reason to do it beyond making money you will continue to do it for those reasons. Let’s face it the vast majority of business challenges that are going to make it unfun has got something to do with money. Money then has an impact on time which then has an impact on everything else. So if you’re only doing it for the money, the moment the money gets hard, you’re going to throw the baby out with the bathwater. If you can tap into some bigger reasons that you’re doing it, brilliant.

Craig: [00:07:33] Glen when you started your business 7 years ago, what were those big reasons for you? You got to make it fun. You got to get a balance. Is there’s a serious side to it?

Glen: [00:07:40] Now I wanted to make money back then. I was a kid. In your 20s, you’re not here to save the world. You’re here to try and make a buck and prove yourself. So it was purely ego, money, cars, travel, experience and to prove to myself that I was enough. That was why I kind of got into business in the first place.

Craig: [00:07:57] And regardless of the success how far away from that original starting point is your business now?

Glen: [00:08:05] Completely unrecognizable. So Dan and I so Dam was a mate from high school. We started our first real business, when I say real business, I tried employing people with the boat cleaning business, it was just hard. Polishing a boat for 8 hours in the Queensland sun like you very quickly start looking for other options. So I took the same principle that my dad said in terms you got to be fixing something but I took that to go beyond yet it had to be fixing something material right. So we started, I had a skill around marketing and sales, so we started promoting authors, speaker, business owners that were pretty obscure unrecognised, unknown in their industry but were awesome at what they did. We started promoting them. We take a clip and we built that up. We built it up quickly we started when we were 24. In the first year we did a million revenue in 3 years, we did 10 million so really quick growth. So now we’re really swagging around thinking we know what we’re doing. The market punches us in the face as it does. So went from 10 million down to zero built it in within a few months. So that was gut wrenching. Then we regrouped, looked at what are our skills? What are our strengths? We built it back up and expanded over to the UK. Again 8 years in we were exhausted by this point. We figured we’d had a major business collapse we’d build it back up. We’d expanded internationally. We started thinking what most business owners start thinking of at some point, which is well sell the thing. So we’re doing a few million pounds at that point and that’s when a pound was still worth like 8,000 dollars. We put it up for sale and the most we could get was a couple hundred grand. So for 7 or 8 years of blood, sweat and tears that tiny amount of money was like a real sort of punch in the guts. Yet we had all these skills. We had great team, great culture in the team, great clients like we couldn’t understand why this wasn’t working. An adviser of ours basically said well it’s because you don’t own anything like your business is just a big brokerage model. You’re promoting other people you’re taking a clip of the ticket. When all is said and done you’ve got no business assets of your own. We’re like what’s a business asset? Kind of that distinction the value, the influence, the scale, the fund, the income that everything follows from a business context follows assets was probably the start of my entrepreneurial journey really. Everything before that was playschool then it kind of got real I feel like I cracked the code. I could see the matrix. Then for the last 7 years we’ve been building out our own business assets so now we own everything that we do.

Craig: [00:10:38] For the plumbers out there that listen to this podcast is it a natural journey? What I’m trying to get at Glen, can you avoid that lesson and jump straight to the entrepreneurship?

Glen: [00:10:49] Look if I can use an analogy like sailing just because it separates it from my business is different. If I throw you into a storm without any experience sailing in business, no training, no mentoring, no advice on how to handle that storm, what’s going to happen? You’re going to get smashed. If you’ve got a great team behind you great training, you understand how to use the machine the boat, is the storm going to be easy? No, it’s not going to be easy but it’s going to be manageable. You’re going to get through to the other side. You’re going to make a hell of a lot of progress. My experience is it’s not hard work people are afraid of they’re just sick and tired of hard work for no progress. That’s the thing, they want that return, financial return, more personal success, more time with the family because sometimes we have businesses that are either delivering a shitload of money but they’ve got no time. There are really successful people, when was the last time they were on a holiday. They haven’t been on a holiday for 3 years. There’s two really popular: lots of time no money. The really popular lots of money no time and therefore no relationships and all the stuff that goes on with that. Therefore no meaning often. There’s this kind of rarified point, we’ve got lots of time and lots of money. My experience if there was one principle that I think has had the most manifest difference in the way that I look at my business; it’s this idea that income follows assets. An asset, the way I look at it is anything that continues to create value if I don’t show up. So if anyone’s listening if you would imagine your business without you or your team, all humans would disappear. What would be left? How much revenue would it be generating kind of by itself? How close would it be to be able to generate really good revenue by itself? That is the degree to which you’ve got an asset built business. My experience has been that every stress, frustration or bottleneck anything in any area of my business or even my life can be traced back to an asset deficiency. When I recognise that my mindset switch from being a business operator doing shit to being a business owner having like you build a house. The house doesn’t stop working once you’ve built it because you walked out the door whereas most businesses very much are that case.

Matt: [00:13:01] That’s what happens a lot of time where business owners think they’ve got a business that they walk away and be for 6 weeks they go on holidays, they come back and there’s nothing.

Glen: [00:13:08] All the boys are out surfing.

