Grow A Small Business Podcast

In this episode, Troy interviews Matt Orlic, founder of the Inspire Brands Group. Matt is based in Zagreb, Croatia. Matt has had around 15 businesses in the last 23 years. He had everything from laser clinics to manufacturing easter eggs, brands in the drone industry, speakers and headphones accessories, licenses to manufacture sports apparel for Under Armour, and many more. One of those businesses is called the Inspire Brands Group. A business that helps eCommerce businesses scale through ad campaigns. Matt used to build brands and distribute them to retailers; however, after suffering a horrible loss, he decided to dive into the world of digital marketing. Now earning over $30 million in revenue in the past 15 months. According to Matt Orlic, in growing a small business, you should have these two things: focus and wisdom. For small-medium business owners, focus is important, taking on one business at a time, not giving into the shiny-object syndrome; and wisdom for reliable, sound, reasonable, and good judgment. This Cast Covers: Matt Orlic's business: The Inspire Brands Group. What pushed Matt to focus on digital marketing. The growth of the business over seven years. Matt's myriad of businesses. Creating something unique and innovative. Keeping on going in spite of difficulties. The difficulty associated with filling open positions. Bringing to fruition an idea or concept. Always planning your next move. Utilizing each and every set of skills. Links: Matt's Linkedin Matt's Company Website Additional Resources: The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It by Michael E. Gerber Quotes: "Think about how to create something unique and innovative." — Matt Orlic. "Anyone that's really done something great, has had a massive loss to some degree." — Matt Orlic. "If someone's not in a job rather than potentially they aren't the best at what they do in that sector." — Matt Orlic. "Make sure you hire the right people and then the culture follows." — Matt Orlic. "Make sure you have the next move in place." — Matt Orlic.

In this episode, Troy interviews Martin Quinn, Director of M2 Logistics. He's based in Launceston, Northern Tasmania, Australia. The team have co-ordinated manufacture and distribution of over 100,000L of medical grade Hand Sanitiser. Later on Tasmanian Hand Sanitizer. Martin together with Matthew Will and Charles Beaumont formed M2 Logistics in April 2020 at the beginning of the COVID outbreak. He got the sniff that the state government was starting to run out of medical-grade hand sanitizer throughout the hospital system sensing a massive shortage. Martin, having worked in a pharmacy doing a lot of manufacturing, he figured he can be of help offering his expertise in what to do. However, the government wasn't interested in that and wanted to purchase the product outright from them instead. They now also provide a wide range of cleaning and sanitation products as well as Personal Protective Equipment. Since inception they have supplied over 2,000,000 face masks to customers all over Australia. The wake up call for him when he still had his pharmacy was when his kids were playing soccer while the parents thought his wife was a single mum, because he was never there. Martin believes, in business, it is beneficial to get people with completely different skill sets. This Cast Covers: How the business was started during the COVID outbreak Having been out of work for probably two or three years having sold the pharmacies How the connections he had were instrumental in starting the business Being lucky they were able to fund the business when they asked for 50% upfront deposit from government The government request of 60,000 liters of of hand sanitizer instead of just a few hundreds expected Started conversations with essential oils in Tasmania when they noticed people often stick their nose in their hands after rubbing hand sanitizers because some of them smell like complete shit Developing their own hand sanitizer based from their experience which is now being used in Sapphire - a very premium invested boutique hotel in the world The government request of 60,000 liters of of hand sanitizer instead of just a few hundreds expected Links: Sleeker Media Shopify Additional Resources: Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki Quotes: "Don't try and find a carbon copy of yourself and think that that's going to work because you're just duplicating yourself, and, and you're not giving yourself a broader spectrum of skills." — Martin Quinn "People can get very emotionally attached to a small business, but if you get the opportunity to exit and the price is right, then I think you've just got to give some serious consideration." — Martin Quinn "Everything has its timing." — Martin Quinn "We were conscious of not over-promising and delivering, I think it's a recipe for disaster." — Martin Quinn "Everyone's got to be on for the journey. If they're not, then it's just not going to work." — Martin Quinn

