209 – How to get more stuff done. AKA productivity tips for your business. Go!

Andrew:

Always, always. There’s a microphone lore of some sort. It’s always the same.

Tim:

It is. Microphone principle, I got to call it the Griffo principle.

Andrew: 

I like that.

Tim: 

Thank you. So this guy gets up, asks his question. He says “Timbo, I love what you had to share, made a lot of sense. I’m excited to go back and implement. But I’m interested to know, out of the 250 people in this room, how many do you think are going to take action?” I was excited by that question because often I get mechanical questions like “how do I do that thing on YouTube that you were talking about?” This was a philosophical question and this went to a topic that I’m very passionate about, which is seeing business owners take swift action in their business, particularly around marketing. And that’s the topic of today’s episode. But the way it answered it Griffo is this, I said to him…I paused for a minute and I thought I could give him the obvious answer, which is “I reckon it will be 50, 60, maybe 80 of you will go back and implement something” but that would be an obvious answer based on really no, I don’t have any factual evidence to prove that. So I paused for a minute and I thought what I’m about to say could mean that I’m a poor keynote speaker. I’m not getting my message across very well.

Andrew: 

It could be the end of your keynote career.

Tim:

It could be the end of that. This is goodbye. I said “you know what, I reckon three or four.”

Andrew:

Wow, that’s very honest and brutal of you, but true. I have no doubt it’s true.

Tim:

Three of four. And I said I’m embarrassed to say that because part of me is thinking clearly I’m not delivering my message in a compelling enough way if that small amount is what’s going to action what I’ve got to say but I know through feedback that I get from the conference organizers that I’m doing okay with my keynote. So what is it? This is where our discussion begins.

Andrew:

As you said, we just kind of touch on this, just having a chat a few minutes ago and I agree. It doesn’t matter what I’m doing or whether it’s running a workshop, whether it’s doing a presentation, whether it’s writing an article where you want someone to take action, it’s a big thing. A – you don’t normally know who does take action, so there’s no real way often of measuring that and you’re often pleasantly surprised though when you get that email from someone saying “I saw you speak” or “I read your book” or “I did this and it transformed my life. It’s changed everything” or whatever it might be. But you know what; I’ve never really gone back to those people. I just got one today from a guy in the Middle East who’s bought everyone of my books over the last 15 years and said “now I’ve got two big businesses and I’m putting it down to what I read in your books” which was very flattering.

Tim:

Is he alright?

Andrew:  

He’s a camel herder, big camel herding. But the thing about it now, I’m going to go back to him and say “why? What action did you take?” I give plenty of advice but you took action on it and I think that’s something that I’m going to change out of this initial discussion. I’m going to try and find out more about why do some people take action and other people don’t, because even when you’re coaching people one on one in that situation, why is it some people will do as you guide them through and others whine. Is it you or is it them?

Tim: 

I don’t think we got the straight answer. This is not a black and white question. It doesn’t have a black and white answer. For me, one of the things is you’ve got to be ready to hear what someone’s got to say and there will be always be someone in our audience that the soil is fertile enough in their mind to go…like Joshua Nickels, who I interviewed on the show 6 weeks ago, the electrician guy; amazing, amazing story he had about 1 percenters. I talked to him about how did he get to the point of having a $20 million electrician’s franchise. One of the stories he shared was that he was in a personal development session. He’d been to many. It was one of those corporate breakfast-type thing and a motivational speaker was speaking. He said “I was sitting at that table and there was 100 people in the room” he said “the bloke on the stage could have been speaking directly to me and it was just like at that point in that time in my life, I was ready to hear what he had to say. I’d heard it 30x before but I was just ready.” Sometimes, in order to take action, when someone shares a marketing idea or a business idea, whatever it is, you just need to be in the right frame of mind to hear it.

Andrew:

And I think that frame of mind though, and I agree completely, that frame of mind can be caused by a few things. One might be that you’re frustrated because you’re finally sick and tired that I haven’t done this thing, whatever it might be. I’ve been meaning to rebrand or I’ve been meaning to build a website or I’ve been meaning to do whatever it might be and I’ve been talking about it for 5 years and haven’t done it. Finally, enough is enough and maybe sometimes that’s because someone who you really respect kind of says something to you which maybe makes you feel a bit embarrassed. And so it’s finally a little bit of a shame of not doing stuff or the frustration, whatever it might be. I think the other side of that is that whole thing, again that we were talking about earlier, is having a big enough “why” and often we don’t have a big enough “why” for action. We go “I could do this, but why?” And the third element of that, which is kind of tied into the why, can also be a bit sometimes we’re just not hungry enough.

Tim: 

Okay, don’t move on from why. Put hungry on hold because we’re about to go out to dinner. I’m getting a little bit picky so I don’t want to talk hungry too quickly. Not having a big enough ‘why’. We’ve spoken a lot about ‘why’ on this show. We’re going to talk a lot more about it. We talked about it in the forum. There’s a thread inside the Small Business Big Marketing forum right now where each member is working through, trying to come up with why they do what they do and when you know that, it is a game changer. You can have your big ‘why’ around why you’ve chosen that business but there can be little why’s around, like this is a marketing idea, “what is my ‘why’ around actually actioning that idea?”

Andrew:

Yeah, starting with why. You’re right though; it doesn’t have to be giant, does it?

Tim: 

It might be it will free me up to spend more time with my family. It will get something off my desk that’s causing me a hell of a lot of anxiety of recent times. It will generate an extra $10,000 a month in revenue. Stop and ask yourself why. “Tim’s just shared that idea. Why should I implement it?” That in itself can be a game changer.

