Latest / The You Project / #1716 Turning An Idea Into A Reality - Harps

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#1716 Turning An Idea Into A Reality - Harps · The You Project

0:00
Speaker 1: I'll get a Champs. It's me. Who else would it be?
0:04
Speaker 1: So I don't know, this could be a little clunky
0:07
Speaker 1: because I've done minimal planning as in kind of well,
0:11
Speaker 1: I don't script, you know, I don't script, but I've
0:15
Speaker 1: got what I think is a good idea for some
0:18
Speaker 1: of you. So I'm going to preempt this with this
0:22
Speaker 1: is me talking about so that the topic is turning
0:25
Speaker 1: an idea into a reality. So that is taking a
0:29
Speaker 1: theoretical construct something in your head, an idea, a plan,
0:34
Speaker 1: an intention, a dream, a goal, something that you can
0:40
Speaker 1: create theoretically that you want to take out of your
0:44
Speaker 1: head and turn into a real world something. And when
0:49
Speaker 1: I talk about this for this episode particularly, I'm talking
0:54
Speaker 1: more about something in the commercial space. It might be business,
1:00
Speaker 1: or it could be a brand, or it could be
1:03
Speaker 1: it could be a project, it could be a product.
1:05
Speaker 1: It could be a book you want to write, It
1:08
Speaker 1: could be a podcast that you want to launch, It
1:11
Speaker 1: could be a program that you want to run, an event,
1:16
Speaker 1: a service that you want to develop. But it's about
1:19
Speaker 1: taking that idea, that that intentional, that desire or that
1:24
Speaker 1: drive and figuring out how do I move that out
1:30
Speaker 1: of my head and into something that the world can see.
1:33
Speaker 1: Not only I cannect see and not only can the
1:35
Speaker 1: world see it, but they can experience it, interact with it,
1:40
Speaker 1: and maybe even I can make a few bucks from it.
1:44
Speaker 1: So most of you know that I stopped working in
1:47
Speaker 1: inverted commas for somebody else thirty five thirty five years ago,
1:53
Speaker 1: when I was twenty six. That's not a recommendation, that's
1:57
Speaker 1: not a good thing or a bad thing. But it
1:59
Speaker 1: was a good thing for me, and it was a
2:01
Speaker 1: good thing for me because I realized, while I wanted
2:03
Speaker 1: to work, I wanted to have a career, I wanted
2:06
Speaker 1: to build something for me personally, going and working for
2:11
Speaker 1: somebody else and being part of their vision rather than
2:15
Speaker 1: part of my own vision, or creating something for myself,
2:18
Speaker 1: Building something that I wanted to grow and inhabit and
2:25
Speaker 1: literally take out of my head and push out of
2:27
Speaker 1: that theoretical nest into the real world. That was what
2:30
Speaker 1: I wanted to do. Not everyone has suited to that,
2:34
Speaker 1: and a lot of the things that I did, a
2:37
Speaker 1: lot of the things that I tried didn't work initially.
2:41
Speaker 1: There were many many failures, many fuck ups, many problems,
2:45
Speaker 1: many hurdles, many embarrassing moments, many two out of ten results.
2:50
Speaker 1: But you know, for me, that was all part of
2:53
Speaker 1: the learning and growing and developing and building skill and
2:57
Speaker 1: competence and resilience and awareness and understand of what would
3:00
Speaker 1: work and what would not. So I'll share a few
3:05
Speaker 1: of my experiences just to give you, I guess, some
3:08
Speaker 1: real world practical examples. I guess we could start with
3:12
Speaker 1: this show. As most of you know, this wasn't my
3:16
Speaker 1: first podcast. I had three podcast attempts before this, three
3:19
Speaker 1: different shows, and while they didn't turn into a commercial
3:27
Speaker 1: success any of them, for me, they were great training.
3:31
Speaker 1: They were like putting on my l plates and then
3:32
Speaker 1: eventually my PA plates in the world of podcasting, and
3:36
Speaker 1: it was for me an opportunity to begin to understand
3:40
Speaker 1: how the industry and the science and the art of
3:43
Speaker 1: podcasting worked. And from those first three I really learned
3:49
Speaker 1: a lot about having conversations with people, having meaningful exchanges,
3:57
Speaker 1: doing a deep dive, being a better interviewer, being a
4:01
Speaker 1: better active listener, understanding my audience, understanding my show in
4:11
Speaker 1: contrast to and context of the other millions of shows
4:15
Speaker 1: in the world, and trying to figure out what was,
4:17
Speaker 1: if anything, my unique selling proposition my usp if not unique,
4:22
Speaker 1: then somewhat different selling proposition. Why would people listen to this?
