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What I've Learnt - Bernadette Schwerdt · WHAT I'VE LEARNT

• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Bernadette would be happy to share insights from the book or discuss how founders and creators can still stand out when technology is changing.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: So we're thrilled to have Bernadette join us on the What I've Left Podcast.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the What I've Left Podcast, Bernadette.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm interested.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: You've worked with some pretty major companies, and obviously starting a business of any sort is quite challenging.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: Tell us a little bit about what you've learned on your journey and how you got into this space.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I got into this space because I was in online marketing myself.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: I had an online business, I was selling online courses, and I had a marketing back of 30 years attending.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, well, how about other people putting their online businesses?
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I went out and interviewed some of the leading entrepreneurs in Australia.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: This is 10 years ago.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: That became a book.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then that became a second book because while as a publisher wanted to know more.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then what happened was one of the gentlemen I interviewed for one of those books, Gabby Libovich, wanted me to ghostwrite his book about Cat to the Day, Menulog, and all his exits.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so I got into ghostwriting, and that's enabled me to, I'm now up to my seventh book and three of my own.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just been a passion for me to understand how businesses get built and how the founders actually negotiate and manage all the challenges associated with that.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: And it I guess it dovetails with my advertising background, my corporate training, my copywriting, and it's just a beautiful blend of skills.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I just hear myself, here I am, ghostwriting for leading entrepreneurs.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Gabby certainly has been very successful.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, I know Gabby through six parts of separation, and we're we're we're sort of all very connected.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: And really what he's achieved and what he's created, he seems very committed.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think there's a sort of, I mean, what's the secret source?
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: What's some of the things that you've picked up from some of these people?
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: I saw that you've worked with Airtasker and Luxury Escapes, and you've you've observed very closely the, I suppose, the fine print of how somebody builds and constructs almost like the universe that they create.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: But it really starts often from something very simple, like capture the day.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, very simple, that whole concept that Gabby created.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's the personalities, Deborah, that they're unique personalities in that they have certain qualities and characteristics that I don't necessarily see in others.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: And the question is, are they born or are they nurtured this way?
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I've always been interested in that.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I do think it's a certain sense of a lot of them are born with these particular characteristics.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: So, for example, take Gabby, take Raddock Sally, Hilton Missow, you may not know him so much, but he's a lawyer who brought the no-win, no-fee concept to Australia and sold his law business for$57 million.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: So you do.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: That's pretty, pretty impressive.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you'd like to know how he got into that.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, amazing.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: And these are not necessarily the only reasons, but the childhood experiences are quite interesting in that take Radic, for example, his mother was from Eastern Europe, had a very tough life, came to Australia, as did his father from Albania.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: And the expectation of him was very high that he would achieve XYZ.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: And his mother was very tough, but his father was very much into the medicine and alternative medicine, complementary medicine.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: So who is this?
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry, just to clarify, who is this who Raddock Sally was the CEO of Swiss Vitamins?
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Good, yes.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: Just to clarify for our listeners, yes.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I am blending them a little bit, but uh Raddock, for example, had that tough upbringing with a very strong mother, and that sense of, you know, their expectation was we've worked very hard to get you here, we've worked hard to put you through school, we don't want you to squander the opportunities that you've given.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: So there's kind of that element where he was, in in his own words, because I I co-authored his book, was his mother browbeat him around, if you like, and it was very tough.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: And he thought, no one can match my mother for the tough love that she gave me.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: So when he went to Chemist Warehouse, for example, was trying to do deals with them, whatever they said to him is that, well, that was nothing of what my mother told me, you know.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: So that sense of relativism, oh yeah, being relative in terms of insults, if you like.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: I can't remember relativism.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, the point being.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: And expectation.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's actually about expectation and about measuring oneself according to that particular, whether it be from as you say, familial is often a big driver, trying to ensure that you deliver the you know, on the opportunities you've been given.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: That's what you're you're sort of.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: And if you look at me back to the original plan, you know, he said being bombed, you know, in a in a bomb shelter as a child.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: When you came to Australia, nothing could really top that.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: So asking for the sale, uh, going back for the second, third opportunity, you know, knocking down doors when they were shut, they were not big things to overcome.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: So they were able to achieve great things because they just didn't let no get in the way.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I found that sense of determination, optimism, competitiveness was kind of instilled in childhood.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I and I see that that's and even Hilton Missow, the man I just referred to, who was a lawyer, had a very difficult childhood, is quite sick, quite ill and sickly, and he was beat, bullied, and he was kind of invisible.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like as a young man, no one paid much attention to him, and therefore he sat in his father's law firm watching everything go on around him and listening, watching, absorbing without being observed.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: And when it came time to actually step up useful to his clients, he knew so much because he was skilled in watching human behavior and also just intellectually very competent as well.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I I found just to answer the question quite simply, it was the childhood experiences and that strong why they want to succeed, seemed to triumph over everything else.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's not uncommon at all.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I think, I mean, some of the examples you've given are really interesting.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I can think of many others where they actually had hardship early.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: And you know what they say, sometimes they say it's better to have hardship early than later, and because it builds this sort of grit and it builds this sense of, you know, you certainly don't come from entitlement, you you have an expectation that you're responsible for whatever path you pave.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's what you're seeing across the board with a lot of these entrepreneurs that you've worked with.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: Do you is it something that do you think that you talk about nature versus nurture?