Andrew: 

And sometimes even “why haven’t I implemented it?” Maybe that’s that hard conversation that we’ve got to have with our self. I was working a project a little while ago and I’m really struggling with it and I’m coming out…this is not a hard project. I have to write some copy, get some pictures, put some stuff together. I’ve done that once or twice before and I’m coming at…

Tim:

Was it coloring?

Andrew:

Absolutely. But it was like “why am I struggling to do this?” And the reality of it was I didn’t actually want to do that project. Instead of just stopping and going, questioning myself around it, I bumbled through it and half-assedly did it for weeks and weeks and got more and more frustrated with myself and I wasn’t able to finish it. I was kind of half-action it but I wasn’t. And then I went “I don’t want to do that. Why am I even doing this project?” It was a good idea at that time but I don’t want to it now. And then also there’s this real sense of relief and I just said to the guys “sorry, I’m not going to do that project anymore” and it was a right decision to make but I’d kind of gone down the wrong path, perhaps even caught up in their excitement about it rather than being my excitement.

Tim:  

How’d you feel after letting them know that you didn’t want to do it anymore?

Andrew:

Great!

Tim:

Oh yeah.

Andrew: 

Wonderful sense of relief. And that’s why I think we’ve got to have two “why’s”. Like if I’m struggling to do something…

Tim:

Why and why not.

Andrew:

Yeah, why or why not. Why do I need to do this to motivate me and pull me forward? Or why am I struggling to do this? Why haven’t I done this? We’ve all got those things. It’s sitting there. That little pause, those irritating little things that are on our desktop or wherever it might be that it’s just difficult to do.

Tim:

Yup. If they’re there that long, sometimes you need to burn the ships and send them off. Get rid of them.

Andrew:

That’s another thing, isn’t it? Again that comes back to that ‘why not’ or like the incompletes, why aren’t we actioning all those things? I think sometimes for me in the past, problems that I’ve had is the stuff that’s too hard, the incompletes, that you’ve got to make a difficult phone call or I’ve got to ring them, sit on hold for 45 minutes and no one else can really do that, all of those awkward things. I remember one time years ago, I went into my office and one corner had been taken over now by this growing entity of incompletes and it was starting to take over the office. You can almost feel it. And I used to hate looking it that corner because all it was unfinished stuff that I need to do.

Tim: 

That in itself is like a burden.

Andrew:

Absolutely.

Tim: 

It’s well burdened.

Andrew:

Well absolutely, but a burden nevertheless. I just, for whatever reasoning, just kept going. I remember I had to finally say I’ve just got to block out two days and I completed that, no appointments, no anything for two days and I’m going to take that man, and I remembered how fantastic it felt to do that.

Tim:

There you go, another reason, well another way to take action is to maybe look at that feeling. We were talking earlier on the balcony, on the balcony overlooking the…what do we have overlooking here, Griffo?

Andrew:

Cairns.

Tim: 

Cairns, city of Cairns.

Andrew:

Drinking gin and tonic.

Tim:

No we’re not, but you were talking about how like when you go to write, like we’re talking about when you’re on your go zone, separate conversation but it’s like that two hours of power in your day when you just achieve at your highest level and you talk about that’s when you sit down and write. You turn off email, you turn off phone, you turn off social media and you talked about at the end of that two hours how you felt.

Andrew:

Exactly. I feel wonderful.

Tim:

Channeling that felling, like I do that with gym. It’s like there are days when I just don’t want to go to gym. It’s like “oh my…”

Andrew: 

Who’s gym? Is your wife now at gym?

Tim:

Not yet, but she listens to this show. But there’s times when I go “I just don’t want to go” but you know what gets me there? Is I go, I just have enough willpower to know how I’m going to feel at the end of that session. You wouldn’t understand that feeling but you get it from writing.

Andrew:

I’ve read about it. I’ve read about it.

Tim:

You’ve read about it, people have told you. That is another great way to take action is to just, if you can, think about how you’re going to feel once you tick that box and that’s quite exciting in itself. Do you know there’s people out there who get a little bit of a, dare I say, a sphincter tightening, Griffo, a little bit of anal retentiveness just by ticking things off the list.

Andrew: 

Well I do.

Tim:

Really?

Andrew:

Yeah. I’m one of those. I’m a lister. I’m a lister and a ticker offer, ticker offer.

Tim:

You’re a lister? I did not know that.

Andrew:

Don’t make me feel like it’s something to be ashamed off. I’m hideous. But I do. I even write things on there that I’ve already done to cross off.

Tim:

I love that! That was my next question. So you got a list, right? And there’s things you got to do and then you go “oh hang on. I’m just going to do that” and you come back and you go “it wasn’t on the list.”

Andrew:

You add it to the list.

Tim: 

And then you cross it off?

Andrew:  

Yeah

Tim:

Oh my God. #OMG.

Andrew:

Look, I’m sure if there’s any psychologist, psychiatrist or other mental professionals listening in, they could probably add some advice to that.

Tim:

Lindsey, if you’re listening and I hope you are because you’re both a listener and a forum member and you’re a past guest of this show and you know Griffo…

Andrew:

I know Lindsey, I know.

Tim: 

Then there’s a lot of…anyone that adds something to a list and crosses it off within…I’m guessing the space of seconds.

Andrew:  

Yes, absolutely.

Tim: 

Oh that’s sick. I’ve lost my trail of thought.

Andrew: 

Action! Action! Action!

Tim:  

But it’s a form of action.