4:29
Speaker 1: And trying to figure all of that out? And I think,
4:31
Speaker 1: if we're going to build a business or brand or whatever,
4:34
Speaker 1: a project or a product, or push some new service
4:37
Speaker 1: out into the world, or write a book or build
4:40
Speaker 1: something of which there are already many similar things existing.
4:47
Speaker 1: If we just want to do it as an exercise
4:48
Speaker 1: to do something and create something and turn a theoretical
4:53
Speaker 1: idea into a real world thing, then that is fine.
4:56
Speaker 1: But if we want it to become a successful version
5:00
Speaker 1: of something that is potentially even commercially viable, then we
5:04
Speaker 1: need to understand the context. We need to do research.
5:07
Speaker 1: We need to understand who else is doing a version
5:09
Speaker 1: of what I want to do, How are they doing it,
5:11
Speaker 1: Why are they doing it, what are they doing well?
5:14
Speaker 1: What are they not doing well? Are there any holes
5:16
Speaker 1: or gaps in the market as I see it? So
5:19
Speaker 1: for me doing the U Project, my idea was to
5:22
Speaker 1: step out of radio, which I've done for quite a
5:24
Speaker 1: long time and basically have now. Remember I started my
5:28
Speaker 1: first show about probably nine years ago. Now the You
5:31
Speaker 1: Project about six six and a half years ago. But
5:35
Speaker 1: my first show around nine years ago, and so it
5:38
Speaker 1: was almost like to me, having a podcast was almost
5:43
Speaker 1: like having my own little radio show that I could
5:47
Speaker 1: just pop up on the Internet and people would listen to.
5:50
Speaker 1: And I didn't need to run anything by you know,
5:54
Speaker 1: a program director or you know, any kind of authority.
5:58
Speaker 1: I could talk about whatever I wanted to. I could
6:01
Speaker 1: talk for as long or as short as I wanted to.
6:03
Speaker 1: I didn't need to worry about ads because I had none.
6:06
Speaker 1: I didn't need to do station IDs or time checks.
6:10
Speaker 1: I could talk to whoever I wanted, and it gave
6:12
Speaker 1: me a lot of flexibility and freedom. But I also
6:14
Speaker 1: needed to which I wasn't very good at the start.
6:17
Speaker 1: I really needed to understand the listener experience. So obviously,
6:24
Speaker 1: all of my experience, one hundred percent of my experience
6:27
Speaker 1: of the U Project is from this side. And I've
6:32
Speaker 1: never once been you know, yes, I've listened to my
6:35
Speaker 1: own show, but I've never been truly a listener, you know,
6:40
Speaker 1: in that everything that I listened to of mine, I've
6:43
Speaker 1: already heard it out of my own gob And so
6:46
Speaker 1: for me to try to get an insight into the
6:50
Speaker 1: experience of the listener, that for me was really important.
6:54
Speaker 1: I remember when I developed my first gym, or more accurately,
6:59
Speaker 1: personal training facility, the same thing I needed to figure out.
7:04
Speaker 1: I was lucky in that I got in on the
7:06
Speaker 1: ground floor. I literally had literally had zero competition in
7:11
Speaker 1: terms of other personal training facilities. If there were any
7:15
Speaker 1: in Australia, I had never heard of them. There were
7:18
Speaker 1: definitely none in Melbourne or Victoria, not in the late eighties.