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, obviously there's plenty of people that have had difficult childhoods who don't end up succeeding and thriving.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: So it must be more than that.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: It must be an element of enculturation or to be honest, networking, landing in the right place, or making sure you meet the right people.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think that plays a big role?
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: I think timing is incredibly important.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: But I think we can also attribute too much luck to these people.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like they do you make your own luck?
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: Is a is a question I deal with in the book.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: And Gabby talks about there's a a principle, a three-pronged principle of how do you make your own luck.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it's basically timing.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: Are you in the right place at the right time and have you got the right learning?
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess the example I used for Gabby was he was trying to get his catch-of-the-day business in front of Toshiba and HP and all the big computer brands, and they just wouldn't let him in.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: Can you believe nobody wanted to sell online at the time?
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: It was considered a little bit, you know, below them.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: So he knew there was a big conference on the Ingram Micro Distribution Conference in Melbourne.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: He wasn't invited.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: And he thought, well, I'm going to get a flyer up, I'm going to explain my concept of catch of the day.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: So bashed my way in, and he wasn't invited, so he went through the back door and he went around to the 80 suppliers sitting there, and then he told them to sit.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: And one of them, uh Toshiba, gave him a go.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: And Toshiba uh gave him a whole bunch of sort of good computers, but not top of the line, and they sold out within four hours.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: And suddenly Toshiba went, give me more of catch.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: And then every other computer supplier fell in line.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: So you could say, well, he was in the right place at the right time, but he it was more than that.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: He he knew the conference was on, he knew he wasn't invited.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: He had his flyer, he had his, he went, he went through the back door.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: So if you combine the timing and location and learning, that's when luck is engendered.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I think people say, well, they were just lucky and all that, but I think there's more to it than that.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: And if you look at all the success stories, you can unpick it and start to see, well, there was a lot of activity and intentionality around why they did what they did at that particular time.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I suppose what you're talking about is determination, persistence, not giving up.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: Those fundamental and resilience, those are elements that I mean, I think all of the people you've referred to, and certainly in the book, this seems to be a common theme.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: Because you can have luck and you can have opportunity, but at the end of the day, if you don't have that capacity to stick with it, as you described quite brilliantly, the the vision of Gabby going behind the scenes to the 80 potential customers.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: Only needed one, but that got him through the gate.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think that that those are fundamental to this sort of success?