Andrew: 

Because it’s a playing a little bit of a game with myself that makes me feel, because what I’ve figured out in my little world, what makes me feel like satisfied at the end of the day is doing stuff and achieving things. For me that’s crossing stuff off a list. I also try to make a point of not just making sure it’s not things like move the book on the shelf or to remember to water the pot plants or something like that. It’s a little bit more detail. There’s world peace, end terrorism, almost kind of daily kind of task. Just again, by figuring that out, if that makes me feel better then I’m more productive. The more I cross off, the more not that I feel like I’ve crossed off enough now I can have the rest of the day off. It makes me feel like I’m getting stuff done and that spurs me forward to do more stuff. Does that make sense?

Tim: 

Well it feels like you’re digging a bigger whole for yourself right now but tell me, tell me, while when in the zone of headspace in psychology…

Andrew:

While you’re in my head.

Tim: 

Another reason we don’t take action and how we could take more action, I think there’s a lot of people out there, including you and I, who every now and then suffer from a lack of self belief. We hear an idea. We know there’s something we should be implementing but it’s like maybe the conversation starts, the little bloke on the shoulder goes “who am I? Who am I to do that?”

Andrew:

You know what mate, I encounter that a lot with writers, people I‘m teaching to write books, people I’m kind of coaching even to write blogs or how to write articles or things like that and that is often the biggest thing that they’ve got to overcome. It’s like “who am I to write anything? Who’s going to want to read what I’ve got to say?” It’s a real shame and the way that I always frame that around in that particular example and I think for many things as well is that no one else on the planet has the same amount of shared experiences, realizations, aha moments, whatever it is. Whether you’re 20 or whether you’re 40, you’ve got this different set of experience and you’ve figured out different stuff and people want to know that. It’s very easy to say that but it’s kind of hard to really convince people but I definitely find that I spend more and more time and more and more effort to try and convince people to have that bit of self belief.

Tim:

So attach greater value to what you do, which is easier said than done, particularly those who suffer a real lack of self belief.

Andrew:

Absolutely.

Tim: 

I had to laugh, Griffo. Do you know a band called 5 Seconds of Summer?

Andrew:

No

Tim: 

No? I do because I got three teenagers. They’re kind of like Australia’s answer to One Direction?

Andrew: 

Who’s One Direction?

Tim: 

Wow. Well I don’t know where to go from here, listeners. We’re in about the 19 minute mark. I’m not going to explain One Direction. Tell me you’re joking.

Andrew:

Never heard of him. Who’s One Direction?

Tim: 

Are you serious?

Andrew:

No. What a stupid name for a band.

Tim:

I need to…true or false, do you know who One Direction is?

Andrew:

No. I’ve got no idea.

Tim:   

Oh this is gold, gold listeners.

Andrew:

Did they play in Cairns?

Tim:

Sorry, this is no longer called Monkey Business. This is called The Dinosaur’s Cage. I’m sitting across from a Brontosaurus. Griffo, you’ve got to get out more.

Andrew: 

Hang on, to see One Direction, I’m just going to Google them.

Tim:

This is extraordinary. That’s like saying “who’s ABBA?” You and I grew up in the 70s and 80s.

Andrew:

I know who ABBA is.

Tim:

But that would be like in the 70s, a man of your age going “oh ABBA, I’ve not heard of ABBA. Is that a sort of acronym of something?”

Andrew:

Okay, I’m feeling inadequate now.

Tim:

Griffo, listeners, what I was going to tell you is that there’s this other band called 5 SOS, 5 Seconds of Summer and they are about 17 years old and they just put out their biography.

Andrew: 

Oh really.

Tim:

Which again, you know like…

Andrew:

That illustrates the point, doesn’t it? Who’s got life experiences at 17? But the reality is everyone.

Tim: 

Everyone has and there’s someone out there who wants to hear it. Can I give you a quote? You’re looking at it.

Andrew: 

I’ve just looked at One Direction here and what came up first was that they’ve recruited Danny DeVito, who I happen to know just star in Steal my Guilt musical video.

Tim: 

Well I don’t know what that song is but I’m guessing that is their new one. They’re big. They’re big amongst teenage girls.

Andrew:

They’ve got Danny DeVito.

Tim:  

Huh?

Andrew:

They’ve got Danny DeVito.

Tim:  

I’ve got a question on that in a minute, but, gee what was I going to say to you? Here we go. My mate, Ben, Dr. Ben, his surname is not Dover. You’re with me?

Andrew: 

Yes I am, yes I am.

Tim:

Thank you very much. Ka-ching. It’s boom-tish, isn’t it? Not ka-ching. And he says “you don’t have to be the best in the world. You just have to be the best in their world.”

Andrew:  

That’s a great statement. That’s a great statement.

Tim: 

Is that his, do you think? Or is he found that from someone?

Andrew: 

No, I think it’s someone else’s.

Tim:

Oh so he’s stolen it?

Andrew: 

I think so.

Tim: 

I always attribute it to him.

Andrew: 

No. But it’s great. The moral behind is, I’ve heard that a number of different areas but I think that it’s true. I think again, isn’t that that whole thing, I mean how do we play that back to taking action though? That’s self confidence.

Tim: 

Self confidence. Here’s the thing. In my keynote, I identified three, sometimes four limiting beliefs that stop business owners from taking action around marketing – like a time, like a money, like a knowledge.

Andrew:  

Yup

Tim: 

The fourth is they think their marketing is going to have to be amazing. If it can’t be amazing, then they can’t do it. Therefore, they don’t do it. They don’t take action. Imagine if you could just reframe that and think “my marketing doesn’t have to be amazing. I don’t have to be the best in the world. I just have to be the best in the world that is my prospects and clients.” It might be a geographical area, it might be a group of people, whoever it is, you just need to be the best there and take and the pressure off. Because to that point and I’ve interviewed people like Tom Dickson from Will It Blend Melissa Maker from First Kiss, the most viral marketing video in the world. They’re amazing but like they’re two people. What’s the world’s population?