7:21
Speaker 1: In I think eighty nine to ninety. I set up
7:23
Speaker 1: my first one, So you know, a quarter of a
7:26
Speaker 1: century ago. Oh no, it's more than that. Suck thirty
7:29
Speaker 1: five years ago. So old, thirty five years ago. And
7:34
Speaker 1: so I already understood that there was that there was
7:39
Speaker 1: a need, that there was a market because I was
7:41
Speaker 1: already training people. I already had clients. I was already
7:44
Speaker 1: doing this thing for which there was actually no qualification
7:48
Speaker 1: at that point in time. There was no registration, there
7:51
Speaker 1: was no insurance, there was no personal training industry. So
7:56
Speaker 1: my idea, the construct, the theoretical something in my head
8:00
Speaker 1: was what if I hire a space aka rent a
8:05
Speaker 1: commercial premises, and I turned that into essentially what would
8:10
Speaker 1: be a private gym, so there would be no memberships
8:14
Speaker 1: there would be no classes, there would be no most
8:20
Speaker 1: of what you normally get in a gym. What there
8:22
Speaker 1: would be would be one on one training. Obviously it
8:25
Speaker 1: developed more than that into different things, but my initial
8:30
Speaker 1: ground zero was appointment based one on one and periodically
8:34
Speaker 1: two on one training. Eventually it became two and three
8:37
Speaker 1: and four on one and then small groups, and it
8:39
Speaker 1: was in the studio and out of the studio, and
8:42
Speaker 1: it was half hour and forty five minutes and sixty
8:44
Speaker 1: minute sessions, and you know, it kind of morphed into
8:48
Speaker 1: a bunch of versions, but it was all essentially appointment
8:51
Speaker 1: based exercise with a fitness professional, that professional being me,
8:57
Speaker 1: and then that developed into me and another train and
9:00
Speaker 1: then me and another trainer, still no qualifications, still no course.
9:04
Speaker 1: I ended up writing the first course with a friend
9:06
Speaker 1: of mine and getting that certified through I think it
9:09
Speaker 1: was called vic Fit then and so on and the
9:12
Speaker 1: rest is history. But but that you know, for me,
9:15
Speaker 1: that first three four five years between the time when
9:20
Speaker 1: my first client walked into the public gym that I
9:23
Speaker 1: was managing. When he walked in, we met, and then
9:27
Speaker 1: I started training him in a one on one kind
9:30
Speaker 1: of capacity, and he gave me one hundred bucks a
9:34
Speaker 1: week for three sessions, which was thirty three dollars, give
9:37
Speaker 1: or take. I thought that was fucking incredible, because I
9:41
Speaker 1: think I was making about twelve dollars at the time.
9:43
Speaker 1: Some of you heard this story, I apologize, but the
9:45
Speaker 1: bottom line is that was my starting point. My idea was,
9:48
Speaker 1: I'm going to do this thing. I rented the space,
9:52
Speaker 1: I bought the equipment, I got counsel approval, I chatted
9:55
Speaker 1: with real estate people and accounting people, finance lawyers and
10:01
Speaker 1: so on and overtime, the thing that was an idea
10:04
Speaker 1: in my head, the thing that in fact I kind
10:07
Speaker 1: of gave birth to for one of a better term
10:10
Speaker 1: in my head four years before become Australia's first personal
10:14
Speaker 1: training facility. I guess the same when I wrote my
10:17
Speaker 1: first book. I know a lot of people have written
10:18
Speaker 1: a book, but I didn't know where to start. I
10:20
Speaker 1: didn't know anything about publishing. I didn't know anything about
10:23
Speaker 1: branding or marketing. I didn't know anything about distribution. I
10:26
Speaker 1: didn't know how to have a conversation with a publisher
10:29
Speaker 1: or a potential publisher. I didn't know what was attractive
10:33
Speaker 1: to people in terms of what people might pick up
10:36
Speaker 1: in a bookstore, and look, I didn't realize the front
10:39
Speaker 1: cover really mattered. I didn't realize that the words on
10:42
Speaker 1: the back of the book really mattered. There were so
10:45
Speaker 1: many things that I knew that I had an idea
10:47
Speaker 1: and a message, but that initial, that very very raw,
10:52
Speaker 1: fundamental concept. I've got some knowledge, I've got some stories,
10:57
Speaker 1: I've got some messages that I think might be a
11:00
Speaker 1: tell you to people. That initial thought, I'm going to
11:02