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: I do.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: He told this, you know, really useful story, I think, for any entrepreneur that when it's hard, that's what a lot of people give up.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: But with Ed Ed Tasker, for example, he's building a new two-sided marketplace every single time he launches into a new country.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's difficult to do.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, just one two-sided marketplace is difficult.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: But doing it in England and then Germany and where else.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: But he he said when you do this each time, you learn, you get better, and you get your own little playbook, if you like.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: And that becomes the unique selling proposition or our unique strength because anyone else wanting to do a two-sided marketplace has to start from scratch.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: And he said there wasn't actually a lot of mentorship in the space, so he had to sort of figure it out for himself.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: But his ability to build those marketplaces time and time again became his moat.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought that was really interesting because if it's hard for him, it's going to be hard for others.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's an important point to make if you are going through hardship in maybe trying to get a new customer on board or a new product or new innovation.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: That can be a strength because it's going to be hard for others, but it's the ones who persist and and continue.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: I think that is a unique quality that they have.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: They never say die.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: They never give up.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't think everyone has that, that grit.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: And it's very easy to say, well, just be more determined or be more positive.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: But there's real humiliation in a lot of these situations where they're told no or they're criticized or the feedback is incredibly hurtful, or you know, the as in Raddock's case with Swiss, he was launching into America and he had massive advertising budgets with Oprah and Ellen and Nicole Kidman.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: And the product actually wasn't even on the shelf in Walgreens.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: And that was a devastating revelation.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: There was a couple of boxes under the shelf.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: And the cost, you know, the millions, but Raddock could have easily said, Well, that's it, we're done.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: We're pulling out.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: But that was not his way.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know, he said, I'm going to triumph and I never say die.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: So when we say it's easy, you know, it's just have determination.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: I think you look at what actually does that mean in behavior and mindset and being able to put up with a lot of pain.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: And and also I think that's interesting.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: You talked about Airtasker.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: Can you just uh elaborate a little bit on that two-sided notion that you're referring to?
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: If you're saying Airtasker, you've got the task, like the the workers, the tradespeople who are fixing locks or plumbers or whatever, that's one side of the marketplace.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: And you've got the other side, which is the customer who wants to hire the plumber.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: So you've got two sides of this marketplace.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: And as Tim mentioned as in the book, you've got to have them both online at the same time.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: They both have to be posting a job, and the trade has to be accepting the job.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: And if you've got too many of one and not enough of the other, then there's a mismatch.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, you've got your job waiting there for days and no one responds.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: Or the trade's got, you know, himself available or herself, and nobody's, you know, posting jobs, so he's not getting any work.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: So it was this delicate balance between advertising and trying to get the tradies on, not just the tradies, obviously, but that's I think someone call it the target.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yeah.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: And you've got the customers, they've got to be on, they've got to be advertising, or they've got to be sort of posting their jobs.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: So just the cost alone of targeting those two audiences is expensive.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: Having them on at the same time is expensive.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's when I say two-sided.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: You've got two different audiences both on the marketplace, as opposed to say you know, eBay, you know, you just post your product and then you might, you know, you get sent it to your Amazon.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a two-sided marketplace in that context.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I suppose Aircrape is another example, but focusing on ones that are in your book, and you refer, I mean, I know Luxury Escapes is a fascinating one, and that's a really interesting.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: They've sort of taken, they package up travel, and I know some of the guys involved in that.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's a really interesting space as well.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: Well, they had an interesting genesis too, Adam Schwab and his partner, because they didn't start with that.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's another point I make quite clearly in the book that we were in the end with, mate.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: Where we start, it was in journalism, yeah.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, obviously a lawyer is a really smart guy, and he started with um backpacker kind of rentals, low-level sort of Airbnb in some respects, and then went to more of a luxury corporate accommodation sort of startup.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: And through those experiences, he he came into another iteration, and I think that was called deals.com, and they were offering all sorts of deals, but he discovered that the travel deals were much more lucrative and a lot easier to get online in that respect.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: So he thought, well, why don't we just double down on travel?
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: So, and that's the the beginning of luxury escapes.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think it's an important point to make that if you fail in one or you're not getting the results that you're looking for in another, don't give up.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's the understanding that you've been able to, what you've learned from that, you're taken to the next one.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: Don't give up, just keep iterating, find the niching.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: And then that's probably an important point, too, is the more niching you can be in this environment, I think the more important it is because you can't be everywhere and everything to everybody.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: And and just to give you an example, my nephew actually is in the book, and I know that's a bit of nepotism, but it's a good example of niching into something you really know and love.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like he's a Pokemon kid and was a Pokemon kid from when he was like four, had 10,000 cards lying around.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: He's now 30.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: But he was traveling in America and he saw in New Orleans a card shop, like a game shop, and he could see his card that he had back home was on sale at the half price, what he bought for it.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, that's weird.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: And then he broke his arm playing footy, had all this time on his hands, he works in a bank normally, and he did all this research, discovered that all these other Pokemon cards are being sold for 50% less in America.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: Or you can buy them for 50% less.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: So he he bought cards from America and picked out the ones that he knew were vintage or expensive, and he sold them in Australia on Instagram and eBay.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: No website, no branding, just put them up saying, hey, this card's for 300 bucks, anyone want it?