Andrew:

6.8 billion, I think it is. They’ve got a long way to go.

Tim:  

Right, you know that but you don’t know One Direction. But that’s two people in 6.8 billion, right? But you’re not going to be those two people. I don’t mean to be the doomsday to say “don’t ever try and be amazing” but take the pressure off and you may get more done.

Andrew:  

I think that’s kind of giving us permission because I think you’re right there. What I take from that is we don’t take action out of almost the fear that it’s got to be so perfect, we’ll never almost be able to live up to that.

Tim:

Correct, perfection.

Andrew: 

Writers do that, to use that writing analogy.

Tim: 

There’s another one.

Andrew:

There’s a lot with authors who never finish a book because as soon as you finish it, then you’ve got to publish it and someone’s going to read it. It actually becomes an ongoing form of procrastination. I think for those people who struggle with action for that reason, I think we’re living in a most wonderful time where people are really okay with things not being 100%.

Tim: 

They are, they are.

Andrew: 

In fact, they like it to be a bit more real. They like it to be real.

Tim: 

Shows like Big Brother, Big Brother isn’t popular anymore but reality TV isn’t perfect.

Andrew:   

For all the wonderful reasons that we’re okay with imperfection. Even that strategy now producing iPhones or anything, like get it out there and then we’ll fix it up. Whereas we, again a little bit older, tend to have the view of get it right and then get it out. We would never think of launching something without it being perfect. It’s a bit of an old fashion kind of concept.

Tim: 

Okay, so here again, and I hope listeners we’re helping you in some way, shape or form be able to take action in something that you’ve been putting off or deciding not to take action because that’s an action in itself.

Andrew:

And that’s okay.

Tim:  

That’s okay.

Andrew: 

Yeah absolutely.

Tim:  

Lost my train of thoughts there, gee.

Andrew:

I’ve got a few thoughts.

Tim: 

You have got a few thoughts. Can I just say you touched on perfection, lose perfection. That’s what I’m trying to say.

Andrew:

Tortured life living with perfect.

Tim:

Tortured, tortured life anyway, sometimes. I mean…

Andrew:

Anyway, we’re doing these podcasts, it’s torture.

Tim:  

Exactly right. I never got an example of this video but I’ve talked about it often from stage and it’s a guy who owns a bike store, his name is Pete, and he should never really have embarked on a video marketing strategy because the way…and let me explain his videos. It’s kind of a visual thing but I’ll try and paint the picture. What you see Pete do is the first thing he do is the first thing he do is you see him walk up to the camera, well you don’t see him walk up to the camera but when the screen comes on, he’s pushing the record button and looking really close into the lens.

Andrew:

To make sure the little lights are on.

Tim: 

Yeah, are the lights on? Then he walks out of frame, then he walks back into frame and he stands there and he is so nervous. He is so nervous. And then he counts himself down – 3, 2, 1 and he starts talking. He nervously goes “hi, it’s Pete and I want to introduce you to this new bike that’s come out” and he just bumbles his way through. My point being is that Pete could have quite easily go “you know what, I’m no good with this video stuff. I’m not going to do it. I’m way too nervous.” Instead, he celebrated his imperfection, he celebrated his nervousness and that’s part of his brand and that’s why we love him. Right?

Andrew:

Great.

Tim:  

Do you love that?

Andrew: 

I love that and I can add to that. By being a speaker, I think one of the things that change in my world and I consider myself to be, I became a good speaker when I stopped trying to be one. When I finally stopped trying to be Mr. Perfection, when I finally said “I’m just going to be authentic as a speaker.” That’s going to be my goal. If I miss a line, if the slide bug is up, if something happens, I’m not going to get stressed about it. I’m just going to be authentic around it. And that took all of the pressure off me because I was very stressed before I present. Now I’m very rarely stressed at all, simply because all I care about is getting the message across, not being Mr. Perfection as a speaker.

Tim: 

And that’s bringing up in itself. I’m talking tomorrow, round stage, 750 people and I’m nervous about it. It’s a good nervous but I’m so excited about getting the message to them.

Andrew: 

That again, so you can take action. I think that can apply to a lot of other areas as well where we’re not taking action because again of a fear of some sort of we’re trying to live up to. We don’t do any marketing. We don’t speak at the local rotary club because we’re concerned that we’ll look like an idiot or whatever and turn around and go, with all of that stuff, we don’t start our blog or we don’t do those things, you look them at them all and go, what the world wants is just people to be authentic. Whether it’s on a video, it doesn’t matter. Once we kind of get that, you give yourself permission to just do it without it having to be perfect, I think that’s a very freeing you up thing. I like that.

Tim: 

I agree with that. I think authentic, I’m going to challenge you on two things.

Andrew: 

Sure

Tim:

I agree with what you said. Authentic is an overused word.

Andrew:

It is. We need a better word.

Tim: 

It makes me feel a little bit sickly but it just means being yourself. That’s how I interpret it, like just be yourself. As I say to my kids and I’ve said on this show before, don’t lie because then you’ve got to remember what you said. Move on, be yourself. Be authentic. You want to read a good book.

Andrew:

Always

Tim:  

Yeah you love books. The Four Agreements, have you read the Four Agreements?

Andrew: 

No, I haven’t read that.

Tim:  

Goodness, you’ve got it. You haven’t read it?!

Andrew: 

I’ve got 400 books over my rack.

Tim:  

The first agreement – be impeccable with your word.

Andrew:   

Yeah right, wonderful.

