Welcome to the Business Abundance Podcast, providing
the tools and knowledge to help small business
owners succeed. For additional resources, visit
www .businessabundance .online. Hi, I'm Zee and
welcome back to the Business Abundance Podcast.
Welcome. Oh, hi, I'm Ian from Plain Black Creative
or Lambo Creative as Zee likes to call us. Lambo.
Plain Black Creative. Last time we spoke on employee
morale and if you miss that, essentially it will
likely require you to change your business or
business culture and generally speaking, if you
aren't making that change for the benefit of
the business, you're gonna have a tough time
keeping it afloat. There's a quote that I would
like to speak about today. And that's if you
stand still on the train track, you will eventually
get hit. So in this episode, we want to discuss
what happens if you're the one that doesn't want
change, can't manage change or doesn't act on
change. Yeah. So if you're on train track and
you stay still, the train's eventually going
to run you over. That's pretty straightforward.
And some smart person out there is going to be
like, not if there's no trains running, but if
you're on a train track that there's no trains
running on, you're probably in some obsolete
thing that doesn't exist anymore and you probably
shouldn't be there. Yeah, change is super important.
If you're in a good place and you just expect
the world to stay exactly the same, it's not
going to happen. Someone's going to be trying
to take your spot. Someone's going to be trying
to do looking at you going, gee, you're doing
a good thing. Let's do that. Um, there's going
to be external factors, COVID -19, something
just comes in, throws a spanner in the works
and, and you're not going to be able to just
keep doing the same thing. Well, what's good
today is not going to be good tomorrow. If you
think about, if you bought a car 20 years ago,
you go, gee, this car's good. Couldn't be any
better. And you drive that now you go, oh, this
is hard. You've got to keep changing with the
times and if you want to be the best and you
want to protect what you've got, you can't just
sit there and do nothing. Is change the same
as innovation? Well, I think innovation is change,
but change is not necessarily innovation. Does
that make sense? What do you reckon Ian? Kodak.
Kodak. Kodak. That's a good story. Yeah. Give
it to us. Yeah. Tell us. Kodak obviously is cameras
and film synonymous with cameras for best part
of a century and they even developed, one of
their employees developed digital camera technology
which was the innovation. Speaking of employee
led initiatives from the last podcast. And you
see that everyone now is digital camera but this
is late 1970s, early 1980s. Our business model
revolves around selling film, repeat customers
buying film. Bringing it to be developed. bring
it in to be developed. Spend more money, buy
a really fancy camera, keep buying film for it,
keep getting it developed. So that could destroy
our business model instead of pivoting and going,
this is the future. This is what's going to be
the best solution for our customers. Yep. We
did what was best for our bottom line for a short
period of time as Kodak. And now Kodak doesn't
exist. You want a change with the times. or the
times are going to change past you. Yeah, we'll
keep talking about change this whole episode,
but I think it's just important on a slightly
different topic. That's why business has to be
doing what its customers want. If you don't like
your customers, find some different customers
and sell them what they want. But as soon as
you stop looking at what do our customers want?
Are they happy? Are we doing the right thing
for them? You've lost track 100 % of what makes
your business successful and they'll eventually
shut your business down by just going, we don't
want to deal with you anymore. Listen. Listen
to your customers. Yarn at Dunnybrook. His menu
is... This is a local cafe for Ian. Ian's local
cafe. It was a restaurant, downsized. Now it's
a cafe. And his secret is his menu is he listens
to his customers. He can come in with a fancy
menu, a la some places that have been and gone
in the last 18 months. But they're not listening
to the locals. The locals want meat and three
veg. The locals want simple, they want to spend...
Well, not all the locals, but the locals that
deal with him. The majority of his customers
want nice simple meal and they come in there
for the atmosphere and a little bit of entertainment
and banter from the proprietors. If he was to
start selling foie gras, he'd lose his customers
in a heartbeat. Yeah, but in the same respect,
a restaurant that just sells that, they're going
to have the different customer, you know? For
sure. And they start selling meat and three veg.
So yeah, they're spot on. You've got to listen
to your customers and give them what they want.
Another example would be Nokia or Blockbuster.
Yeah. Tell us about Nokia. So, um, Nokia had
some... Some really good phones. Some super good
phones. Snake. Yeah, Snake. I remember Snake.