Speaker 1: put it into a book, versus down the track one
11:06
Speaker 1: two years later, where that's now an actual book in
11:09
Speaker 1: bookstores and selling, and we've got distribution and and it's
11:13
Speaker 1: actually becoming mildly I will say, commercially viable. There's a
11:19
Speaker 1: lot of space between the original, the initial idea, the
11:21
Speaker 1: theoretical or something, and then now I can walk into
11:24
Speaker 1: a shop and that thing that was an idea in
11:26
Speaker 1: my head that is now a book on a shelf
11:29
Speaker 1: that people are buying. But that that initial to that
11:33
Speaker 1: final that is many steps, That is many peaks and troughs,
11:37
Speaker 1: that is many new lessons and so on. And so
11:41
Speaker 1: I could bang on about you know, my first paid
11:44
Speaker 1: gig and opening other you know, other businesses that I've
11:49
Speaker 1: opened and how I got my first, you know, gig
11:53
Speaker 1: in radio. I remember being interviewed on radio and then
11:55
Speaker 1: I had an idea, I want to do radio, and
11:59
Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't even know how do you get
12:00
Speaker 1: into radio? So I got a meeting with a program
12:03
Speaker 1: director called Mark Johnson. Shout out, if anyone knows John
12:07
Speaker 1: O from what was then SCN is still SCN. I
12:11
Speaker 1: had a meeting with him, which was just I don't
12:14
Speaker 1: know how I got that meeting, but I clumsily told
12:19
Speaker 1: him about my idea, which was to be kind of
12:23
Speaker 1: the exercise science guy on this sporting network. They had
12:27
Speaker 1: a lot of sporting people, but they didn't really have
12:29
Speaker 1: a regular exercise science person to come on. He was
12:33
Speaker 1: a bit dubious. He said, send me a proposal with
12:36
Speaker 1: the first twelve episodes. I literally went home. I wrote
12:40
Speaker 1: it all up. I spent six or seven hours writing
12:43
Speaker 1: this concept, this proposal. I sent it to him, and
12:47
Speaker 1: within two days I got a response from him, and
12:50
Speaker 1: I got a green light. I had no idea what
12:52
Speaker 1: I was doing. I was so underdone, I was so
12:55
Speaker 1: ill prepared, I was so unskilled. I was so unaware.
12:59
Speaker 1: But I think for me, part of part of the
13:03
Speaker 1: blessing of ignorance is that I'm so ignorant sometimes I'm
13:07
Speaker 1: so unaware of what I don't know that it's kind
13:10
Speaker 1: of a gift because if I realized how hard it was,
13:13
Speaker 1: if I realized sometimes how ill prepared and ill equipped
13:17
Speaker 1: and underskilled I was, I might never have taken the
13:21
Speaker 1: first step. But it's like, once you dive into the pool, well,
13:24
Speaker 1: now you're wet, You're going to sink or swim, And
13:27
Speaker 1: so I always did my very best to swim. And
13:29
Speaker 1: so for me, that kind of initial idea, that theoretical something,
13:35
Speaker 1: the dream, the vision, the hope, the desire, the intention,
13:39
Speaker 1: the plan to be able to take that out of
13:42
Speaker 1: my head and breathe life into that, so that would
13:45
Speaker 1: be a real thing in the world that people would
13:47
Speaker 1: intersect with. I've literally been doing that for the last
13:50
Speaker 1: thirty years. And I'm not saying I'm the high watermark
13:53
Speaker 1: as an example here of what to do or what
13:55
Speaker 1: not to do, but it's how my career has developed.
14:00
Speaker 1: Have an idea, figure out how to turn that idea
14:03
Speaker 1: into something that's more than an idea. So I want
14:07
Speaker 1: to give you kind of a bit of a guide.
14:10
Speaker 1: Some of this will be a no brainer to you.
14:13
Speaker 1: Some of it might be irrelevant, some you will already know.
14:17
Speaker 1: Feel free. For those of you who this idea, this
14:21
Speaker 1: topic is relevant, you might want to take notes and
14:24
Speaker 1: revisit it. But first, my first piece of advice is
14:28
Speaker 1: to clarify your idea, your vision, your goal. So get
14:36
Speaker 1: really clear about what it is that you're going to do, create, be, sell,
14:42
Speaker 1: offer and why it matters, Why it matters, Why does
14:47
Speaker 1: the world need this, what's already out there? And what
14:51
Speaker 1: will I add? What problem am I going to solve
14:57
Speaker 1: for the world, Either what problem am I solving? Or
15:01
Speaker 1: how does this add value to what is already there?