In this episode, Rob interviews Dina Buchanan, Director of Business Strategy at Core Digital Marketing. They develop marketing strategies that deliver quality leads and clients to a business. Their company, Core Digital Marketing, find.com, high-end client program, providing small business owners a system that can be platformed, with LinkedIn, or a social media platform, allowing business owners to customize the types of clients that they want to be brought to them. They also provide different strategies with videos, webinars and coaching throughout a 12-week period. Dina's advice to small business owners is to seek out a business coach to help navigate your marketing plan. She says birds of a feather flock together, so your target clients will know more of your target clients. So when you're hitting that group of people consistently, that's when expansion happens. This Cast Covers: How Core Digital Marketing helps their clients The onboarding 90-minute call Why building a zero-to-hero story works Why their main focus is Linkedin for digital marketing Complimentary strategy session, to anyone listening to the podcast worth $2,000 Links: Find.com, Inc Bookcallnow.com Quotes: "I had a coach of mine tell me no marketing, no money, more marketing, more money." — Dina Buchanan "Working with business coaches, any type of coaching in your life, I think is life-changing." — Dina Buchanan "I have to get to the power of the personal leadership team over at the higher client, they do all the magic." — Dina Buchanan "The main factor in marketing is consistently targeting the right people." — Dina Buchanan "When you've got consistent, predictable clients coming in that are your ideal clients, business is better, it's more consistent, and growth happens." — Dina Buchanan

In this episode, I interview Dr. Angela Lim, the Co-Founder, and CEO of Clearhead. Angela has set up her own business to assist employees in remaining resilient, avoiding burnout, being more productive, and feeling more confident in doing their tasks. Angela, a trained medical doctor, has decided to leave her previous job to pursue the opportunity she saw for employers to step up in providing better mental health and wellbeing support for their people. Clearhead was established in 2018 and has been running for 5 years. Went from basically no customers to a 15% market share in one year. Last year they9x their revenue and 6x their customers and 3x their workforce to 20 FTEs. Growing a small business, according to Angela, necessitates being self-aware of your mental state in order to work efficiently. So she says, "If you give up, then your team will give up. If you're excited, your team will be excited. This Cast Covers: Running an employee well-being solution that was delivered both online and in person with the help of intelligent AI support. Providing mental health support for those employees that are struggling but also to small business owners. Tips and tools on how to helping business owners and their employees to stay resilient prevent burnout be more productive, and be more confident. How running your own business is like training to be a professional athlete Sharing the highs and lows of running a startup to the steps to finding product market fit Discuss the growing pains from going from no customers to a 15% market share in one year. Discussing Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) and LifeTime Value (LTV). Links: Angela's Linkedin Additional Resources: Clearhead Good to Great by Jim Collins Quotes: "Culture is not what you say it's what you do." —Angela Lim "Humans don't change unless you make it very clear why they should change." —Angela Lim "Success for Clearhead is to be the go-to digital mental health brand that people trust ." —Angela Lim "You have to dutifully understand who your customers are." —Angela Lim "If you build something that people resonate with, you are solving a meaningful problem, that's when you know you've found product marketing fit. —Angela Lim

In this episode, Troy interviews Sabrina and Rik Konings from Kings Digital based in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia. Kings Digital is a team of digital specialists who provide expertise across Strategy, Digital Brand & Web Design, Technical Development, and Digital Marketing. The business started in 2013 as a sole trader and then evolved quickly into the original business KingsDesign. The business grew organically with the help of consulting work for larger Tasmanian businesses and founder Rik's foresight to create a good network of professional contacts. The Kings Digital team uses customer retention to measure the success of their business and aims to work with clients across multiple areas of expertise. What Rik and Sabrina have found the most challenging is creating a good team, which is integral to the business. To them, success would be to be able to step out of the business for a reasonable period of time and not feel that you need to be part of it. This Cast Covers: How they got a 75 to 80% client retention The struggle of finding the right staff How effectively removing the single-point dependencies within the business allows for growth Self-funding the business without any investor and financing Rebranding from Kings Design to Kings Digital Links: Kings Digital Entrepreneurs' Programme Grant Additional Resources: It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work by Jason Fried Scaling Up by Verne Harnish Quotes: "Marketing can be quite confrontational upfront because you're literally questioning your client, whether what they want is right or not. Sometimes that means we're literally not getting to work because we don't agree with their approach. But I think that honesty upfront does build a lot of trust in that relationship." — Sabrina and Rik Konings "I think we've said no to more work than we've said yes to because we are now looking at work that isn't going to serve us and isn't going to make our team happy." — Sabrina and Rik Konings "We're going to make a lot of mistakes, we're going to get things wrong but it's about constant discipline, chipping away at it and getting that momentum in terms of growing your business." — Rik Konings "Honesty upfront does build a lot of trust in that relationship." — Rik Konings "In Marketing, I think the main thing is to do your research upfront. And then to not try a single thing, try multiple things, and have well-detailed reporting in place." — Rik Konings Be strategic upfront, think about your audience, think about what you're trying to do, really think about those goals and then try the channels that you think are going to be worthwhile. Be brutal, cut what doesn't work and hone in what does and capitalise on that. - Rik Konings