Hey, how good is that as another example of looking
after your customers? Mobile phones, when I was
a kid, like... like, texting costs, 30 cents
a pop. So it was pretty, I think I was 17, 16
or 17, like they were big bricks, huge phones
and yeah, some people had knock ears and they
had snake. And then our phones had nothing. It
was just unfair. And they grew massively just
because the phone had snake. Like I don't think
there was any feature aside from that. that made
them better though like a nice size sorry ringtones
ringtones oh yes people used to buy ringtones
off a double o double five number back in the
day um but yeah customers what they want phone
you can ring you or you can ring and play snake
and snake was awesome But they had some really
good phones I had an N95 which I think had a
Carl Zeiss lens so that was the digital Sony
digital cameras then were the best cameras that
had Carl Zeiss lens and that phone had it had
a flash it had a GPS it was made in Japan like
it was a sick phone best phone on the market
by far unless you're sitting in the sun that
got too hot and then shut down but yeah they
were they were awesome phone makers. Head of
the game sorry is he? No you're right. Everyone's
on their phones now playing games. Yes. In every
movie you look back from that period, even if
it's an app record or whatever, there's Nokia
phones. So what was the thing that brought about
their downfall? Like what was that event? Well,
it's an interesting one because the N95 would
be classed as a smartphone. You could look at
maps, you could do navigation, you could do all
these things that phones couldn't do before.
But they were in the phone game. and essentially
the iPhones has been what wrecked them. They
were in the game of a snake. Nokia had snake
and they had a few features which cool now you're
a digital camera and now you can do this like
an iPhone nowhere near could take a photo of
what a Nokia could and couldn't even till Nokia
stopped making phones. But they're like this
one device can do anything. you can have this
game, you can do this, you can draw on it, you
can paint on it, you can have your your tunes,
so you don't need an iPod, which again was an
mp3 player, wasn't even the best mp3 player,
but it had the the iTunes, so it was the easiest
mechanism for people to get music. If people
knew about mp3s and computer lyrics, they would
just download it and illegally and they could
do it, but for everyone else, they're like, I
can't get the music, so the iTunes store basically,
it wasn't the iPod was better, they just had
iTunes. And then the iPhone was very similar.
It had the app store and had all these other
things you can do and it was nice, usable, easy
to use. People were used to iPods, so that was
a big factor. But Nokia just fundamentally didn't
change. They kept selling this phone because
they were selling phones like Kodak. And the
game changed. It was now a device that you play
games on. You have applications on. You do a
whole lot of other stuff. It's easy to use. And
so Nokia wasn't. It was also attributed to some
internal management decisions, some bit of rivalry.
I could just imagine that half of them would
be like, we want change, and then the other half
is like, no, stick to the old way. Yeah, 100%.
That's that core values that we talked about
in the last broadcast. Yeah, it is. You've got
struggles for power inside as well. And Nokia
focused on what they did and how they did it.
And Apple have always focused on why they do
things. So what for small businesses will be...
Let's talk about Blockbuster first. That's a
cool story still. It's near my heart until they
close down. Devonport had one of the last Blockbusters
in the world. Some of my fondest memories is
going to... There's a specific wall that had
all the new movies and you'd look at it and you
just, it was so cool. And there was all these
new movies that had just come out because you
didn't go to the cinemas to watch it. They'd
have that little stand of popcorn, caramelized
or colored popcorn. You'd pick one movie, you're
like, I'm going to take it out for two days and
I'm going to watch it 20 times in that two days.
And then you get your popcorn, you go and you
get your little takeaway with your family and
you just sit and watch it. That was just. Ah,
fantastic. That would have been DVDs, yeah, not
videos. Well, it was DVDs, yeah. What's a VCR?
Big brick. Yeah, and so that, it was sad as you
saw all the blockbuster companies or places close,
because that's such a, I don't know, it was so
nice for family to just sit around and do that,
but now there's Netflix, which came about for
accessibility. Can you tell us what kind of decisions
were made by a blockbuster that caused that?
Yeah, I can't remember the details of the story,
but it's not so much they... Well, the fundamental
is they didn't change. Yeah. And it's more about
what replaced it. So you're saying, oh, it's
great because you had this popcorn and the family
got around and we got to watch the movie 20 times.