15:06
Speaker 1: What is already there. It's like, if you live in
15:09
Speaker 1: Hampton Street or you live in Hampton where I live,
15:15
Speaker 1: and you decide you're going to set up another fitness
15:17
Speaker 1: based business, it better be fucking incredible, because there's already
15:22
Speaker 1: too many. It's there's if you take into account stretching
15:27
Speaker 1: and PT studios and mainstream gyms and group exercise centers
15:33
Speaker 1: and a plethora of other fitness options exercise options, there's
15:41
Speaker 1: probably something like twenty within either direction of my house.
15:49
Speaker 1: Definitely within a kilometer of my house. There's probably twenty
15:52
Speaker 1: different or fifteen to twenty different fitness type businesses. That's
15:56
Speaker 1: not say there couldn't be sixteen. That's to say, if
16:00
Speaker 1: you're going to come in with something new, you would
16:03
Speaker 1: want to be really adding value to what is existing,
16:08
Speaker 1: or you would want to be filling a hole that
16:11
Speaker 1: a gap that exists in the market in this area,
16:14
Speaker 1: or solving a problem that isn't currently being solved by
16:17
Speaker 1: what's already here, Which brings me to point number two,
16:22
Speaker 1: which is research, research and validate. I guess, So do
16:27
Speaker 1: some research. Who's your target audience, who's doing a version
16:31
Speaker 1: of what I want to do. Identify similar ideas or
16:36
Speaker 1: similar businesses or programs or whatever it is that you're creating,
16:40
Speaker 1: and have a look at how they're going, analyze their
16:42
Speaker 1: success or failure. And also, this is probably a good
16:47
Speaker 1: idea at about this time to bring somebody in that
16:51
Speaker 1: you trust, a peer, a friend who's got some knowledge
16:54
Speaker 1: and skills, an advisor, somebody professional perhaps to give you
17:01
Speaker 1: some I guess, unbiased feedback or input or advice, especially
17:09
Speaker 1: if this is going to be something that you envisage
17:11
Speaker 1: being a significant part of your life moving forward. So
17:18
Speaker 1: research and validate that. Who's out there? What are they doing?
17:23
Speaker 1: Does the world need what I want to bring into it?
17:26
Speaker 1: Is it already being done? If it's already being done,
17:30
Speaker 1: how can I do it better? How can I do
17:31
Speaker 1: it different? Is there a gap? And so on? Number
17:36
Speaker 1: three is short term goals and objectives. So what is
17:41
Speaker 1: it that you want to achieve in the first let's
17:43
Speaker 1: even say one to three one comma three, comma six months?
17:47
Speaker 1: What do you want to do? What are you what
17:50
Speaker 1: are your kind of outcomes, your practical outcomes? What do
17:53
Speaker 1: you want to see happening? How many bums on seats?
17:55
Speaker 1: How many people through the door? What's your turnover? What
17:59
Speaker 1: are your cape? How do you know what success is
18:02
Speaker 1: for you? Is it only about money? Is it only
18:05
Speaker 1: about people coming through the door? Is it about some
18:08
Speaker 1: other kind of metric that you can use which is
18:12
Speaker 1: pertinent to your business model and your business product or
18:16
Speaker 1: the service or whatever, or the book that you're writing
18:19
Speaker 1: or the program you're developing. So short and then eventually
18:23
Speaker 1: some longer term goals as well. Around that. AS always
18:27
Speaker 1: created a plan, so break it into manageable steps at
18:30
Speaker 1: a timeline. Accountability, all those things I always talk about
18:36
Speaker 1: and the plan needs to be something that is ultimately doable,
18:43
Speaker 1: not so complicated, not so overwhelming that you get back
18:48
Speaker 1: into a corner where you do not know where to start.