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: They'd be, yeah, I'll pay for that.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: So he discovered this amazing community of Pokemon diehards who were willing to pay really top dollar for these cards.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's he's built this business.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: He's now turning over$100,000 a year in addition to his banking, you know, job during the day.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: And the point being, he just focused on what he loved, what he knew, took a punt, took you know, not even a risk, really.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: He bought some cards, and whether they sold or not was up to the community.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: But now he's he does live auctions.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: He had like 55, 60 people on a live option.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: Amazing, amazing.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: Well, so and what about Bondo Sands?
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: What did you learn about them?
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's a fantastic story.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: Deborah Sean Wilson was working at RACV Club, you know, in a sort of a managerial role, but he wasn't a tanning guy.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: But he had a good friend who was a tanning guy, and they overheard a comment about the Melbourne Cup, and they said, wouldn't it be great if I could get a tan, but I don't have time, you know, they're all booked out.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, well, why can't you get a tan at home?
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: And they were Saint Trepay at the time, but it was pretty streaky and it was pretty expensive.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: So him, him and his his buddy Blair got to work and started to look at all the reports and the demand for tanning and the chemical makeup of tans, so both the business case and the technical side, and they came up with this unique formulation because Blair was a tanning guy, he had a sell-on.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: And they came up with a home-based uh product that you can get like five tans out of the can.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: But the big change point for them was they had about 20 staff and were doing fine, but they thought, what we want to go global, we want to go big.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so they hired Cardi Jenner to post one post.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: It cost them$300,000 to hire her.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: So it was a real risk because I was still bootstrapping.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: And she posted, and it was a very iconic photo of her in front of the mirror in a skimpy outfit, it went ballistic.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: But it wasn't even that that was the reason that they succeeded because you know Sean's very strategic.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: And he he kind of used that post and boosted it to appear in the feeds of all the buyers in America that he was meeting with like a week later, like Walgreens and Walgreens.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so by the time Walgreens, for example, met with Sean to see if they wanted to um distribute him, they already had seen this amazing post, all the engagement.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: And they're now this these are serious players, you know.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: They're they're on the stage, and they're not just now a contender for getting a few facings.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: That they want to be a true partner, they can deliver this new generation of customers to our pharmacy door.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: So that was the game changer for Sean was having the guts, I guess, to put a lot of money on the line.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: Because it was completely self-funded by him and Belarin and Sean's father.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: And they walked away with a$450 million exit after just 12, 13 years of business.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: It that is an extraordinary story, isn't it?
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: There's got to be an element too of risk taking, of sort of somewhat blind faith in your product and your belief that this is like whether you're talking any of these businesses that you're referring to, they seem to be quite entrepreneurial, as you say, but also risk takers.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: They're prepared to, I mean, that's a perfect example.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they're prepared to back themselves and Sean's father invested, I think, memory services, but$150,000 and you know, divide 450 by three, you know, that's a really nice return.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: But it's the point being the product was good.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you can't sort of just ride on your coattails of hoping that the customers are going to be duped, you know, this product was good.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: And they had a sort of a triple-A approach where it had to be aspirational in the sense that they wanted it to be sort of the the tan that the rich and famous use.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: So they invested in beach festivals, dance festivals, it be thir and gochella and all those organizations.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: So that whenever the tanning thing came up, it was Bondi Sands, it was on the lips of everybody.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: So aspirational was key.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: The second thing was it had to be a quality, you know, in the sense it had to be good.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: It couldn't streak, it couldn't smell like Saint Tropez or the other brands.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, you've got your Saint Tropez, it's like$85 a bottle, but he was going for$20 a bottle and still getting four or five applications.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: So you had that triple A, you've got the aspirational, affordable, and a quality.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: And in that sweet spot in the Venn diagram, you've got an amazing, unique selling proposition.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: So what's not to like?