But you had to go to the shop. And then if you
didn't return it after two days, you got a $40
fee. And then if you were like me, because you
forgot once you basically it was in the back
of your car and you didn't remember for a couple
of weeks and then it was like 60 bucks. So this
$10 movie cost you 70 bucks and you could have
bought it for 30. And just became quite a hassle,
which was what it was. So, you know, that's OK.
But you go and you get three movies and then
you try to remember to bring them back. And that
was that. But what changed was that there was
mail order DVDs Which I think Netflix Netflix
the first or but that the company started with
mail order and My boss at the time used to mail
water them. That was the first I ever saw it.
I'm like, what is this? He's like, oh I order
it they send it to me and I was put it back in
the sing and send it back and they were Subscription
base. Yeah, so based on the level of subscription
You could get four movies a month or six months
as long as you'd send it back. You could get
another one. Yep If we just think about what
you said, it's about the fans watching it, it's
about the fun, you can watch 20 times and you
get the pop, you can do all that, but it's easier.
You don't have to leave the house. There's no
late fees. That was the biggest thing. There
was no late fees. So what was the biggest thing
I remember about renting was the late fees I
used to go. It's just like when I go park somewhere,
they've got the app now. So just when I park,
I can just get the app out. But before that,
pretty much every second time I park somewhere,
not because I'm stupid, but I'd get a parking
ticket. I was too late coming back or I didn't
have the right coin to fit in the slot because
it doesn't take a 50 cent piece or I didn't have
any coins anymore because who's got coins? And
then the apps come along and you just clock in,
you know, I do it every time, no problems. So
the late phase is the biggest problem that industry
had from a customer experience point of view.
So the other thing was distribution. Each shop
had to have particular levels of things, whereas
they could then go, we don't need each shop.
We don't have any of those overheads. We can
have huge levels of stock. We just send out what
people want when they want it, which is super
more convenient for the client. And yeah, that
evolved into using the internet to replace the
postal service. and you can just choose what
you want, when you want, in the comfort of your
own home. Watch it 20 times. Like you said, you've
got to go to the shop and get popcorn. It's not
anymore. Click and collect or have it ordered
to your house. Yeah. Well, you know, one day
it might just miraculously appear at your lap.
Like, you know, with a click of a button, but
probably won't. Yeah, so it wasn't necessarily,
well, blockbuster what the sequence of events
or who did what. It doesn't really matter. the
fundamental is they didn't change they were too
based on we've got all these shops how can we
make these shops better rather than how can we
be better for our customers and they could have
had a subscription model they could have done
what netflix did they could have someone like
me gone hey if you pay us 30 bucks a week you
can come in and grab you can have three moves
at any time no late fees ever and they would
have got more out of me because i knew well 30
bucks a week cheaper than my late fees. I would
have gone there more often. I wouldn't have had
six movies a week because I don't have time to
watch it. But they could have done that with
everyone in town and it would have been way better.
But I don't know any video shops that did that.
I'm not a video shop expert. But it's the same
thing, isn't it? So by not focusing on what their
customers want and how to best the dealer, they'll
focus on how does our business work better, what's
easier for us. It's so annoying when people don't
bring back movies because then no one else can
have it. So I want to hit them with late fees.
There would have been a big chunk of that awesome,
awesome phrase that a lot of business owners
use. We've always done it this way. Yeah. Yeah,
this is what everyone else does. Yeah. So they
were just thinking, well, this is how it is.
So this is what we'll do. And then Netflix somewhere
on using the internet going, well, hang on, we
don't need posts. We don't need people to come
to the shop. We can literally just send it to
their TV. How cool is that? And everyone's gone.
Yeah, that's cool. I think Spotify. You don't
need iTunes anymore, like you pay three bucks
per song and then you change phones and you lose
it all. You just, Spotify, I've got 1 ,800 songs
on my like song playlist every time a new song
comes on, like it, every now and then I get bored
of my music and I go to discover and it just
plays me songs I like. Amazon, same thing. Here's
a shop and here's things other things people
bought. People who like this also liked. Here's
things we think you'll like. Much better than
a shop. So, yeah. After the break we're gonna
chat about what this would look like for a small
business and how you can manage change. So we'll
talk about that soon. How can a small business
anticipate change? Million dollar question. People
don't like change for starters, do they? No.
The only people who like change are babies with
a dirty nappy. Really. They don't really like
it though, do they? Do they care? We fear change.