Matt: [00:13:09] Yes exactly. So in theory they haven’t got a business at all. They’ve just created a job for themselves that totally relies on them to survive. In your experience and coming back to some of the trades and construction businesses have come through the Key Person of Influence program. What are some of those assets that you’ve been talking about that have really transformed peoples lives?

Glen: [00:13:29] Yes, if I can take one step back right the first step is the recognition that whatever you do and you’re great at it that’s not good enough. People don’t buy drill bits they buy the hull right. So if a carpenter is the world’s best fitter and turner, they’re still highly likely to be broke or struggling. Being able to do your craft is step one. That’s creating that value it’s being able to do work for a client that they love.

Matt: [00:13:53] It’s a skill.

Glen: [00:13:54] Absolutely right. There’s almost this expectation that if I’m just good at what I do I’ll be successful and that is just manifestly untrue and inaccurate. That paradigm can create the most frustration that you’ll ever experience. So step 1 is the mindset that not just a tradie that might be listening to this but a corporate lawyer that thinks like they’re the Harvey Specter of kind of their world, has to recognize that their craft isn’t enough., The moment they make that mental shift it’s like changing years from first to second, you get out of kindergarten into alright, what’s stage two? Stage two is about getting known for that value right because where the vast majority of costs come into the business is attracting clients, good clients, repeat clients, the perfect clients that can pay and pay on time in that sort of perfect space. The right team that can deliver upon the expectation of those client, perform at a higher level and actually want to be their partners media, etc. So that the cheaper it becomes to get known the faster a business will accelerate. Shouldn’t have to worry so much because anyone here that’s kind of relying on referrals recognizes that’s a very slow game at work up to a couple hundred grand maybe 500 600 then you’ll tap out for that level of organic growth. So I’m assuming that someone listening to this has already nailed the value step so then the way we look at it, there are 5 key assets that you need to look at developing to build influence around that value to get known for that value. The first is you got to have an awesome pitch. You’ve got to but most people are awesome but they don’t communicate. They’re awesome because they’ve got like imposter syndrome. They just think I’m just another Sparky. The reality is when you dig into the way you do what you do that’s phenomenal and you are bold enough to communicate that not in a like self-indulgent, shameless, self-promoter kind of way but just the facts, all of a sudden you’re able to communicate your value a lot clearer. People can only pay for value they can recognize, is that fair?

Craig: [00:16:00] Yes, tangible.

Glen: [00:16:00] Most businesses any business, tradies or anyone else are under communicating the value that they actually deliver day to day without changing anything way under communicating. So step one, the first asset you want to build is a rockin’ pitch that not just you that owner can communicate but everybody else on your team. You’ve got your mates that are putting up the guttering, the roof or whatever it is. They’re out having barbecues with their mates and they’re being asked what they do. If they’re like”I lay reo for a living”, well you’re missing a huge opportunity for those 15 people that were crowded around them that if they had this great little 25 second pitch that had people go, “Oh shit that’s pretty cool.” Now of course it’s like, “Oh no we just do buildings. Everyone does buildings there’s nothing special in that,” that comes back to this kind of imposter syndrome. It’s like if you choose to look, you’ll find it. So step 1 first asset, awesome pitch.

Matt: [00:16:54] That goes back to that mindset, starts with the mindset. If you’ve got their mindset that I want to build that value. I want to create a brand that doesn’t rely on me. Then you’re going to think about what are you delivering? How can I pitch it? As opposed to tradie mindset where we talk about tradie mindset, “Oh, I’m just a plumber.”

Glen: [00:17:08] Yes and look the business owners can see it for themselves in terms of how pissed off they get at their team for having a tradie mindset. It’s very easy for the tradie business owner to see the tradie business mindset in their team where surf’s up no one comes to work anymore and they get pissed off at that right. The reality is they’re operating with the same mindset in a lot of ways. So at the moment they recognise shit rolls uphill. They’ve got to change their attitude first and it’s like I said I’m not picking on tradies. I have to have the exact same conversation with belligerent lawyers, financial advisers or real estate agents that wear a suit and tie for a living. Once you make that leap and that is the biggest leap psychologically to go from delivering value to building influence like everything just gets so much easier.

Craig: [00:17:51] So Glen you touched on a really interesting point there. I listened to a couple of the Dent podcast and one particular stood out for me about Major General Andy Salmon. It was really interesting and you had this little section on leadership. So what you just talked about essentially is a business owner that is a tradie with some tradie mindsets as you say surf’s up, no one’s working. He’s got to change himself into a better leader so he needs to get educated. What we’re really talking about is potentially doing the program.

Glen: [00:18:16] He’s the guy that’s leading 10,000 troops in Iraq and leading the SAS forces and all this sort of stuff. His entire attitude is we’re there to win hearts and minds. It’s the storytelling. We’ve got to be better storytellers than anyone else. When you hear military leaders talk about strategy like that is like wow okay that’s what influence is.

Craig: [00:18:39] How important is leadership for the tradie guy that’s working on the tools within a business? He can become his own leader. How does he get out of that situation? He’s got high ambitions and he just say, people often are tough on themselves. How do you just break that mould?