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: If you're a young girl, you're a 22-year-old, and you want to be using the tan of the rich and famous, but it's good and it smells good and it lasts, it's a no-brainer.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: So you've got to get all those marks.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: And the other thing that Radicks did, which I thought was really fun, and I've heard a number of entrepreneurs do it too, when you're a small startup and you're trying to get to look bigger than you artists, is important because if you want to be ranged in you know, Priceline or Canvas Warehouse, they don't want to deal with just a one-person band.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: They want to be dealing with someone who's got the backing to keep up, you know, the marketing co-op advertising package.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: So Raddock, for example, when he knew that he was meeting with Priceline to get sort of a distribution deal, he took out billboards in all the key trend, you know, sort of commuting areas that he knew the Priceline executives would be taking, you know, to the airport, you know, to head office.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: And it was just big Swiss billboards.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: So when he walked into the office, they said, wow, you were everywhere.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: He wasn't really.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: The commuting and making sure it's visibility.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's visibility.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so were there stories along the way?
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I know what I've interviewed many business people, but obviously there's plenty of stories of failure and falling over and landing on your face and having to get up.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: Have you found that with some of these very successful entrepreneurs that you've you've worked with, do you think and that you feature in the book, do you think that that their capacity to get up once they're fallen?
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: Well, take Bondo's sense.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: They had a very early Blow, you know, they they got into Priceline, which is amazing for a small business.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: And people started to complain about the product.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: And one of them was like I'm going green.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I look like Kermit the Frog.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: And what that came all through Facebook, actually, before even Priceline recognized there was an issue with the product.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: So, and because they were very digitally connected, you know, they were very connected to their audience, they discovered this issue with the formulation.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: So the first formulation was great, but the second one, they tinkered with it, didn't test it enough.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: It went to market and it went turned people green.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: So they had to confront or front up to the pride line, which is tough.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you're a new business, you've just got this amazing deal, and you say, sorry guys, look at the product we gave you, is it's less than ideal.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: So they had to take the product back, they had to fix it, it cost them$300,000 to fix.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: And that was again bootstrapped.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they had to go to the bank and get more money.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: But that setback could have been enough to put them off the the scent.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they could have said, We're done.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to pay another$300,000 to fix this.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: But they said, no, we're going to persist.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so they were able to show the banks that they had purchase orders and really good, you know, forward examples of demand.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: And they were able to get a loan, pay it back, do the recall, and off they go again.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: And that's just one example of these things happen all the time.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: We don't necessarily hear about them.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: It looks like it's a seamless win when we see them on the front page of, you know, journals and websites.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: Behind scenes, there's these things consistently.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: And and Radic, and I use him a lot because I wrote, I co-wrote his book, so I know his story exceptionally well.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: But his response to all this is be less surprised.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, do pre-mortems, do scenario planning, do risk registers, do the what-if scenarios, so that when these things happen, then you have a plan.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: You and like seat.com, I interviewed Matt Rockman, one of the three co-founders of that.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: I also interviewed his his offsider, which was Mian Callahan, who was their HR director.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I got to know her quite well too.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: And she said, we always did what if scenario, because what if there's a local setback?
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: What if people stop advertising?
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: What if the jobs disappear?
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: And they did all that.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, that happened in 2007.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: There was the GFC.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: And businesses shut down overnight and thousands were out of work and no one's recruiting.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: But because they had this plan, and she said, we just implemented it seamlessly and we just went about our business.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: And one of their missions was we're not going to sack anyone if there's a downturn.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so they had all these scenarios where they kept people employed because they knew in three or six months we'd need to re-engage them.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: So if we got rid of them, like you react and you know, sort of take, you know, you get paddocky and you just sack everyone because you're looking at cash flow.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: In six months you've got to re-employ people, and all this could be cool.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: So because they had planned and seen what could go wrong, they knew that we're not going to do that.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to give people time off.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: Sabbaticals, take your annual leave, you know, do whatever you've got to do, but we want to, but just need to reduce our cost.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: And that's exactly what happened in time.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: Recovered, they had their team ready to rock and roll, whereas all the other competitors, of course, had sacked everyone.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: So they were ahead of the curve when the economy picked up again.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: That's a very good point.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: I know that when and I have done ghostwriting too for people, it's quite a challenge because you get very intimate and you can very get very close and you have a lot of, you know, it's a very special relationship to write a book with someone to tell their story.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it can be fraught as they go through their own reflection or their own perspective or their own lens.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: As a writer and a ghostwriter and as a storyteller, how do you find that?