We're wired to fear change. Yeah, no one wants
to change. We're going to push against it. Yeah.
If you're happy, why would you want to change?
I think people that have made a lot of money
have been able to predict or anticipate what's
going on. It doesn't matter what industry you're
in. If you can say, hey, here's a good solution
or here's something that's changing and be at
the front of that, you're going to do pretty
well. Cryptocurrency is one of those. Regardless
of whether it's a good investment or not, and
there's a lot of people losing money and a lot
of people making money, that if you were there
at the start and gone, oh, that's not a bad idea.
I believe in what that Bitcoin is trying to do.
And you bought, I remember when they were 20
bucks, 20 bucks, and you probably got 50 of them,
whatever it was. I was like, that's all right.
And I was like, no, I'll go down to video easy
and buy some DVDs. Yeah, I don't know too much
about that. But later on, I think they got to
five thousand dollars and they're just going
up and it's like, oh, put a few grand in there,
because I know the people on the bandwagon are
about to jump on. So there's some money to be
made. But then once the initial thing sort of
went, it's like, well, we'll go up. We'll go
down. Who knows? We'll do what's not going to
be. It's not a safe investment, you know, but
if you're really just investing on speculation,
so it's not a not a great idea. But it doesn't
change the point if people say it coming and
go, hey, this is going to happen. This is the
next big thing. And they understand it. They
research it. You get in there first. There's
money to be made, but there's also an impact
on the world. If you can find a new way to do
something, if you can find a peg that doesn't
break, for the clotheslines, you know, there's
little problems people have if you can solve
them. If you're on the train track, if you stand
still, crouch down and listen to the train track,
listen for the train coming. Yeah. Great example.
Okay, here comes a tidal wave of change. let's
be ahead of that bell curve and we know the bell
curve is normally going to be early adopters
early majority majority and then you'll have
the people that don't get a mobile phone because
until the phone the old dial phone doesn't work
anymore you you want to be sort of that early
majority and if you haven't seen those early
adopters starting to do what they're doing you
haven't been listening yeah correct so you've
got to listen to your customers That's right.
So something that everyone can do is get feedback
and people are afraid to ask for feedback for
whatever reason. But if it's bad, you probably
want to know about it so you can do something.
But people don't mind things bad, things happening.
They mind if you don't care or don't know anything
about it. But most things, if something bad happens,
you can fix it and then stop it happening again.
In the same respect, you can. Ask your customers,
what do you want? If VideoEasy, BlockBus or any
video company said, hey guys, what do you want?
Probably everyone would have said less fees,
less late fees. And if they figured out a solution
to that, they would have been in a better position.
They probably would have been much more likely
to change their business model. But they weren't.
And, you know, it can be like electricians now.
So, you know, Tesla, there's batteries. There's
solar panels for your roofs like tiles, solar
tiles. There's electric cars and you need your
charger installed. There's smart homes, smart
lights, all this stuff. And the early adopters
or the early majority evens probably getting
to that stage for some of that are saying, we
want this. But there's no electricians out there
saying, we do smart homes. we are the smart home
place. If you want a smart home, come to us and
we'll install everything smart into your house.
And I know people would pay for that, but there's
not a lot of businesses going that way. So if
electricians were asking the customers, what
would you like? Oh yeah, we're wiring in your
oven, but what else would you like? Tell me about
this. They'd probably hear that this other stuff's
happening and maybe we should look into this.
Maybe we want to incorporate into a business.
Maybe we don't. It doesn't matter, but yeah,
customers are definitely the first port of call
to. Find out what's gonna happen in the future.
And the other thing is just your industry You've
got trade shows and you know, you've got to be
interested if you're in your business and you're
sitting there not paying attention to anything
Yeah, you're definitely gonna get overtaken by
someone Google Google. Yeah, it's pretty pretty
easy to To find out the trends like we always
used to do it in heating and cooling when I was
sales and marketing for them Yes, you look at
what's happening in Europe. Yep Europe were ten
years ahead of Australia and Australia was five
years ahead of Tasmania. Yes So what's trending
in Europe right now, let's just put that in our
back pocket because we know eventually that's
going to be cost -effective to do here. Hydronic
heating. In -slab heating became the thing. How
are we heating the water? to pump through your
slaps. So be ahead of the game, and it's not
that hard to do that anymore. You don't have
to travel to Europe to find out what the trends
are. You just Skype into a supplier over there,
or even just Google some companies. Well, it's
interesting you say, hydronic heating, because
we do Google Ads for a company, and we were advertising
something different, and hydronic heating came
up. I said, well, what about hydronic heating?