In this episode, Michael interviews Alisha Conlin-Hurd, co-founder of Persuasion Experience. She's based in Melbourne, Australia. She started her career in sales, cold calling agency, ebook leads, and telco sales, eventually ending up building funnels and landing pages for 400+ clients. Now she is the co-founder of Persuasion Experience - a funnel and conversion agency that focuses on the post-click experience. A sales funnel is a marketing concept that describes the journey a customer goes through in the process of making a purchase. A funnel is every single touchpoint that somebody has with your brand. Alisha Conlin-Hurd helps small-medium business owners by revolutionizing how they handle traffic by focusing on the post-click experience, prioritizing traffic conversion. Alisha emphasized the importance of small-medium business owners understanding their target market. Focusing on the target market's pain points and position the conversation around it rather than using internal jargon to oversell themselves. She said, "because giving what they want to hear is different from what they need to hear." This Cast Covers: Alisha Conlin-Hurd's endeavors before co-founding Persuasion Experience. Mapping out all your company's touchpoints to mitigate revenue leaks. Ways to map out the touchpoints. The difference between the channels and the traffic. Prioritizing getting the lead. Business owners understand their target market. Focusing on the customer's pain points. Doing marketing is answering what's in it for the customers. The two levers you can pull in lead generation. Going back to the basics. Links: Alisha's LinkedIn Alisha's Company Website Alisha's Twitter Alisha's YouTube Additional Resources: Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works by A. G. Lafley Quotes: "Most people should focus on is their acquisition." — Alisha Conlin-Hurd. "What they want to hear and what they need to hear are two different things." — Alisha Conlin-Hurd. "If your marketing is led by assumptions, you'll usually be pretty disappointed." — Alisha Conlin-Hurd. "It's your responsibility as a business owner to better yourself." — Alisha Conlin-Hurd. "Don't forget the little things that made you successful." — Alisha Conlin-Hurd.

In this episode, Troy interviews Steph Whittle, founder of HVAC Growth Lab. She's based in Austin, Texas, United States. HVAC is an acronym that stands for Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning. Basically, working with the contractors who do all the heating and cooling work in your home. In 2020, during COVID, decided to niche down her digital marketing business and focus on the HVAC industry with a mission to help 500 of America's top HVAC contractors double their business through profitable marketing by 2027. Steph says the most stressful point is when COVID hit, there was just so much uncertainty at the time. Like, where's this going to go? She didn't like the conversations, the sales conversations with prospects, she was starting to feel defeated. But she just kept putting one foot forward, sharing to people what she knows pertaining to HVAC industry. This Cast Covers: How a small talk on the military plane while on mission inspired her to learn marketing Why she niched down to HVAC industry Fun fact about Legionnaires' disease How funding the first 2 years through day trading stock hinder their growth The benefits of having two kinds of mentors - a tactical and strategic The challenge of trying to improve everything by 1% How she used to avoid problems but is now embracing it How she relates to Drew Barrymore's character from the movie '50 First Dates' Links: Josh Nelson's Seven Figure Agency Wave Apps Additional Resources: Nuts!: Southwest Airlines' Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success by Kevin Freiberg The 10X Rule by Grant Cardone Quotes: "Anyone who's good at sales should never be doing less than 250k a year in income. And anyone good at marketing should never be doing less than a million a year in income." — Steph Whittle "Success is being able to do what you want, whenever you want, wherever you want, with whomever you want." — Steph Whittle "Focus on the volume and perfection will come." — Steph Whittle "I think sometimes when you have a little too much funding, you start to get sloppy, and I don't ever want to get sloppy." — Steph Whittle "The best way to generate startup revenue, is to get customers and get them to pay you." — Steph Whittle