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: And have you found a way through that?
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: Because it can be at times quite challenging.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it is a unique relationship, and every relationship is different, and every client I work with requires, they want different things.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: Some people, like for example, Radick wasn't interested in making money from the book.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: He was more about legacy and sharing the wins and the losses and the lessons.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: Other people use it as a business tool, you know, to market their business.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: So the first thing you have to do is build trust.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: And you can't make that happen.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: You just have to hope that you have a synchronicity and compatibility with each other.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I have had very good fortune with all my clients.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: But also it's about honesty too.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like I say to all my clients, I am your litmus test for what goes out to the world.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I I want to protect you, and I'm just one voice, but I'm not going to let anything go out that makes you look or paint you in a light that you don't want.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of people who write their own books maybe don't have that third party who is invested in helping them shape that that impression.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm not saying we're disingenuous about the way we do it, but you know, I I'm very mindful of if we say X, the impact on the reader is Y.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I say, is that the impact you want to have?
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: And if not, that's you know, so it you you actually give over the impression that you're looking to give.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: So in the sense that I I I try and be honest.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I, for example, I might say, This is quite boring right now.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you'll say, take that paragraph or seven out.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly, because what they think is boring or is is interesting, it might be too nuanced and too detailed for the reader.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm working with a man right now and he's he's a very technical book.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: He's an engineer and he's fascinating and amazing, but he can get right into the you know the weeds about a technical issue about electromagnetic force and things.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going, I'm bored.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: I think the reader will be bored.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I think that's just a really good litmus, are we bored yet?
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when do I rally?
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: When do I want to know what's next?
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: So I guess I am that person for them, to be honest, because you only get one chance to write a book, really.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, if it goes well, you get a chance to write two or three, but if the first one's not good, you don't get a second chance.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: So you can sort of shoot yourself in the foot with a bad book because people go, I don't like this person.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: I I don't want to do business with them, I don't want to read them.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm thinking so true that.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you can't you can't take back a bad book.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: So you'd rather have no book than a bad book.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: I think the other thing is also, and I'm sure you've, you know, and you refer to this, the notion of I suppose balancing, not sanitizing the story to the point where it becomes lacking authenticity, but at the same time honouring the legacy of the person you're telling the story.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: And that's always the challenge.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: And there are times when I suppose those relationships work and times when they don't.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: And that's something that is a relate, you know, that for you in that role, but have you found there are times when you just can't work with someone because they're not quite on the same page?
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_01: Excuse the pun.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yes.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you're absolutely right.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: You have even I say that at the beginning, you need to be honest with me.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: Now, whether we share that story with the public is another story.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: But for me, I have to know the truth about what happened, your truth, you know, it might be different to other people.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: But once I know the truth, then I can say, okay, we can't say that, you know, it's defamatory.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that's going to be defamatory.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm able to help them maybe shape that story a little so that the essence of it comes out, but it's palatable, you know, and we're not hurting anybody.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: And also nobody really wants to read a book where it all went from A to B C to Z perfectly.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you need to share your your losses, you need to share your failures.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, some people aren't comfortable with that.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: And and with good reason.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, I say if you want to connect with your reader, if you're open to sharing some of the things that didn't go so well, then you're going to build rapport a lot more quickly.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: So it is a is it a balancing act between how much you share, how much you know you you want to take a risk of people coming back at you.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: We've heard of books, not mine, thank God.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, books being pulped because they've been out for a week and suddenly someone's complained.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's not how it went.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: And the publisher I work with just don't take that risk.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, it it's very, very, you know, it's gone over with a very fine-tooth comb about what you can and can't say.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's really, yeah, very important point.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the other thing is that just finally, at the end of the day, you're telling it from their lens and it will be their version.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: And part of the reason that they bring you on board is to give themselves a voice to tell the story, whatever that narrative is, and that business acumen or that success or that failure or however, at the end of the day, you're in service of that story.