They're like, oh, we don't do that. I said, well,
gee, a lot of people are searching for it. They're
like, really? And they didn't know because they
didn't advertise it, so they would have no idea.
And just through the fact that we were paying
attention to what customers were looking for
on Google, going, gee, this market's actually
pretty big. So yeah, just do your research, pay
attention. So let's just say someone stumbled
upon something that is a good idea to change
for. How do they do that? How do they implement
that change into their business? Maybe we'll
just go back a step first, because we're talking
about change as far as the next big idea. But
you've got changes in, we're going to put a new
system at work today, or we're going to change
the layout of our office. We're going to move
to zero. Change our accounting system. We're
going to stop using paper in our office and we're
going to do things digitally. That's all change.
It's probably a much bigger issue for most businesses.
Being able to change your direction is good,
but if you've got a good direction and you're
paying attention, you don't need change, it's
fine. But yeah, how do you put something in place?
Well, staff members say, hey, this is a good
idea, let's try this. How do you actually get
people on board and how do you do that? Positive
change versus negative change as well. Yeah,
not all change is good. So how can you do change?
How can you change? Well, just stop doing what
you're doing and do something else. Make it somebody
else's idea. Yeah, if you've got a team, then
you don't necessarily need to tell people what
to do. Yeah, but getting them on board and saying,
hey, what do you think about this? Because if
you tell someone, we're going to change this
way, you're going to get immediate pushback.
Especially if you've marked them up before. Yeah.
Whereas if someone comes to you with the idea,
maybe a employee -led... initiative. If you can
seed that based on conversations, based on lunchroom
conversations, based on meetings or what have
you, generally people are more open to change
if they feel like they're engaged in it or it's
their idea. You might have the greatest idea
for change and it'd be the world -breaking change
for your company. Let someone else take the credit
for it. Yeah. Does it really matter who gets
credit for it? No. End of the day, it doesn't
really matter. But yeah, so how else can you
get people to change? I think getting people
on board is the number one. So some people need
to be in charge to be on board. They need to
feel like, yeah, this is my idea. I'm going to
take credit to be on board. There needs to be
a need for change. If you're comfortable, you
don't feel like you need to change. Yeah. I'm
coasting along. This is good. Why should I change?
Yeah, I think number one thing with change is
you need to be uncomfortable So always be uncomfortable
because change is uncomfortable. So as an organization
you want people to always feel uncomfortable
There's always a step. There's always something
we can get into this now. We're not doing things
perfect Like we've got to get better. We've got
to be better. We've got to do something different
We've got to be ahead of these people. We've
got to change the world. Whatever it is You've
got to be uncomfortable the status quo and you
know have that as your culture in the business.
But getting people on, going back to getting
people on board, well, how do you do that? It's
got to be in the greater good, you know? So why
do people not want to change? Well, I'm comfortable,
I've learnt this, I know what I'm doing, I'm
reasonably confident, I'm coming to work, I'm
doing my thing, like... I really like my job.
Yeah. I've used it my whole life. Yeah, yeah,
accounting systems. Yeah, my mother -in -law
has done accounting systems for a lot of different
businesses. OK. And she's always worked with
my job. And it took years. to get her across
to zero. When did she change? About two years
ago. Oh wow. Flipped over to zero. She hung on.
Biggest advocate for zero now. Zero is the greatest
thing since last breath. She probably would have
been told about zero 10 years ago too. Absolutely.
But yeah, you've got to understand that people
have different priorities, so getting people
on board, well this is what we're doing, this
is why we're doing it, and this is what it's
going to look like. Just like recruiting a person.
What's in it for you? Just like getting a client.
What's in it for the client? The change is this.
We are doing it because we've got all these problems.
So if you've got an organisation that wants to
do good things for the customer, well change
should be easy if it's client focused. We're
doing this because these issues will go away
and these good results will happen. People will
probably be on board. Yeah. If you've got a business
where people don't care about the clients and
they just care about what's easiest for them.
You probably need to be working on that a little
bit, definitely, but you can probably say, this
is what we're changing. This is the problem you
have with it at the moment. You've told us all
these things you don't like, and this is going
to make your life better. It'll be pretty stupid
if you were changed to make their life worse.