Glen: [00:18:52] Yes, leadership is too vague for me. I drill everything back to if there’s something you want that you don’t have that’s a frustration or frustrations can be traced back to an asset deficiency. I don’t think about leadership. I don’t think about skills because that just leads to more doing right. The moment you think what’s the missing asset let me paint this picture. Let’s say you had a 5 bedroom house that was dilapidated. You’re frustrated that there’s two elements of property that everyone gets because you can stub your toe on a property it’s physical right. There is the rent you could get from renting it. A business owner would think of that as their P and L or there’s the equity that you would get from selling the house and you might register that on your balance sheet from that perspective. So if you had 5 rooms in a house but it was all pretty dilapidated, you’re not going to sit there and go, “We need to throw more money at sales and marketing to get more money out of this thing.” That just doesn’t make any sense and yet that’s what most business owners do. They’re just like we’ve got to grind harder do more. Whereas someone in property is just going to go no we don’t need to do more sales of marketing we’ve got to improve the asset. We’ve got to go renovate the rooms so room number 1 to renovate is the pitching room right. It’s got to be pimpin’ you’ve got to walk in and it’s just got to be amazing. You’ve got to be able to talk people through that room. So they go wow this is an incredible business. Your team needs to be able to talk people through that room so they go, this is an incredible house. I’m sorry. Then people tend to walk into the next room and again it’s shit, which is the credibility room. So you can be really good at what you do. You can be communicated very well but if you don’t have the credibility to back it up well then people are going to go elsewhere. One of the fastest way to build credibility in any industry is to publish a thought leadership content. So it could be as simple as if you’re a plumber producing thought leadership content around how to make the most of the water in your home. Not just like…

Matt: [00:20:50] Sustainability.

Glen: [00:20:51] Sustainability but not just that. Like how many people have 2 or 3 showers a day or 2 showers a day with a shitty little showerhead right. Whereas for 20 bucks, they could have one of these big luxurious things that they have right. However I had a plumber come in the other day. He fixed the leaky tap and he just walked straight out again. If he had said, “Hey here’s some collateral, here’s some brochures, here’s some material on 7 quick cheap easy things we can do for less than 1,500 bucks it’ll transform your home from a water perspective. Nice taps, nice faucets, your girlfriend’s frustrated cause she’s got ruined hair because of this we can put a filter on that. On and on and on and all of a sudden here’s a job that someone would normally get 200 dollars for an hour walking out with 1,500 bucks.

Matt: [00:21:35] It all down comes in educating the customer.

Glen: [00:21:36] Educating the customer but again even if you’re good at that that’s kind of in the pitch. If you’re doing that one to one you’re going to bottleneck whereas if you’re producing that content through Facebook, LinkedIn or just podcasting like getting it out there.

Matt: [00:21:51] Just even on a brochure.

Glen: [00:21:52] All of a sudden people are calling up going I want the 1,500 dollar thing and can you do my pool as well?

Matt: [00:21:57] And do my auntie’s.

Glen: [00:21:59] And do my auntie’s and etc etc. because I’m going, “My girlfriend’s hair has never been smoother and she’s not bitchin about it anymore so I’m just telling all my mates.” We laugh at it but that is how it happens.

Matt: [00:22:12] It’s as simple as that too isn’t it? Just like there’s a document, share it.

Glen: [00:22:16] Yes, let me show you what else we can do that you never thought of.

Craig: [00:22:19] I guess you can kick off by bottlenecking. You can start by doing it yourself as you say. Get to the bottleneck and then do it on a mass scale with social media using other platforms by educating yourself.

Glen: [00:22:27] Yes well that’s what happens you get the value right and value around your pitch, value around publish content, scale happens naturally. People try to scale without creating the value in the first place and so they just divert all of their time and mental energy and focus to trying to build a business. Whereas if you step back and go what’s the missing asset that would cause this scale. If you don’t want to grow a business instead of growing in scale, scale your profit. You stay the same size but double or triple the profit.

Matt: [00:22:55] Reduce turnover.

Glen: [00:22:56] Yes go from pulling 100 grand out to 500 grand out, see how that changes your life.

Matt: [00:22:59] Talking about a lot of businesses don’t want to scale it comes down to that classic. It always comes back the more uncertain this is one thing that we’re big on that from a methodology point of view it. Haven’t got time. Yes Glen that’s great. Yes, I love your work but I haven’t got time to stand back and scale. Because guess what. If I take that one hour off the tools I’m going to lose 70 bucks. They can’t see that that one day it could take them.

Glen: [00:23:21] I got so much empathy. When I look at my own life and my own bullshit excuses the reality is when I’m saying that stuff I’m just tired. I’m just exhausted. It’s already really hard. The idea of doing more of shit that doesn’t work very well doesn’t sound like fun but I’m not going to say that. So, I’m going to tell you I’m busy but really I’m not I’m just buggered.

Matt: [00:23:42] You’re just not sure where to go next. A lot of the time you just run out you go, “I’ve spoken all to the higher powers and I’m still in the same position. What is going on here?”