18:52
Speaker 1: My experience is that some people create plans that are
18:55
Speaker 1: so multi dimensional, so complicated, so hard to manage, that
19:01
Speaker 1: that's almost the problem. Not their talent, not the potential
19:05
Speaker 1: that's out there in the market, but just that they
19:08
Speaker 1: have an overly complicated strategy to operationalize whatever it is
19:13
Speaker 1: that's in their head and around that. Obviously, set some
19:18
Speaker 1: timelines with deadlines for each kind of particular phase or
19:22
Speaker 1: stage of the thing that you're developing. Right, So the
19:27
Speaker 1: next one is about resources, So gather resources. What do
19:31
Speaker 1: you need? Identify the skills and tools and materials that
19:34
Speaker 1: you're going to need. It could be financial stuff, so
19:39
Speaker 1: budget for financial needs. Maybe you need to go and
19:41
Speaker 1: get some finance. Maybe maybe not. Perhaps you need some
19:49
Speaker 1: other humans, You need some collaborators and or supporters. You
19:53
Speaker 1: need a network or a team of people around you
19:56
Speaker 1: that have got skills and knowledge and experience that you
19:58
Speaker 1: don't to support you through this process. If I didn't
20:03
Speaker 1: have the team of people around me that I do
20:05
Speaker 1: with certain skills and knowledge and abilities that I do
20:09
Speaker 1: not have. I would not be I wouldn't even be
20:12
Speaker 1: doing this right now. I wouldn't be doing this right now.
20:15
Speaker 1: So find the people, find the tools, find the resources,
20:20
Speaker 1: find all the things that you practically need so that
20:24
Speaker 1: when you press the trigger, you're good to go. So
20:29
Speaker 1: my next step is to develop a prototype or draft
20:32
Speaker 1: or create a minimal viable product an MVP or a
20:35
Speaker 1: conceptual model, a conceptual model of what you want to
20:39
Speaker 1: bring into the world. What does that look like, how
20:42
Speaker 1: will that work? Like I said, run that by different people.
20:46
Speaker 1: So you're going to test and refine or execute and iterate.
20:51
Speaker 1: You know, you're going to keep building on the idea.
20:54
Speaker 1: You're going to take things for a little bit of
20:56
Speaker 1: a test drive and see what happens. But you're going
20:59
Speaker 1: to start small. You're going to start small, but you're
21:02
Speaker 1: going to keep taking action because as long as we
21:06
Speaker 1: do something, as long as we're making a decision and
21:08
Speaker 1: taking some action and creating some momentum, then we're getting data,
21:13
Speaker 1: we're getting feedback, we're getting information which speaks to what
21:17
Speaker 1: we need to do and what we need to stop
21:19
Speaker 1: doing moving forward. So the next stage is execute and iterate,
21:28
Speaker 1: which means launch the idea, launch the thing. So you've
21:33
Speaker 1: now opened the door, you're taking action. So in the
21:36
Speaker 1: case of typ that would be episode one, or even
21:40
Speaker 1: before that, episode one of the first show ever. So
21:44
Speaker 1: that's launching me into the world of podcasting, my first
21:49
Speaker 1: ever show and getting in getting feedback and getting data
21:54
Speaker 1: from that and realizing, wow, we only had seven people
21:57
Speaker 1: listening to that episode, or I said too much, or
22:00
Speaker 1: I overtalked and under listened, or I can't remember what
22:04
Speaker 1: my feedback was all these years later. But where we
22:08
Speaker 1: just keep iterating, you know, we repeat the process, the
22:11
Speaker 1: action with the goal of improving it. So in the
22:16
Speaker 1: context of creating something out of nothing or turning an
22:20
Speaker 1: idea into reality, iteration just involves refining the product, the
22:26
Speaker 1: idea of the process based on testing, retesting, feedback, new
22:31
Speaker 1: insights and outcomes. And each kind of cycle of iteration
22:36
Speaker 1: brings hopefully incremental improvements, helping you get closer to where
22:41
Speaker 1: you want to be with a final product, a final result.
22:43
Speaker 1: And that's exactly what I've done, you know. I like
22:47
Speaker 1: when I started radio, I didn't start in commercial radio.
22:50
Speaker 1: I started in community radio, and I knew no one
22:53
Speaker 1: was listening or virtually no one was listening. But I
22:55
Speaker 1: also knew that by me stepping into any kind of radio,
23:00
Speaker 1: that would give me skill and time in front of
23:03
Speaker 1: a microphone and confidence and competence to when I would finally,
23:09
Speaker 1: if I would ever finally get a chance to do
23:11
Speaker 1: some kind of commercial radio as a host, which I
23:14
Speaker 1: eventually did, then I already had I actually had probably
23:18
Speaker 1: three or four years sitting behind a microphone doing a
23:22
Speaker 1: community version of that, which still using all the same
23:25
Speaker 1: stuff and developing the same skills and getting miles on
23:29
Speaker 1: the old clock, so to speak. All Right, so we've
23:33
Speaker 1: got three more. Third last one is promote and expand.