So if you were changing something because it
made your life better and everyone else's life
worse, probably not the best solution. And I
think that's where a lot of people go wrong.
I tried to change that, no one got on board.
Yeah, well, because you're trying to change someone
to make your life better and no one else's. And
you didn't communicate? Yeah. Well, yeah, sorry,
that could be it too. It was good for them, but
you didn't communicate that or you didn't communicate
that in the right way. Comes down to at the end
of the day, you got to sell the change. Yeah.
Everything's sales. Everything's sales. Yeah.
Doesn't seem so scary. So like talking about
change, when we talk about it like that, it's
just like, well, you've got to do it for the
survival of your business. So that's the issue.
That's kind of like what I'm getting. Well, I
think when do people change? It's interesting
to use the word survival because that's the main
reason people change. So if people things are
perfect, no one will change. If something awesome
could happen. Generally, people still won't change.
Something bad will happen, generally won't change.
If something's really going to affect their world,
they'll do everything they can to change. Be
ahead of it. Sometimes people are like, you look
at some shows, you look at things and they'll
get threatened with their jobs if they don't
do something, and then they do it. You go, gee,
that's terrible management style. But literally
for some people, that's the only thing that will
make them change. But they're not going to leave
and go somewhere else because they're too afraid,
you know, they want that security. But you've
got to be able to go think about it's the survival
of the business or it's it's it's not just communicating.
This is going to be better for us, it's going
to be better for the clients, because some people
still won't care. It's got to be literally this
is if this doesn't happen, the world's over.
What's in it for me? Yeah. So, for example, It
could be if we put this new system in place into
our business, our clients will get this, this,
this. They'll get the best service they can get.
If we don't do it, we're not going to have any
clients in two years. No one's going to have
any jobs. That's pretty scary. But we're not
going to have that problem because we're going
to put this in place. We're all going to get
on board and we're going to do it. There's lots
of different ways to frame things. And if you've
got the right people in your organization as
a business owner, You can vet people at the recruitment
stage. How do you cope with change? Ask the right
questions. Yeah, as part of your culture, you
need to be making sure that people feel, we talked
before in other podcasts about various things,
but if people feel supported, they feel confident,
they feel like they're part of the team, change
shouldn't be an issue. It's where people are
not part of the team. They don't feel confident.
They feel like they're protecting their job or
they... don't they're not appreciated well they're
going to do the least they're going to do the
easiest thing for them and that change is going
to be a huge issue so sometimes change is really
complicated but it's not the change it's the
issue it's everything else what would be one
piece of advice that you give to a business facing
change at the moment change do it relax yeah
It's not as scary as you think it's going to
be. The anticipation of the event is going to
be bigger than the event itself. It's true. Like
anything. Once you acknowledge you need change,
do it. And then deal with it. Because the consequences
of not changing in an environment like we're
in, have been in for the last 24 months, can
be fatal for a business. And if you're a business
that decides that, yes, I'm not gonna let people
work from home or I'm just gonna put my feet
in the mud and say, we've always done it this
way. Well, doing the same thing and expecting
different results is the definition of insanity,
so. Smart man said that apparently. Very, very
clever chap, I believe. It's the Einstein. Yeah,
and I think, well, everyone has a local town.
Even if you're in a big city, it's a local suburb
and whatnot. And you've got the same sort of
types of shops in there. city center complaining
no one goes in there anymore and it's dead and
it's this and it's that and that their shops
are empty and blah blah blah and they should
have free parking or this that and the other
to get people back into their shops but when
you look at it and you think about it what are
those shops doing differently or good nothing
they're literally just complaining because no
one walks past their shop and that's the only
thing their business had good was foot traffic
of people walking past the shop they don't go
oh maybe if i did something to get people in
my shop Like Harvey Norman, they have the photo
center, foot traffic. They're not going, how
can we change this around? Like maybe if I had
all my products on a web store, like online shop,
maybe people don't buy it online, but they can
see from home if I've got what they want and
got things that I like, which is way more convenient.