Glen: [00:23:52] So that’s the zoo part of the brain that’s the monkey brain that just wants to go around in circles and chase bright shiny objects and come up with excuses so it doesn’t have to actually be accountable for doing something great in the world right. If they look around anyone looks around their industry you’ll find that there are people that are doing really well. They’re having fun. They’re having an impact. They’re rocking their services to their customers. They’re getting known in the media. They’re sharing content. They’re creating joint ventures, collaborations partnerships like. All of a sudden they’re doing the fun stuff like everyone talks about work on the business not in the business. The reality is you’re going to be stuck in your business until such time as the market sees you as being more valuable out of the business. Until such time as that commercial reality is true, you’re a worker. The moment the market perceives you as being more valuable out of your business you become an influencer or to your point a leader.

Craig: [00:24:47] Glen, what’s the first step? There’s a lot of people, I think it’s a great point you raised, you’ve got that zoo part of the brain running around chasing the shiny object. You’ve also got a business idea that’s doing really well. I happen to know quite a few plumbers like this that are kind of settled and they want to protect what they actually have as opposed to leverage and get out. They still have the same complaints. They’re tired. They still can’t turn up for lunch because if I leave my business I’m so important, how do they take that leap? They’ve got good profit. They’ve got good revenue. They’ve got good teams behind them. They’ve built the organisation. They’ve built structure but they actually don’t have that mindset to jump out because they’re still complaining like they don’t have it.

Glen: [00:25:24] Yes sure. Look it’s a good question, so this is now separate to these rebuilding these five rooms. Let’s say intellectually they can go, “I get the concept. I’ve got to renovate my business to make it better.” To your point I’m scared and I’ve got a bunch of excuses that seem to justify them. I’m saying this because I’m hoping someone’s listening in the private in their car, they’re recognizing that actually there might just be a teeny tiny bit of truth in that. I’m not a big believer in Kumbaya kind of personal development. On a personal level I’m a geek. I love it. I joined [00:25:55] Amway [0.3] for the tapes back in the day. There is a large degree of that just being hot air and fairy tales. I’m not discouraging a spiritual or a journey of understanding the self. I don’t think that’s correlated to success because I’ve gone to a bunch of these big rah rah motivation type seminars. They’re trying to motivate people to go, “Hey go renovate the house type thing.” You’re pumped that night. You’re pumped. There’s a bunch people that have been addicted to those things for the last 20 years that still haven’t done anything with their life. You look at some of the more successful people in the world and they’re messed up. You look at a lot of rock stars. You look at a lot of the entrepreneurs. They’re not balanced. They’re not living great lives. They’re totally freaking out of balance as well so this personal development or motivation kind of concept and external success in the business world isn’t correlated. What I see is being correlated just by looking around is the environment that you find yourself in. So for example let’s say someone’s listening and they’re a mechanic. You’ve got your boys performing on the floor to the level that they’re performing. Let’s say one of them got a tap on the shoulder to be on the Formula One pit crew. What’s going to happen to their level of performance overnight? It’s going to go through the roof. What’s changed has their skill set changed? No. The only thing that’s changed is the environment. If you look at any high performing people whether it’s a nurse that’s really great at what they do in an emergency room. Well an emergency room in a hospital is a high performance environment. If you look at a Navy SEAL well those teams are high performance environments. So my experience is a lot of people that find themselves struggling to take those steps, if they do a true audit of their environment like the people that they spend the most time with etc., they’re not lit up people. They’re not excited people. They’re not inspired people. They’re people that are buying into their own excuses and justifying their own poor performance. You become who you surround yourself with. If you want to learn tennis, you join a tennis club. If you want to learn mixed martial arts, you join a mixed martial arts club. Why, 5 things that these environments provide. They provide strategy and best practice. So you don’t have to make it up with trial and error. This is why people have apprenticeships so they can actually learn how to put up a roof instead of making it up as they go along. Whereas most business owners are making their business up as they go along. The second is a peer group. If you go back to your partner, your mates or your brother and they’re like, “What are you doing Macca,” like if you’re going to be able to make that work. Well that’s a really hard environment to be in and still perform. Whereas if you’re showing up to a regular environment where there are people just like you or less educated less experienced that are doing better that starts to normalise your little monkey mindset brain of what success actually looks and feels like. All of a sudden your performance starts to rise as well. Add a few extra things like external accountability, access to the tools and resources you need to just build the business right without having to try and make it up and having a bit of a common goal. So I’m at the surf club down at Bondi. We’ve got a common goal. No lives lost. Everything else comes around that one core idea. So I find for me finding myself in a high performance environment of business owners that don’t just want to create a great business for themselves but they want to do it for their families. They also want to do good work and give back in good ways as well. Me showing up in that environment 2 or 3 times a week does wonders for my courage.

Craig: [00:29:34] I mean you are a product of your environment.

Matt: [00:29:36] 100% You know coming back to a real life example we spoke about just before we jumped on air and it’s all about from a tradie perspective and that tradie understanding that they’re not just about fixing a broken toilet. They’re not just about putting [00:29:48] Rio [0.3] in the wall. They are actually fixing problems to ideally stand out from the crowd. What we see a lot where a lot of tradies and construction business owners will come to ask that it’s a competitive market. Everything’s on price because everyone always comes back to watch you lose their job or price because that’s an easy default position. I love that name Stop Cox plumbing, an example from the UK. This is a great way of really positioning a business around an individual also around a higher purpose as well especially is very topical at the moment. Let me give you give a bit of a background.