Tim:

Wonderful. Four Agreements is how to live a wonderful life based on the Four Agreements. I’ll put a link in the show notes. Authentic, okay we agreed that we need a better word. The other part of that is, I saw a YouTube video the other day that was the winner of the Public Speaking Awards of 2014 from Toastmaster, who I don’t agree with Toastmaster. Whoa! Timbo doesn’t agree with Toastmaster, sending the emails.

Andrew:

There’s going to be ripples. We’re going to get mailed.

Tim:

I know, I know. So this guy won it. 30,000 people, got down to him. And then I read a blog post kind of dissecting why he won it. One was his authenticity. If you watch this video, I think he’s really…is it inauthentic or unauthentic?

Andrew: 

There’s a lot of debate around that. Either will do.

Tim:   

I didn’t buy into his authenticity. I thought he was putting on a show. But anyway that’s kind of digressing and you haven’t seen it so you can’t comment, but love that, Griffo.

Andrew:  

That is a big point. A couple of other things about taking action though…

Tim:   

Go, that’s what we’re here to talk about.

Andrew:

I think there’s a few other reasons why people don’t take action and again I put myself in this. I’m not trying to say I’m the master of taking action but I think what I’m saying is we don’t have the right habits and I think that’s another interesting point around that. A very brief story – I met a guy. He came to see me and wanted some advice. He was a massage therapist. He had a really successful business and he came. He had like eight masseurs that work for him, all the rest of it. Anyway, he came to see me. He said “I’ve got this whiteboard at home and I’ve got like 200 or 300 things on it that I want to do but I get home at the end of the day, I can’t do any of them.” I said “tell me about your day.” He said “I get up around 4:30. I go for about a 20 kilometer ride, then I go to the gym to do martial arts of an hour, then I swim a kilometer in the pool” and I said “okay, I’ll stop you there.”

Tim: 

I’m exhausted listening to that.

Andrew: 

Obviously the problem isn’t you’re lazy, lazy soul. Clearly that’s the issue here. Military guy, I said “when you feel you’re most fired up and your brain’s fired and you’re motivated and excited” and he said “8:00 when I first get to the practice and then we start massaging.” I said “at 8:00 when you’re at your peak state, you go into a dark little room, rub coconut oil on people and start playing Enya” and he said “yeah.” Bring your state right down! And I said first thing we’re going to do is block out that one hour from Monday to Friday and that’s going to be the time where you get your key activity for the day done. Anyway, the guy said “okay, well I’ll try but I’m going to lose…” and I said “you’re going to invest one hour a day in your business. It’s going to be the best.”

Tim:

Hold that thought because exactly, he’s going “I’m going to lose some clients…”

Andrew:

Fear factor.

Tim: 

Well fear of losing two clients at $60 an hour, $120, but imagine what he’s going to achieve in those two hours. It’s going to be $200, much more than $200 in value.

Andrew:  

Thousands!

Tim:  

Thousand of dollars in value for his business.

Andrew:

That was the habit that we have to change with him and he came back to me several months later and said “I need another whiteboard because I’ve finished all the stuff on that whiteboard. Now I’ve got more ideas.” He said “my hour a day that spend on my business…” he said “I treasure it” and he said “I really want it now to be two hours.” What’s changed in the business? He says straight away the revenue has increased by 30 to 40, I can’t remember the actual numbers, like 35%. He said “I am so happy in my business, so everyone else is happy. We’re attracting better staff. Our clients are really noticing it. We’ve put up our prices and didn’t lose any client.” All this wonderful stuff happened and all it changed was really he developed a better habit.

Tim:

Was he still playing Enya?

Andrew:  

I think he was but I tried to pray. I should you should be massaging people to AC/DC. It would be a lot better for you, for your state of mind. I said it will be great if you actually massage people to some high powered speakers of some sort.

Tim: 

Well why not.

Andrew:

Have some personal development going on while the person is getting massaged. I’d love to have that.

Tim: 

A little bit of Small Business Big Marketing on in the background.

Andrew:

In the background.

Tim: 

That would send you not to sleep, or maybe it would.

Andrew:

Absolutely not.

Tim:

Maybe it would. Hang on. Two things, well how many things, people who are listening don’t take action around a couple of things and one is their online marketing, one is their design work. As you know, Griffo, this show is made possible because I went out and sort some sponsors. I took action. It wasn’t easy and there was a lot of rejection. There you go, another thing is rejection.

Andrew:

Great point. You’ve had more than your fair share, for reasons that we won’t bring up the elephant in the room of course.

Tim: 

Don’t, and even dating back to my dating period was also a lot of rejection but there was a lot of rejection and it took me a long time to get some sponsors, A – because I wanted to identify the right ones and B – I didn’t like rejection. But finally 99 Designs and NetRegistry on board. I want to acknowledge them before we get, we’re sort of well and truly more than halfway into this episode, Griffo, in the dinosaur’s cage. How’s One Direction going?

Andrew: 

One Direction, Danny DeVito.

Tim: 

Griffo, how many small business owners are putting off getting stuff designed in their business, do you reckon?

Andrew:

A lot, a lot. Huge amounts.

Tim:

And here’s the thing: they think it’s too expensive. Often it can be. They don’t know where to look or they don’t know how to go about it. 99 Designs solve that.

Andrew: 

They don’t actually know what they want.

Tim: 

They don’t know what they want.

Andrew: 

So the best way to do that is to have a comp and find out a whole pile of stuff, “that’s what I want. That’s what I don’t want.”