And then they want it straight away, they'll
come down. No brainer, right? But no, it's too
hard. Someone is going to sit here and complain
and talk to the local chamber of commerce. And
we're going to do what we can do to try to boost
the numbers up in town. But they're not looking
at their business and how they can change. They're
not listening to the customer either. Yeah. So
then you've got COVID come through, which is
why I was talking about this. And these stores
have disappeared because they couldn't, they
had no fat. They were just hanging on, not changing.
something bad happens, and they can't change.
For some of them, though, it was really good.
They had a bit of savings or whatever, and then
they've had to do this other stuff. They've been
forced to do online stores, and they're like
the best businesses. Like, I can't believe I
didn't do this before. Like your mother -in -law,
or your mother, zero, right? So sometimes that's
the drastic action that forces the change. People
have to change. Yeah, that's good. Are there
any key takeaway points that you would, like
we've talked about? you know, what advice, but
if you could put it down into a small ball and
just give it to someone, just... If you struggle
with change, you've got to number one, look back
at what you're doing in your business and take
a look at yourself. If you're a business owner
as a leader and you're not doing things right,
if people won't try things, if they won't do
things, if they don't want to improve, you've
got to look elsewhere. You can't just say it's
a problem of change. How do I force people to
do something? That's... not going to work long
term. You can crack the whip, you can bribe them,
you can do whatever, but you don't want to be
bribing people every time. You don't want to
be cracking the whip every time. You've got to
look at yourself and go, well, what's wrong with
my business? What's wrong with my culture? What's
wrong with my model? Why aren't people doing
what we need to be doing as a business to have
happy clients? So you've got to reflect a fair
bit as a leader and just go, well, what's going
wrong with business? And talk to people. We always
say talk to people. We talk to people and say,
yeah, I'm having these problems. What's going
on? But don't just pick the one that sounds like
the one that you thought was good advice. Yeah
I was thinking that so yeah I'll do that because
you said it too. The hard thing I think from
a business owner or anyone really is to be self
-critical and look at okay every idea I come
up with is the greatest idea in the world until
I talk to my wife. Don't be an idiot or I talk
to you and you go don't be a moron that's not
going to work. It might be fair, but it might
be the other way around, too. You might talk
to your partner and they'll always say, oh, that's
a bit risky. That's not a good person to listen
to, you know, because priorities are different.
Sometimes you want to save house, you know, kids
to go, whatever. So probably not the person to
be talking to about risking a whole bunch of
money to make some more money. So I think the
second thing in summary is being unhappy with
your situation. It's not been like we talked
about gratitude earlier in another podcast. And
I'm not saying don't do that. Definitely do that.
But you need to be going, well, how can we do
what we do better? How are our clients having
a bad experience? What else should we be doing
for our clients? Also, how are our direct competitors
having clients having a bad experience? Because
the reason you get clients is because they've
tried somewhere else. When you started business
abundance, it was like, OK, this is the way everyone
else is doing it. Let's not do that. I didn't
set out to do the opposite. I was like, okay,
well, the problems people have is that they can't
talk to someone who either cares or has the opportunity
to care or the skills. So if you wanted business
advice, you had to go through a whole bunch of
steps and investment and you didn't know whether
it was good or bad. If you had an accountant,
you'd do your... normal stuff, you might ask
questions, you might not, but there's a bit of
a paywall in between and definitely a time lag.
When marketing, people are selling individual
types of marketing, but they're not sitting back
and going, well, yeah, we could do that and that
would be good. But if we did this completely
other thing, that's going to be the biggest impact.
Let's just do that. Because you're too busy selling
a website to redesign or you're too busy selling
Facebook or whatever it is that you do. for us
it was looking at okay well the business owner
is our client the problem they have is they don't
know who to talk to and they want someone that
they can trust they can talk to that will help
them so that's what we do as a business they
can talk to us we're available and we will help
them if we don't know what to do we will we know
what the problem is and we probably know people
that can help them we can point them in the right
direction But we're not trying to sell them whatever
it is that we do just because they clicked on
an ad or we're hunting them down trying to say,
do this with us because it's great. That's one
of the things that led Jay and I to start playing
black was you look at a whole heap of people
selling what they want to sell to people instead
of listening for the solution that the client
requires. Yeah, we need help with this. So can
you help us with that? Yes, we can help you with
that. If we can't help you, it's okay for us
to handball you to somebody else and build a
community of service providers. Yeah, so some
would say that we change by because of COVID
working from home or it's not because of, it's
just that was always the plan because it's flexible.