Glen: [00:30:26] Yes so Hadi came to us troubling upbringing. She is a homosexual. I’m very proud of that fact but was very marginalised because of that in terms of just kind of who she was,, how she looked etc and she was a plumber. So kind of almost from her perspective her experience of the world was compounding that compounding effect. Se wasn’t having a good time. She was working really hard. She was making her money from sticking her head under sinks and fixing leaky taps. She wanted more. There was this part of her soul that felt like she was on this planet to do more than to give than fix leaky taps. She didn’t know what it was. So our advice get yourself in a high performance environment. We have spent the last 7 years trying to build that high performance environment for entrepreneurs internationally. So she came and she got in the environment. She did one of our programs. One of the big ideas that we get everyone to think about and if you’re listening to this I’ll get you to think about it from your perspective and I said it before people don’t buy drill bits they buy hulls. When I was cleaning boats, people weren’t paying me to clean the bottom of their boat. People were paying me so they had an edge in the race. Two days later they were paying me to go faster. So had she had to go through this whole process, which is really difficult because she’s like, “People buy me to fix taps or it’s on my website see.” So it’s almost like cause that’s the way I’ve been doing it that’s the way I’ve got to be doing it and because that’s what I think people buy that must be what people want to buy. It’s the whole Henry Ford thing where he said, “If I had asked people what they wanted they would have said faster horses.” We’ve kind of got to have that we don’t need to be an iconic titan to take that small step in that direction. So through a few of us get things we get people to do had he started talking to her ideal customers, not the people that don’t pay on time, not the people that pay 100 quid to come and do a little thing here and there but the really great jobs where she’d be making thousands or more.

Matt: [00:32:31] Customers that appreciate her value.

Glen: [00:32:32] Thank you. So she didn’t really have any of those customers at that point but she was thinking well wouldn’t it be great if I did. They are all the wealthier people in sort of inner city London. So then the exploration, much like my dad said, people will pay to fix something or to solve a problem. So he said, “Other than the leaky tap what’s the problem they got?” So she didn’t know so he said well if you don’t know, what you do? Go ask. So she went and started talking to, calling up and contacting and using a network just talk to these people about look other than leaky taps what’s wrong? What’s the problem? What started to show up was this pattern of fear really when you know if it was a family where the mother and kids would stay at home and the guy go off into the square mile to do his high paying kind of job, which is common. He, the guy didn’t like the idea of a plumber from East London coming in that they’ve never met. They don’t know traipsing shit all over the carpet checking out their wife etc etc.

Matt: [00:33:35] So the husband and the father was just bringing himself .

Glen: [00:33:38] So yes right. At the same time the woman didn’t like the idea of this strange guy coming in right cause she’s the one they’re having to deal with it. Even if it was on a personal threat then they’re not clean. They don’t put stuff on their shoes to protect it or any that kind of stuff.

[00:33:54] It’s lovely be plumbers crack work all that extra stuff.

Glen: [00:33:56] It’s the cliche and it parallels across any industry. Like I said this is the same for real estate as it is for plumbing. So when she realised that when she went back to some of her clients one of the reasons why they liked her was because she was a woman. So much of her background, she’d felt marginalized because she was a woman and she loved women. Now all of a sudden people are valuing her for that. So she started getting gigs at the Defence Force speaking for women in the Defence force that had a trade that we’re looking at what they were going to do when they left the Defence Force. It’s not a dissimilar stigma women with a trade.

Matt: [00:34:36] But she’s becoming that mentor.

Glen: [00:34:38] So Stop Cox became one of the UK’s leading women only franchisers. Remember room 1, pitch. She used to pitch and we say you get what you picth for and you’re always pitching. She used to pitch I’m a plumber, I’m a plumber, I’m a plumber. What do plumbers do? They fix leaky taps. She started pitching. I’m building the UK’s leading women’s only plumbing franchise. If you know a woman with a trade…

Matt: [00:35:00] Come and see me.

Glen: [00:35:01] Come and see me. Within two years of changing her pitch, 18 franchises all around the UK, the book and her whole philosophy around water conservation once or twice a yea, her and her entire team fly to Africa. They dig wells. They install irrigation. They do all that kind of stuff just total game changing business paradigm. She’s not on the tools. She’s making more money than she ever thought she would ever make. I’m not saying like crazy stupid numbers. I don’t think she’s still personally taking home more than a million like taking home more than a million a year. You don’t need to. If you’re loving what you’re doing you’re making a difference. You have an impact and you’re feeling like you’re expressing yourself, so Hadi is just a great story.

Matt: [00:35:46] The great thing about, I love those rags to riches and the key thing that you’ve done via the key performance methodology is actually instill confidence.

Glen: [00:35:57] That’s what you guys do as well.

Matt: [00:35:58] But that’s the thing If you instill that confidence in I bet you engaged with the program, she’s probably thinking for the first time in my life I’ve got someone who’s got my back. I’ve got someone that’s actually saying, “You can do this,” rather than hearing all her life like through school as you said marginalised. “No, you can’t do that you can’t do it.” No you can.