Tim:  

And there’s a beautiful thing about 99 Designs is they do run a design competition and you will have designers from all around the world submitting finished designs, not proposals, finished designs to your brief. And then you can go and look at the 60, 80, 120 designs that you’re going to get and you’ll know “that’s the one. That’s what I’ve been looking for” not the two or three designs that you may get with your local designer. Sorry local designers that are listening but I know there’s been an ongoing debate with me and then but that’s okay. The idea is to go and use 99 Designs. 99Designs.com/sbbm and they get a $99 upgrade, which gets them 185% more designs as well. We’ve got to love that.

Andrew:

Nice mate, very nice.

Tim: 

Easy way to take action.

Andrew: 

Yup! Great.

Tim:  

#2 NetRegistry, online marketing. Just get that domain name sorted out.

Andrew: 

I read a stat the other day that still 50% of small businesses don’t have a website.

Tim:   

43%.

Andrew:

43%, so it’s come down by 7% then.

Tim: 

Isn’t that extraordinary?

Andrew:  

I don’t understand. I’m kind of speechless about it, to be honest. I don’t know what kind of business, small business that doesn’t have a website. I don’t want to bag on anyone, I imagine most of our listeners probably would.

Tim: 

I’m not sure about that.

Andrew:  

I just want to sure the businesses that would, maybe it’s traders and things along those line that make up that figure. I don’t know.

Tim: 

Sometimes I’ve come across a lot of accountants, accountants that they have more work that they need, so they’re like “I don’t need a website.” But here’s the thing, a website… they get work through referral and a lot of businesses get work through word of mouth and referral and one of the things that happens, I don’t know about you but if I get referred to someone, I’ll generally go online and check them out before I make the phone call.

Andrew:

Always

Tim:

Depending on how, I mean if it’s to buy a chocolate bar, I’m not. But if it’s to a high involvement purchase decision, I will. I’ve come across accountants saying “I’ve got lots of work” but then I say “have you got the right kind of work?”

Andrew:

You’re getting work passively, in many respects. You’re taking what you get, as opposed to going out and as we talk about targeting the right kind of clients and I think that’s where websites are wonderful screening mechanism really, isn’t it? Do I really relate to this business? Do I want to work with them? Interesting.

Tim:

There’s a lot of listeners or a lot of business owners who thing getting website’s hard. It’s not. NetRegistry.com.au, you can get your domain name, you can get your hosting, you can get your website designed, developed. You can get it search engine optimized, the whole lot. When you got simple solutions like 99 Designs or NetRegistry or whatever it is, stop arming and arming and just test it out, because one of the great things about, well these two sponsors and a lot of these other online solutions, is that the bar is low. It’s not as if you’re going to drop a whole lot of dough by doing it.

Andrew:

It’s not $5000 that you’ve got to spend on a website and I think you’re right earlier on when you mentioned that a bit of uncertainty around that. I think we can be concerned because of a belief, which is actually not true anymore.

Tim:

Aha, okay so let’s move on about beliefs that aren’t true because we’re talking about websites or design. I hear horror stories and it breaks my heart from business owners who tell me “see my website? It cost me $30,000. See that logo? It cost me $10,000” and they don’t like it. They’re not in love with it. It breaks my heart. Don’t believe everything you hear.

Andrew:   

And also things have changed. I think that’s another element of it, as we’ve point out the fact that there’s a bit of dinosaur element in here but you are more okay with technology and what’s going on than anyone I know. That’s so tragic for me.

Tim:  

Hang on, hang on. That would normally be a real compliment but that’s coming from a bloke who’s not heard of One Direction.

Andrew:       

It could actually be an insult.

Tim:                       Yeah, correct.

Andrew: 

But what we couldn’t do a few months back, it can possibly be done now and done better. It’s like I’m buying images. You remember, like “where did you get images from?” I remember the only place you get images from, you had to pay a photographer to go and shoot them, which was wonderful and you still use it and I still use photographers but for stock images, you go to a place and you pay a dollar an image and they’re wonderful and they’re high res and there are all the rest.

Tim: 

Some are wonderful. Some are dodgy.

Andrew:

But you look at it and go wow! So resources there, maybe that limiting belief that stop you from doing something before, maybe the reality is not the same anymore. Someone is doing a bit of homework.

Tim: 

Griffo, how do you know Danny DeVito?

Andrew: 

Danny DeVito, my people say that we look like twins.

Tim:

Well there is a little bit…I’m going to actually find, I’m going to do a mean little comparison.

Andrew: 

I like Danny DeVito.

Tim: 

Have you met him?

Andrew:  

No.

Tim:  

Oh so you’re lying.

Andrew: 

No, I just said he’s doing a TV commercial with One Direction. That was the extent of my…

Tim:

I thought you knew him. I thought you said you knew Danny. I don’t know. I don’t know anymore.

Andrew: 

No, you’re ram like me.

Tim: 

Who’s the most famous person you’ve ever met?

Andrew:  

That’s a tough question. Matthew Owens, John Howard I guess, Jack Canfield.

Tim: 

The Human Eyebrow.

Andrew:  

Virgin.

Tim:  

Branson?

Andrew: 

Dicky Yip.

Tim:  

No.

Andrew: 

Yeah, I’ve been with Dicky, spoke an even with him, part of his dream team.

Tim: 

Shared the stage?

Andrew:

Shared the stage, not at the same time, not the same amount of awe but yes.

Tim:  

That’s pretty cool.

Andrew: 

Tim Ferriss, those kind of guys, Timbo.

Tim: 

Oh Tim Ferriss, as in Tim Reid.

Andrew: 

No, not Tim Reid. Hang on. I’ve just go to get to the list that I’m going through.