People want freedom. People working for me want
freedom. They want opportunity. So the only way
we can do that is say you work from wherever
you want. If you want to go working, get an office.
No, no worries. That's fine. You know, half my
house is an office suite now. So, you know, you
can make that happen how you want. But we're
listening to our clients. They want good service.
They want it to be, I don't have to drive across
town, find a car park, sit at a reception for
10 minutes, meet with you, talk about true the
fat for half an hour, and then get some advice.
Then you write it down, send it to me. Then I've
got to go back to my car and go home, and now
I've wasted an afternoon. I want to just ring
up and say, the world's ending. What do you reckon?
And you say, yeah, no, I'll be okay. Maybe you
should just do this. And 30 seconds later, we're
having a good day. That's what people want. So
if we can always try to focus on making that
service better, that's going to be a good change
for our business. But breaking that back into
your industry or X by Z, it's about going back
to what Z said, ask your clients. Get a feedback
form. What did you like? What didn't you like?
What do you think we could do better? Like, I
don't care. You're not bad mouthing us. Literally,
we just want to know because if we can fix it,
we're going to fix it. And that's within reason.
Like if you're over the top of your service and
you can't charge a fee, it's not a business model.
So within the model. But if the client's always
saying, oh, I need this particular question answered
ASAP and you're taking a day to answer it. Well,
can we do that as a business? Yes, no. No, we
can't. Well, we need to make sure when we're
getting a client, they know it is a 24 -hour
response. Because then when they sign up, they
agree, they're happy. It's when we're promising
too much. Now, how do we change? Do we need a
system to manage our inquiries and our questions
to be able to get that response out fast? Do
we need more people? Do we need a library or
a database people can look at their, you know,
search their thing and find the answer themselves?
Like, how can you make that faster? That's change
you should always be looking at doing. You're
always going to have better outcomes if you under
promise and over deliver. Yeah. Yeah. So maybe
your retail, maybe if you sell televisions, right?
What's the current situation? You buy a TV, you
take it home, maybe you get it delivered, maybe
you get it installed. That's traditional, but
if you ask 20 people that bought a TV what service
they would like, it might be very different.
It might be, I know I want it set up straight
away. Can I, when I get home, just ring you and
you just guide me through it over the phone,
which is more than possible. Does anyone do that?
Maybe people do it if they get asked, but they
don't offer it. I remember when I used to sell
televisions, and it's talking about me, but it's
just an industry, so I know, right? People would
buy a $10 ,000 TV, which is a huge sale. They
didn't want to wait till mid next week to have
it delivered and installed by some delivery driver
that doesn't actually know about TVs. They wanted
it that night so they could watch the rugby.
or they wanted it that night because they had
friends coming around and they watched the movie
from, you know, the video shop, whatever it was.
There was a reason they were buying that TV and
it wasn't so they could get it next week when
the delivery guy to deliver it. And I just say,
oh, I'm always after work, I come around and
I set it up for you. And usually when I got there,
they would have had it mostly set up and they're
just like, oh, can you check it for me? And then
they give me a drink and we have a bit of a chat
and then I'll go and that was fine with me at
the time, you know, but I made good commission
on that too. So, but that as a business could
have we had that where. the whole short store
shut or even got paid an extra hour and they
were offering clients, hey, do you want me to
come around and check it for you? And I think
if you bought a computer and then the next day
someone rang you or went around and said, I just
want to make sure you got it set up correctly,
even if people didn't need it, you're going to
get referrals, you're going to get recommendations,
you're getting a level service. So it's about
asking. your customers what do they want and
being realistic enough not to go that they've
been needy they've been demanding how can we
implement that change and then having a team
that's on the same page we're going to wrap this
episode up so next episode we'll be chatting
about how you create a community of support around
your business and this is community that loves
and is invested in your business and are not
one -time customers. They're customers who are
with you for your journey and the value in that
is tribes. So essentially from a monetary point
of view you're looking at not just one customer
you're looking at ten times that customer. So
we're just talking about how we can do that,
or how you can do that, how you can implement
some small little processes in your business,
why you need to do it, and what your business
will probably look like in 10 years time if you
do do it. As always. If you have any questions
about what we've talked about today, make sure
to visit our website and book a catch up. You
can visit our website at www .businessabundance
.online. We'll look forward to chatting to you
next time. Goodbye. So long. Bye.