Glen: [00:36:19] Yes it’s interesting. I don’t see it like that. I know what you’re saying and that’s kind of an effect it looks like that in hindsight. The reality is like when we get someone to go in and change their pitch like that or to start publishing content. None of them feel confident at the start. No one. It’s not biologically possible for you to feel confident doing something you’ve never done before. So I snowboard but or surf. If you got me going out in 8 foot swell or on a double black diamond with no skills how am I going to feel? Well I’m not going to feel confident. How do you learn how to surf? How do you learn how to snowboard? We start on a little green run. So our approach is look it’s not about confidence. It’s just about building the assets, influence, income and scale, fun and time follows assets. When you identify the missing asset deficiencies and you get on with building those things,. The value and the results just start to occur whether you feel confident about it or not. In hindsight people’s confidence starts to build as a result of that but it’s the process of building the assets not feeling confident that that has that impact and in my experience.

Craig: [00:37:26] Glen obviously you are a person of great experience and influence and hence not a hoax.

Glen: [00:37:31] You say the right thing.

Craig: [00:37:32] Pardon the pun but what do you say to a young plumber a lot of young tradies who listen to this? Who are at the beginning they might have just left school the second or third year in and they don’t really know where they want to be aware where they want to be. Where would you advise them if you were just advising them over a beer at a bar? Where to start?

Glen: [00:37:48] I’d say try and find something that’s at the intersection of money and fulfillment. Something that you enjoy doing and you can geek out on. If you’re a sparky and you go home and you’re not reading up on everything Elon Musk is doing around a new technology, around batteries, electricity and light all that new level stuff. If you’re not just naturally doing that quit. Find something like what are you geek out on?

Craig: [00:38:13] What do you love?

Glen: [00:38:14] What do you love?

Matt: [00:38:15] Because otherwise it’s going to be a chore.

Glen: [00:38:17] Technology is going to start like eating so much of an automation in the next 10, 20, 30 years which is if you’re young you’re already starting to get into that. The one thing that beats everything hands down as is passion and enthusiasm and you can commercialise anything. There is a guy get here on this. There is a guy I’m googling, I don’t know his name but he makes 350,000 dollars U.S. a year selling essential oils. Those like essential oils chicks like for hamsters. You know how people have like hamsters in cages and stuff. Well they get a little skin rashes because they’re on straw. If you don’t want to feed them chemicals and you want to give them essential oils. So the hamsters can be more comfy 350,000 dollars a year.

Craig: [00:39:07] I read once that Richard Gere actually massages his hamsters with essential oil dunno if that’s true or not.

Matt: [00:39:13] That is going down the drain.

Glen: [00:39:15] So my point is no matter what your thing is, no matter how obscure, here’s the other thing I find right. People say, “Ah my passion is widgets or my passion is this and that but I can’t make money out of it.” If we freeze frame and then just look at that person in that statement objectively. How many hours do you think they’re dedicated to exploring 30 different ways they might be able to commercialise it? How many people do you think they’ve talked to that are experts at commercialising ideas like tha? Don’t know. There’s just this little monkey part of the brain that’s thrown the bananas out of the pram and I can’t do it. We’ve just heard that and gone all that must be true and we’ve got on with our life. The reality is if you spent a month or two getting in an environment, exploring different ways that you could commercialise how to make money, running a surf shop instead of being a sparky or a mountain bike tours in Argentina or whatever it is. Maybe you just find that making 150 or 200 grand a year isn’t all that hard. You might not become the world’s wealthiest guy but if you die happy, having lived the dream.

Craig: [00:40:26] 100%.

Glen: [00:40:26] Who cares? So that’s what I’d say to a young gun. In fact that’s what I’d say to anyone. The classic thing is that they don’t listen though. This is the thing about young guns. They need a punch in the face first by the market right. It’s got to be hard work. They’ve got to be ground down. I had to be ground down by the world and the market before I start.

Matt: [00:40:46] It all comes back to what we talked about at the start. You’ve got to go through that storm. You go through that storm because it will happen to everyone. Everyone’s going to get punched in the face. Coming back to that belief which comes about that conflict was one thing that I’m from an individual point of view, I just want to clarify that from a confidence point of view, which does come out beliefs point of view. How important is it that people come onboard with you that they believe in you? So coming back to when you’re starting? Okay so key person of influence in terms of are you the right environment? How do you get around from your pitch and KPI, how do you set yourself apart especially now there’s a lot of people out there. A lot of business advisers, business coaches, action coaches, there’s a dime a dozen. How do you pitch?