23:36
Speaker 1: So whatever it is that you're doing, figure out how
23:38
Speaker 1: you're going to share that with the world. How you're
23:40
Speaker 1: going to get bums on seats, how you're going to
23:42
Speaker 1: get eyes or ears on your product using social media,
23:45
Speaker 1: using email, mailouts, marketing, or whatever platforms that you're going
23:50
Speaker 1: to use for your audience. For me early days, of course,
23:56
Speaker 1: it varies depending on what it is. But for a
24:01
Speaker 1: lot of what I did, it was really just about
24:03
Speaker 1: testimonials and people talking about my business or my brand
24:06
Speaker 1: or my podcast. It was about people out there saying
24:12
Speaker 1: I'm training with this guy. He's good or we get
24:15
Speaker 1: great results, or he's funny, or he knows his stuff
24:17
Speaker 1: or whatever it is. And then people reaching out to me,
24:19
Speaker 1: not because I had a business card or a website
24:21
Speaker 1: or not because I advertised, because I did not, but
24:25
Speaker 1: my first one hundred clients, in fact, all of my
24:30
Speaker 1: clients over the years, I'll be absolutely honest. I once
24:33
Speaker 1: I got told by somebody that I should advertise, and
24:38
Speaker 1: this is twenty five years ago, and I remember I
24:41
Speaker 1: paid some obscene amounts to put a quarter of a
24:45
Speaker 1: quarter of a page ad in the Yellow Pages. That's
24:48
Speaker 1: how long ago it was. It was essentially pro the internet.
24:53
Speaker 1: So I spent I don't know why, but the figure
24:57
Speaker 1: twelve thousand dollars just came into my head. I think
24:59
Speaker 1: I spent twelve one thousand dollars. I think it was
25:02
Speaker 1: around the mid nineties. And to my memory, I don't
25:09
Speaker 1: think I ever got one client. I probably did, but
25:12
Speaker 1: I definitely got somewhere between zero and five. I can't
25:17
Speaker 1: remember one, but there probably was one. So my entire
25:21
Speaker 1: business of harp as the personal training facility, which for
25:25
Speaker 1: a period of time was the biggest business of its
25:27
Speaker 1: kind in the country. That was all through word of mouth,
25:30
Speaker 1: that was all through doing a good job. And of
25:33
Speaker 1: course it's different times now, but we got to the
25:36
Speaker 1: stage where we over the years, employed hundreds and hundreds
25:39
Speaker 1: of trainers, We had thousands of clients. We had three
25:42
Speaker 1: different centers. At one stage we had Hampton and Brighton
25:46
Speaker 1: and Corefield. We were doing over a thousand sessions a
25:49
Speaker 1: week between the three centers. They're all profitable. It was
25:54
Speaker 1: for a small business, it was a big business, if
25:56
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. And none of that was
25:58
Speaker 1: through media or marketing or advertising. So I am not
26:03
Speaker 1: saying that advertising is bad, of course, especially in twenty
26:07
Speaker 1: twenty four where we've got so much leverage or potential
26:10
Speaker 1: leverage through the Internet and through websites and social media
26:16
Speaker 1: and Instagram, Facebook and all of those things. But also,
26:19
Speaker 1: I know, depending on the product, depending on the service,
26:23
Speaker 1: depending on the thing it is that you are selling,
26:26
Speaker 1: if you are really fucking good at that thing, you'll
26:30
Speaker 1: get busy. You'll get busy. And I know that's a
26:33
Speaker 1: little bit two thousand and three, that advice, but especially
26:38
Speaker 1: in the server space, I still see it in twenty
26:41
Speaker 1: twenty four, somebody that's great at what they do. They
26:44
Speaker 1: could be a massage therapist, they could be an architect,
26:48
Speaker 1: they could be a guy that I know. I'll give
26:52
Speaker 1: a shout out to Chris. Chris builds fences and he's
26:55
Speaker 1: fucking awesome at it. And he's always busy. And he's
26:58
Speaker 1: always busy, not because he's got marketing and branding and
27:01
Speaker 1: a website, and he's always busy because he's great at
27:04
Speaker 1: what he does. So if you were good at what
27:09
Speaker 1: you do, people will sell you. People will sell you.