In this episode, I interview David Feldman the Founder, and CEO of 3 Owl based in Atlanta, United States. David has set up his own business to provide in-house services to help clients benefit as far as hands-off. With over 5 years of experience in building websites, designing logos, and copywriting, David has decided to leave his former jobs to create his technology-first-creative agency in order to scale and open windows for improvements. 3 Owl was established in 2012 and has been running for over 10 years. Hit 7-figure business and experienced 35% compounded annual growth for 6 years with over 20 FTEs. David has said that growing a small business requires developing your own systems and consistency in order to become efficient. So he says, "I think everyone is different but I think just developing good habits is so easy to just get to go off the rails and not be efficient." This Cast Covers: Running the intersection of design strategy and technology. Expert at building systems in business. Doing everything from designing the visual identity of a brand while in-house. Learning the benefits of doing business in-house. Connecting design and technology and measuring results. Made a seven-figure profit in 2019 and is currently growing at a 50% annual rate. Wrote a book during the pandemic called Small By Design. Relating the benefits of hiring experienced employees in your business. Helping entrepreneurs to dream, come up with ideas, and get them executed Sharing his small but gold achievements including the story of his people. Links: David's Linkedin Additional Resources: 3 Owl Traction by Gino Wickman The Ride of a Lifetime by Robert Iger Quotes: "Success means being able to do things that make you happy in a balanced way." —David Feldman "If you can't find replicable systems, you're not going to grow." —David Feldman "When you're small, you have to get the work done." —David Feldman "Building boundary between your job and personal life improves your efficiency." —David Feldman "Be real like be as transparent as you can be with your company." —David Feldman

For this week's QFF podcast episode, Rob interviews Darryl Stickel, Ph.D., who's based in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. Darryl's an esteemed academic, he earned his Ph.D. at Duke university where he did his thesis on "building trust in hostile environments.", he's also a researcher and consultant, and Darryl is the founder of Trust Unlimited. Trust, is an essential component in any relationship, whether it be between friends, or family members, especially in business. Trust really can make the difference between a high-performing business and a low-performing business. Darryl Stickel, Ph.D., founder of Trust Unlimited, helps small-medium business owners, by providing insights and strategies to help build and maintain trust in a business. According to Darryl, to achieve trust even in times when you made mistakes, you must have benevolence; have others' best interests at heart, have integrity; commit hard to your promises, and ability; being able to follow up on your promises. This Cast Covers: Trust is an important aspect of a business. Darryl Stickel's, Ph.D., perspective of trust. The element of uncertainty and vulnerability when trusting someone. Asking ourselves the two fundamental questions when we trust someone. Managing risks by lowering uncertainty and avoiding vulnerability. Rebuilding trust after the event of a mistake. The 10 Levers you can pull to build trust. Giving an honest and transparent apology. Understanding the best interests of the client. Focusing on the things you have control of, rather than making rash promises. Links: Darryl's Linkedin Darryl's Company Website Darryl's Facebook Additional Resources: Building Trust: Exceptional Leadership in an Uncertain World by Darryl Stickel Quotes: "Trust is, … it's one of the primary drivers of successful organizations." — Darryl Stickel. "Certainty and vulnerability are the two primary factors that drive the trust decision." — Darryl Stickel. "Have somebody's best interests at heart." — Darryl Stickel. "Apology combined with an acknowledgment of the harm that was caused to the other party." — Darryl Stickel. "We don't make promises that it'll never happen again." — Darryl Stickel.

In this episode, I interview Chris Lalomia, the Founder, and CEO of The Trusted Toolbox based in Atlanta, United States of America. Chris has set up his own business to provide quality-focused handyman services that surpass expectations. Chris has over 14 years of corporate experience and has opted to establish a home repair and handyman business in order to pursue greater opportunities. The Trusted Toolbox was established in 2008 and has been running for over 14 years. Growing with over $128,000 in the first year revenue has been running with over 40 FTEs. According to Chris, growing a small business necessitates becoming more thoughtful and predictive of what you're asking for. So he says, "In the beginning, it's all about sales. Now, my mindset shift has been about being more thoughtful and more predictive of what I'm asking for, and keep saying that over and over and over." This Cast Covers: Expert handyman services that are quality-focused and surpass expectations. Left the corporate world and started a home repair and handyman business. Got a master's and bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering. Went to work in manufacturing. Started business with zero knowledge. Creating a team that solves problems without being involved. Did $128,000 in total revenue in the first year of business. Started a business at the age of 38. Got 40% of business coming from customers. Been 4.6 rating on Google, and got over 600 reviews. Links: Chris' Linkedin Chris' Facebook Additional Resources: The Trusted Toolbox The Habits by Stephen Covey The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber Quotes: "Success is freely doing the things that make you happy." —Chris Lalomia "If you want to grow, you have to keep your customer base. —Chris Lalomia "You need to make sure you're getting better. —Chris Lalomia "Be more thoughtful and more predictive of what you're asking for." —Chris Lalomia "Know that you're time is your own." —Chris Lalomia