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so I suppose you, you know, as we often are, like at the end of the day, I suppose when I have a podcast, I'm in service of the person I'm interviewing to try and glean their perspective.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: And that's okay as long as that's clear that that's what it is, you know, because you can't, but when you're writing a lot a book about someone's life, there's all the, you know, that I've just finished the Liza Minnelling memoir.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean, that's a dude, you know, to read because she's, you know, Uncle Frank Sinatra.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, it's like life just didn't say, Mom is Judy Garland, you know, but her version of events, and she actually has a real crack at Lady Garga during it, who she said didn't support her in the final sort of big stage performance of an honoring of Cabaret.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: So this is really, at the end, a complete sort of barb and twist.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: I'm reading it thinking, this is an extraordinary thing in a book, a life story, that she's taken this position.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_01: And it was very important to her, as she highlights, to do that.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I suppose when you're representing or in some ways doing this on behalf of business people or others, it takes bravery and courage to, you know, stand up to them if you think something is not right.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_01: But also, you want to respect their version of events.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's exactly right.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: And and in a lifetime of a business career, you're going to have situations and memories that are unpleasant that you'd like to correct the record, not get back at people necessarily.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: But you you want to have your say.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: Say, look, how this was presented to the public is not correct.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: I need to correct the story, and this is their chance to do so.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: And again, that's got to be tampered with well, who are you mentioning and how you're doing that?
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: But there's a lot of around that.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: You know, legally you can say, well, my interpretation of this was why we call it because there's all these fudging, if you like, or fudging of language that enables people to say things that enable them to say, Well, that was my memory.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying it happened, saying my memory of it was this.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's right.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_01: And and and and it's an interesting perspective for you.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_01: You're in a diff you're in a great position on one hand, but on the other, you have to find that fine line and it's a balancing act to try and do both.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_01: I know because I've been in that position myself.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you're trying to actually ensure that you're you're honouring the lens, but at the same time not but warning that person that that perspective may have an impact in a public sense or on a person.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's really interesting, tightrope to walk.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_01: And often some of these books are vanity projects that that I suppose are they're entitled to commission and do.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_01: And why not?
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_01: Like tell their story.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: And also, you know.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's discernment and judgment.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's why people hire me and hire any ghostwriter that they trust, is because they want to say, look, I'll give an example.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: One man I'm working with at the moment, it's a book about anxiety and entrepreneurship.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: And it it goes quite deeply into the internalization of anxiety.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm saying, for the reader's perspective, we get a bit lost because there's no action, there's no movement, there's no forward proposition of the story.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's too internal, yeah, to understand.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: For him, it's very important that that gets told.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: So my discernment and my judgment comes into play.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, I always say to my clients, I ain't got one person, you know, I own one voice, I'm not representative of the market, but you're hiring me, so I'm gonna give you my honest opinion.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I have a rule of three with my clients where I say, Look, I'll fight for you because I've been in advertising and I know what it's like to pitch ideas and the client doesn't like it, then you just roll over.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: You think, hang on, we spent a lot of time on that idea.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna just give it up.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: I want to justify why we came up with this idea.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: So I say to my clients, look, I'm gonna fight for my ideas, what I think we need to do together three times.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: And on the third occasion, if you honestly think we want to do it your way, I'll I'll relinquish.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll say, I'll I'll I'll roll over.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm not gonna give up without a fight because that's why you're paying me, you know, to represent you and to make sure that you you are seen by the public in the way that you want.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I have little, I guess, protocols, you know, on how I can help you.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that sounds like a sensible approach because you do need some caveats and barriers to ensure the truth or that the reflection is an accurate one.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_01: But um, you've obviously worked with some amazing people.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: The book is really insightful, and I'm so grateful for your time today.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much, and I look forward to our listeners hearing your story.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Deborah, for having me.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's been a pleasure.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_01: Pleasure.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you for joining us on the What I've Learned podcast.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_01: I hope you enjoyed that interview because we are so privileged to have a wonderful platform where guests come on and share lessons learned, rivers crossed, mountains climbed.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_01: We love our shared humanity, and we are so grateful to have such a beautiful community.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: So remember to stay curious, kind, and connected, and we'll see you next time at Watch Podcast.