Glen: [00:41:31] I don’t ever want to be in a situation where I have to convince someone to like me or that I should have to convince someone that they should work with me or any of that. To me that just feels icky, gross or not cool. Kelly Slater doesn’t walk around trying to get people to like him. He just does what he does. So I was doing what I do but I wasn’t having lots of people show up going, “I want to work with you.” So what’s the missing asset was the question. So now I’ve created with my business partner, Dan, an ecosystem of what we call intellectual property assets. We’ve got a podcast. We’ve got books. I do video stuff on Facebook, which is just going crazy, at the moment. We’ve got reports, downloads, YouTube videos and all this ecosystem of stuff, which is being consumed. Stuff people can watch, read, listen and by tens of thousands of people a week. Are some people going to listen to that content and go these guys don’t know what they’re talking about, they’re dickheads. I don’t like the way they swear. I don’t like people that live at Bondi. The beauty of having that asset ecosystem is I’ve never had to meet them. I’ve never had to talk to them. I’ve never had to try and convince them. By the time.

Matt: [00:42:46] Didn’t have to waste time on them?

Glen: [00:42:48] Didn’t have to waste any time of them. By the time people have gone through that ecosystem people show up going, “We like you.” I lived in Bali for 2 years right. If anyone that’s been to like a developing country somewhere and you go to the markets. What goes on? Well It’s a shit fight. Everyone’s trying to like throw their stuff down your throat. They’re pulling you into their thing. They’re putting their product in your hands and they go buy buy buy. Pretty shit soon after living there for 2 years, you just tune out. You just, “I’m not listening, like no. You just walk through.

Craig: [00:43:17] Until Wayan no thanks.

Glen: [00:43:18] Sorry Wayan no, not interested.

Craig: [00:43:21] Ketut

Glen: [00:43:23] Ketut’s cool. He’s alright.

Glen: [00:43:24] So this is what we do. Our brain just tunes us out. This is the market. So who is the guy in the market that you go to? Will you go to the guy that you know. You go to the guy that you’ve been told is the guy to go to that you can trust etc. So therefore there is no market. There’s just Ketout because I’ve already been told that Ketut’s the guy to go to. So this kind of starts looking like our referrals. Again it’s not scalable. In the world we live in if we want to create a great business we need to go beyond that. So how do we scale referrals? How do we scale trust? Well we get a great pitch. We package it into great content that people want to consume that turn people from not even knowing they need a plumber to come in and change their showerhead to picking up the phone and making the call. All without a human being being involved. So from my perspective I don’t think of me trying to convince the market. I’m just putting great content out in the market and then the people that do like do resonate, do have the problems show up totally changes the nature of our conversation, our business or our conversation. It’s just like, “Of course you want to work with us. We work hard. We do great work.” It’s a nice experience to be talking to people that want to work with us. It wasn’t always the case. Our skill set at delivering value didn’t change by the way, we were already awesome at this. What changed as we recognised we needed to build that ecosystem of influence. I guess you could say and that’s made a huge difference and that’s what we do. We do it with doctors,, lawyers tradies, plumbers, sparkies, mobile mechanics. It doesn’t matter what your product is.

Matt: [00:45:09] What comes back to that bit of science that the Key Person of Influence works on, which is about the number of mediums that people can see you and the amount of time. Just give that a little bit of alright science behind that.

Glen: [00:45:20] So if you imagine a big circle and that’s the market out there that’s everyone that could possibly buy your stuff. Muppet’s, great people, everyone. We don’t want the market, we just want our market. So imagine a little teeny tiny circle connected to the other big circle that’s just all we want. If we just had that life would be awesome. So the question is then how do you separate your market from the market? The answer is content stuff people can watch, read, listen and d. Then there’s the psychology I think you’re talking about is we do something called 7-11-4. What we want to create is we want to create enough content. So there are 7 hours worth of content out there that people can consume. If my girlfriend wants to go and read up on everything there is to read up about taking chlorine out of water. She wants to read the book, watch the shows, listen to the interviews and all that kind of stuff. If she wants to go down that rabbit hole she can in a ideal scenario. So 7 hours doesn’t mean people are going to but if they want to they can. It’s having that amount so people can content gorge almost on your stuff. Step 2 is across 11 touch points. So by catch up we have a beer, one touch point. Have you got a best friend that you or someone you really trust that you’ve only met and known in one location? Course not but you meet him at the pub but then you go have a dinner party, then you go to the footy and then you go to multiple locations. So our brain goes, “I need to experience and engage with this person or piece of content over multiple timestamps.” So a number of different touch points over time 11 is day 1 day 2 day 3. Could be 3 or 4 touch point in a single day.

Matt: [00:47:04] So it could be an email, newsletter, maybe an email podcast, video or anything.

Glen: [00:47:08] If I listen to a podcast and then I go to the book or I go and watch it Facebook thing that’s a different touch point. Now what we just talked about is also a different platform. So 7-11-4, 7 hours 11 touch points across 4 platforms. Our platform is the pub. Yet another platform is the website and another platform is your email, another platform is Facebook, another platform is YouTube, another platforms is iTunes podcasts, Stitcher or whatever it is. So if you’ve created enough content that can be consumed for 7 hours or more. Set it up in a way with email auto responders and all that ads and what have you Google some retargeting where people get touched 11 times and they consume content. Even a small amount of content across 4 different platforms, you’ve created what we’ve called trust transference. Where now there monkey brain that’s the part that’s making decisions guys. I know this person. I’ve seen this person. I like what this person says and I’ve seen them in multiple locations. Therefore I know them like and trust them and I’m happy to buy from them. Therefore they will move towards the business or the content creator as opposed to the business having to move towards them.