Tim: 

Yeah whatever. You’ve got one there but I’m going to throw one at you, the reason we don’t take action and how we could take more action, like back to the guy at the conference, three or four people are going to take action. Why? Because you all go back and get stuck into the busy-ness of business.

Andrew: 

I think that that’s the ultimate problem. We’re all so darn busy doing everything that we got to do. I think you got to break the pattern, you got to break the routine. One of the things that I say to people when they’re stuck in a routine which they’re not getting stuff done and I advise them is to move everything around, is to move your office around. Just do something silly like that. Just move. It’s not silly but the idea of it is just you got to interrupt.

Tim:

It seems very shallow but it’s actually…

Andrew:

Thank you.

Tim:

I just shot your idea down there in a ball of flames. I didn’t mean it like that. People would look at that and go “oh really? I was hoping for something bigger than that.”

Andrew:

Something gold.

Tim:

But at a woo-woo level.

Andrew: 

Very powerful.

Tim:

It is.

Andrew:  

Even sometimes like doing a rebrand, funny enough we talked about that, if the business is stagnating, even if it doesn’t need a rebrand, time-wise I would suggest things like do a rebrand to reenergize. You got to change something.

Tim: 

You do.

Andrew: 

One of the biggest areas where I think we got to change, we got to interrupt, two areas actually. One is often that I think that we got to look at your daily schedule and you got to do your daily schedule. If you’re not getting stuff done because you’re too busy being busy, something’s got to change like the masseurs guy. And one of the things that I’ve done for a number of years which has been really beneficial for me is to allow an hour each day in the morning, an hour each afternoon for the unexpected stuff. Unexpected. Everyday unexpected comes up and if you allow for it, then you actually have time to do it. Again, it sounds like a very simple idea but the nice thing about it if nothing unexpected comes up, you get an hour of free time and then you can use that time for your own and I find it very liberating in the morning and in the afternoon, I have an hour on either side of length where I can turn around and go that’s where I can actually do stuff. That’s just one example but I think for everyone, if you’re frustrated, if you’re listening and you’re going “I’m so frustrated. I’m not getting as much stuff done as I want to get done” and we all turn and go “well it’s always because I’m busy.” Something has to change.

Tim: 

I call these in my little world, circuit breakers.

Andrew:

Great. That’s a great analogy.

Tim:

Thank you. The idea for me and I’ll do it even at a simple level, which is there’ll be days where I go “here we go again.” Right in my work, “here we go. We’re going to do the same as we did the same time last week” which doesn’t happen that much in my work because there is a bit of color and movement in it, but I’ll be driving my boys to school and I’ll drop them off, drive home the safe way and then some days I’ll go the long way or a different way or a weird way. There is some kind of neural, again, psychology, Lindsey, some kind of neural pathways that they get kind of embedded in your brain or whatever and if you don’t make a concerted effort to break them, you just get stuck in  a rut.

Andrew:

Absolutely, absolutely.

Tim:   

And then you don’t take action in ruts. You just get stuck. The idea is actually doing something differently. Actually, listeners right now, stop what you’re doing. No, don’t stop what you’re doing. Finish the show and then think what can you change tomorrow and do something differently than you’ve ever done before and it might be hard because you’re in a bit of a pattern or process.

Andrew:

Again, I think what you’ve got to deal with that but you’ve got to create new habits, most of the time, because all that we are doing and we were funny enough talking about this earlier on as well, that one of the reason is there’s more and more to do but it doesn’t actually feel like we’re getting more stuff done. We’re answering more and more emails, there’s more and more social media, there’s more and more and more but at the end of the day, do we feel more satisfied that we’re actually achieving and actioning more things or taking action. No. The things that we’re doing are just getting more and more. We’re all feeling more frustrated, I think at the end of the day. Who leaves, shut their business at the end of the day and goes “I feel really happy and satisfied with how much I did today and all the things I action.” Most of us shut the door and go “blimey, I’m glad that’s all over.” And exhausted, mentally fatigued, physically fatigued.

Tim:

To that point and there’s even a deeper solution to the problem we just raised. I’ve got Mark McKeon coming on the show in a few weeks time. He’s written a book called the Go Zone, I touched on in this episode, and the idea is to find that two hours in your day where you do, you actually do, not can, you do perform at your peak. That’s about identifying, like with your masseuse bloke, and then figuring out how to best use that time and that’s going to be a fascinating interview, which will continue the discussion we’re having here. Hey Griffo, I won’t push pause. What time we got that restaurant booked for, out of interest?

Andrew:  

7:00

Tim: 

Ah 6:57. Very good, we got about 3 minutes to go. It is Cairns, things operate a little bit…

Andrew:  

It’s around the corner.

Tim:    

A little bit slower. We can almost take a flying fox. Listeners, Griffo’s house is up…we’re up high, mater. I reckon we’re at the highest. Are we at the highest point or are there homes behind us?

Andrew: 

No, there are homes higher up.

Tim: 

We’re high. We are high. But it’s like looking out on to the city of Los Angeles without the lights.

Andrew:  

And without the city of Los Angeles.

Tim:

That is nice. It is lovely. We’ll wrap things up, mate. This is all about taking action. Listeners, we’ve kind of identified some reasons people don’t take action. We’ve also identified ways of breaking through that. I would leave people, again we’ve spoken about this on this show previously but that book The Lean Startup does talk about getting something to market that is imperfect.

Andrew:

And being okay with that.

Tim:

Just being okay, happy days. Hits the market, people are going to feedback to me, “that’s dumb.” “That’s stupid.” “This doesn’t work.” “There’s spelling mistakes in that” or whatever. Cool. There’s your feedback. Change it. Put out 2.0. 2.0 still got a couple of mis-tweaks, okay oil them, 3.0. There is a wonderful saying in that book, which is “sharpen your offer on the stone of the market.” Happy day.