27:15
Speaker 1: Second last one, monitor and evaluate, So track your progress
27:19
Speaker 1: against your goals. That's having some kind of assessment along
27:22
Speaker 1: the way, make sure that you're reaching those intended KPIs,
27:29
Speaker 1: And based on your data, based on your outcomes, you're
27:32
Speaker 1: going to adjust your strategies and your protocol as needed
27:37
Speaker 1: to work through the peaks and trusts and to refine,
27:41
Speaker 1: to refine the thing that you're doing to make it
27:44
Speaker 1: the most effective and the most successful. And then the
27:49
Speaker 1: last one is just scale and sustain. Scale and sustain
27:53
Speaker 1: so to expand reach and functionality based on demand. But
27:57
Speaker 1: also I think with this there is a point I'm
28:02
Speaker 1: going to put a little asterisk next to this. You know, yes,
28:05
Speaker 1: we want to develop a plan for long, long term
28:08
Speaker 1: sustainability and growth. But also I think there's a point
28:15
Speaker 1: with many businesses and many services where it goes from
28:22
Speaker 1: being ideal in lots of ways, where it's producing really
28:29
Speaker 1: good income, it's not killing me, we've got a really
28:34
Speaker 1: good brand, we're busy. There's not a huge amount of
28:37
Speaker 1: stress and anxiety wrapped around it. And so I'm not
28:42
Speaker 1: saying limit your potential for growth. I'm saying, figure out
28:48
Speaker 1: over time what you think, and you'll only know when
28:52
Speaker 1: you're in the middle of it what you think might
28:53
Speaker 1: be about the right size and capacity for you in
29:00
Speaker 1: terms of that business. For example, when I had three
29:04
Speaker 1: gyms and I had two other businesses, and that were
29:08
Speaker 1: also bricks and mortar businesses, so I have five different
29:11
Speaker 1: lots of rent every week, and I was doing a
29:15
Speaker 1: million things, and I had other things. I had corporate speaking,
29:18
Speaker 1: I was running other programs, I was consulting. I had
29:22
Speaker 1: started my first degree and exercise science. I was doing
29:26
Speaker 1: way too many things. Business was good if it was
29:29
Speaker 1: only about money and business and turnover and revenue and
29:32
Speaker 1: profit and loss, then it was amazing. But I truly
29:37
Speaker 1: believe that it was not for me the right trajectory.
29:44
Speaker 1: I think I should have or I could have potentially
29:48
Speaker 1: stopped a little earlier in terms of figuring out what
29:51
Speaker 1: was the best fit for me, in terms of the
29:54
Speaker 1: size of the business, the number of staff, the things
29:58
Speaker 1: that we offered and I've but again, that's just me,
30:01
Speaker 1: that's just me. You might you know, sometimes the business
30:04
Speaker 1: that's got three employees and it's turning over four x
30:09
Speaker 1: is better than the business with one hundred employees that's
30:12
Speaker 1: turning over two hundred x because the juice just ain't
30:17
Speaker 1: worth the squeeze, if you know what I mean. Because
30:19
Speaker 1: you get to the point where, yes, I'm making a
30:22
Speaker 1: lot more money or we're much busier, but that's not
30:26
Speaker 1: my only determinant of success and or wealth. Again, nothing
30:31
Speaker 1: wrong with you know, I've got friends who are absolute
30:35
Speaker 1: super duper entrepreneurs and they've got more things going on
30:38
Speaker 1: than you can poke a stick at, and then the
30:40
Speaker 1: middle of all of the mayhem and the busyness and
30:43
Speaker 1: the ever expanding empire, they're good. They're good, and for them,
30:48
Speaker 1: that model works. But there are people like me and
30:51
Speaker 1: maybe you, for whom that model won't work. And it's
30:54
Speaker 1: not that it won't necessarily work commercially, off financially, but
30:58
Speaker 1: perhaps emotionally, psychologically, and even potentially from a health point
31:03
Speaker 1: of physical health point of view anyway, Some thoughts on
31:07
Speaker 1: turning your idea into reality.