Matt: [00:48:18] Very good. Craig what do you think?

Craig: [00:48:20] Yes I love it. It’s quite uplifting to hear that for the young tradies and our audience, both male and female that don’t know where to start. The key message I have taken away from Glen as I said before, you got so much to talk about and so much to pass on but the key is to get out of that monkey brain. Actually just step back for a second and perhaps do a stocktake, where am I now? Where do I want to be? How do I get there? You’re in the house section for me. Anyone that’s listened to this podcast needs to really take that point whether it’s going to team up with Glen and his team that should be outstanding or find their own niche or become that mountain bike coach in Argentina because maybe that’s what’s really driving you.

Glen: [00:48:59] Well, you’ve got to be passionate because business is hard. So whatever you do you got to have passion there.

Matt: [00:49:05] Again in the show notes we’ll have the details, Glen, key person of influence. There’s a heap of tradies, sparkies, electricians, landscapers, builders, mechanics, all looking to how can I get out of where I’m at. I don’t like where I’ve been. Some people have gone through divorces, stress, illnesses or because of the business. So I love to shoot them your way and give them that assistance there.

Glen: [00:49:27] Yes well I tell you what. Look we’ve created a whole bunch of stuff that we just give away right because we only work with a very select kind of group of people because like our business accelerator is so structured. If you don’t fit a certain criteria, we won’t work with you. It’s like we’re a diamond cutter if you’re not a diamond and I don’t mean to say that a ruby is any less awesome but we just have a very specific type of people that we know we can work with. We focus on working with them, which is why we can do it well. The free content that we share and the stuff that we present is applicable across any industry or any size of business. If someone just goes to dent.global/start from there get access to the book. We’ll send you a free copy., Get access to our online benchmarking tool which essentially is a building survey for your business to be able to work out the degree to which you’ve got quality in each of those 5 rooms that I was talking about, a free online tool. It’ll link through the videos and our podcast and all that stuff as well. So if you just dent.global/start Put that on the show notes that will show you what to do and where to go.

Matt: [00:50:27] I can definitely firsthand vouch for the Key Person of Influence 40 week accelerator program. Fantastic and it was especially the publishing, the structure and the framework. Without that I wouldn’t have been able to publish my book Power Up Your Tradie business, just give them a bit of a plug, Bush.

Craig: [00:50:41] It’s a great book.

Glen: [00:50:43] It is a great book.

Craig: [00:50:44] I will say to the tradies out there, there’s a book in everyone I reckon. They might start doing the accelerator program and then find themselves in that same position as you did. I know that there’s two guys sitting in this room one’s our producer Silky and myself that are going straight into the accelerator program off the wrap you gave it. I’m with you. Glen you’re not about walking across hot coals. How can some lady from Coca-Cola on level two who’s an accountant and high-fiveing some go with Kumbaya. I’m the same.

Glen: [00:51:07] Unless she’s cute.

Craig: [00:51:08] Well that’s a different story. We can’t go any further than that. We can talk at the bar. In all seriousness if you want to get bang for buck and you want to get just drilled down to what you really need and get an actual outcome, I think it’s a great opportunity.

Matt: [00:51:22] I love that the acronym isn’t GST which is part of “get shit done,” pretty simple. We can all relate to that just get shit done but the right shit done.

Glen: [00:51:31] yeah, build, don’t do.

Matt: [00:51:33] Love it. Awesome Glenn thanks very much hopefully we’ll get you back on later on in the year.

Glen: [00:51:38] Super stoked. Look I just want to really acknowledge you. You talked about your book but I mean that book is stacked on decades of experience and thousands of lives changed. I mean the reason that we wanted to work with you so much was fundamentally because not just you do great work because you do but your dedication to doing that great work and your commitment not just to transforming tradies’ businesses but to transforming their lives. I’ve heard you tell the stories not of the person that’s gone through your program but of their families and the impact that it’s had on their kids and on their relationship with their kids. I see you when we’re talking about the numbers in the PNL and all that kind of shit. When I see you talk about the lives of the kids that have been transformed because of the blokes you’ve had the chance to work with, it’s rare. I just wanted to acknowledge you and congratulate you for that mate. You’re a rare breed. You’re a diamond not in the rough anymore and a 100% Power Up Your Trade Business is a must-read for anyone that’s tuning into the show.

Matt: [00:52:40] I really appreciate it mate and I definitely and as we are as a group, nothing better than transforming lives. It’s what we do. It gets us sort of going each day so much appreciated.

Glen: [00:52:50] Be brave. Have fun. Make a dent in the universe.

Craig: [00:52:52] You just won yourself a signed copy.

Glen: [00:52:55] Well thanks so much. Good on you chaps

Craig: [00:52:56] I appreciate it.

Craig: [00:52:57] You’ve been listening to the Power Up Your Tradie Business podcast with Glen Carlson of course your host Matt Jones. Don’t forget to tune into all of our podcast on Power Up Your Tradie Business and if you haven’t listen to this one twice, you haven’t listened to it.