Andrew:  

I love that.

Tim:

I do love that. A bit of poetry. As a writer, you love your words.

Andrew: 

Of course I love my words. I love my words.

Tim:

Goodness me.

Andrew:

The final thing I’d like to share is I think one of the other reasons that we don’t take action is it comes back to a bit of a self management thing and I think that a lot of people are fatigued and it’s an old work-life balance thing, which is a bit done these days. It’s a bit like authenticity but it’s very hard to action stuff when you’re exhausted and when you’re fatigued and when you’re just burned out. That’s all the more reason to not be fatigued and not burned out. That’s very easy for me to say that but it’s the reality. I have always got more than at the end of a holiday, on a holiday, whatever it is. There’s never enough time, there’s never enough money, there’s never a good time to go. The longer you list the lessons are for not going away and recharging the batteries, the more important it is that you do it. That’s my take.

Tim: 

I love it, mate. Big topic.

Andrew:    

Great topic.

Tim: 

I reckon this is a start of a discussion that needs to happen on this show going forward.

Andrew:  

I agree.

Tim: 

I don’t know in what other iterations it will happen. It will happen with Mark, but we need to keep talking about it because both you and I speak from stage a lot, both you and I share ideas that we know resonate with our audiences. I know that the stuff that gets talked about on this show resonates with this audience but I also know that most will now go “there’s the end of the episode” and get stuck back into the busy-ness of business. So to that end and to close this show, Griffo, I wonder if we could set some…setting a challenge seems a bit [48:33] but maybe what’s the question? You ask the right question, you get the right answer. The question to ask in order to make sure people do take action; putting you on the spot here, putting myself on the spot here, but let’s throw something out because different questions resonate with different people.

Andrew:  

I like the ‘why’ and the ‘why not’. If you said there’s five things that you wanted to get done and you’re not getting them done, you’re not actioning them for whatever reason it is, find the ‘why’ to get it action and find the ‘why not’ for each of those so you can have a big reason for doing it and really spell out why you’re not doing it. What is the real reason? Not you’re busy. There’s a bigger reason. It doesn’t mean that I’ll pay if you do it. There’s a reason for your five most actionable items.

Tim:  

I like that. I like that. Another one, another question could be…not even a question. Set yourself a reward. Decide on an action and reward yourself.

Andrew:  

Great point.

Tim:   

Someone inside the forum this week celebrated the success their business is having, since actually joining the Small Business Big Marketing forum, and I just thought just acknowledging that success alone, without going off and buying themselves a new car or a night at a fancy restaurant with their partner, just acknowledging the wins, just going “well done.” What’s it feel like?

Andrew: 

We’re not very good at doing that as Australians.

Tim:    

No, no.

Andrew:

It’s something that we all feel that you should celebrate your wins and you shouldn’t do this.

Tim: 

What’s next, what’s next?

Andrew:  

I wish it was a culture that we would change in this country. I think the more we could celebrate wins, big and small, however you do it, it doesn’t really matter but it’s almost just move on to the next thing. We’re always moving on the next thing without taking a moment.

Tim: 

Well I think we’ve had a win, mate. You and I are going to go look at each other…over a candle? It’s not a dimly lit restaurant, is it?

Andrew: 

It will be beautiful. I’m hoping it will be romantic.

Tim:

I hope so, I haven’t seen it, with a pub or something, a palmer, a beef wellington. You’re a bit of a 70s beef wellington fellow, wouldn’t you?

Andrew:

I like a beef wellington.

Tim:

I do like it. I think it’s something that I don’t see on enough menus these days.

Andrew:

And you’re not going to see that in Cairns menu. I pretty much guarantee that.

Tim:  

I think we could remind ourselves what beef wellington is. It is a large bit of beef.

Andrew: 

With pastry

Tim:  

No, covered in liver pate.

Andrew:   

And then pastry.

Tim:   

And then filled with pastry. What was that about? It’s a little bit wrong.

Andrew:

Back in the days of butter and…

Tim:   

Someone thought that will work and they took action.

Andrew:

Yeah I like it.

Tim: 

Took it to market. Griffo, it’s been an absolute pleasure.

Andrew: 

It’s a nicer way you bought that back down. I’m very impressed, Timbo, as are the audience.

Tim: 

That’s how we roll around here. It’s all about taking action. I think I shared an inspiration quote a few weeks ago actually, because I do one at the end of each episode. I think I’ve already shared this one, which is action creates reaction. Have you got a little quote that’s just kind of sitting on the top of your cranium?

Andrew:  

One that always works for me is passion equals profit and I always turn around and go those businesses that are passionate, those business owners that are passionate rather, that anyone who’s passionate about anything they’ll create profit, whatever profit means. It doesn’t just mean money. That’s how I explain that a little bit there.

Tim:  

Love it. Listeners, I am to going slowly remove myself from what I thought was the monkey’s cage. It’s clearly not. It is a dinosaur’s den. I don’t know what noises dinosaurs make but we’ll find something. It’s more of like a horn or some kind of guttural noise, which we will find. But I’m going to slowly remove myself because I’m a little bit scared that I’m trapped inside this home with a bloke who doesn’t know who one direction is. I don’t know what else he doesn’t know. I’ll find that over dinner, but as I step away, I want to thank you for listening, for tuning in to Australia’s #1 small business marketing show. I’m going to thank NetRegistry and 99 Designs for making it happen. And I wish nothing more than Griffo doesn’t get too romantic over dinner and that your marketing is the best marketing. We’ll see you later.