Gerry Ryan is not just a business owner. He is a bonafide *gazillionaire* who has successfully built the most successful caravan manufacturing company in Australia and New Zealand, Jayco – completely from scratch. He has also produced major theatre productions like “Walking with Dinosaurs” and “War Horse” to the Australian stage. He is the part owner of a Melbourne Cup winning horse. AND he is the President of Cycling Australia (as well as the owner of a many other impressive accolades). How has he done it? By always following his passion and surrounding himself with great people every step of the way.
In this episode, Gerry Ryan shares his wisdom from almost forty years of business success. From the importance of never falling in love with your offering through to picturing your perfect customer in order to create a winning business.
PLUS, I reveal some exciting upcoming guests, and I let you know how YOU can be a part of my 200th episode celebrations. So let’s get listening!
In this session of Small Business Big Marketing, you’ll discover:
- Why Jayco’s Gerry Ryan believes it is important that you never fall in love with your product.
- How Gerry manages to juggle his caravan manufacuring business with a television production and real estate career (among other things).
- Why it is so important for absolutely every business to have a website, and to deliver benefit driven content.
- How Gerry Ryan has grown his caravan business to a point of achieving 45% market share with 80 competitors.
- Why Gerry Ryan believes that he is not only building caravans, but building dreams.
- Why it is essential that you can picture exactly who you are creating your product for.
- Why intuition plays an important role in business, even if you are a serial planner.
- The importance of surrounding yourself with good people so that you can explore the ventures that you are passionate about.
- The difference between “passion” and “falling in love” in business.
- The most difficult business decision that Gerry has ever had to make.
- PLUS, I reveal my plans for the upcoming 200th episode.
Episode Timeline
- 1.20 Shout out to my local pizza place – get a website!
- 3.30 Get your online marketing up to speed with Netregistry.
- 5.30 I exclusively reveal some of my upcoming guests, including the voice of Siri, Karen Jacobson, and a brothel Madame!
- 7.00 I give you the scoop on my upcoming 200th episode – a live podcast that you could attend.
- 9.00 Introducing Gerry Ryan, the man who founded Australia and New Zealand’s biggest caravan manufacturer, Jayco.
- 10.00 Gerry warns all business owners out there to never fall in love with their products.
- 13.15 Find out how Gerry started Jayco way back in 1975 when he was 23 years old.
- 16.30 Gerry describes how he got serious about Jayco in 1991, ramping up engineering, marketing, and training expenditure.
- 18.00 Gerry talks about PR and how integral it has been to Jayco right from the outset.
- 21.00 What does the Jayco brand stand for?
- 22.00 Inspiring dealers, insipring engineers, and imagining the customer you are creating your product for.
- 24.30 Gerry talks expansion into different areas, from television production through to real estate.
- 29.00 More success = greater responsibilities, but work should also be fun.
- 30.00 Gerry’s toughest ever work decision.
- 34.30 My top 3 takeaways from my chat with Gerry.
Resources and Links Mentioned in this Episode
- Jayco Caravans official website
- Netregistry answers your marketing questions for free
- Swiftly.com – for small design jobs, fast
- The Small Business Big Marketing Forum
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Over to you!
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