How a stand-up comedian used comedy to build two million dollar mortgage-broking businesses (and had a breakdown in between) | #429

Tim

Stop it.

 

Marty

Really.

 

Tim

Am I the wind beneath your wings or just the wind.

 

Marty

Well it depends how you interpret it but I did call you when I wanted to start a podcast and you did say to me if you want to start a podcast start a podcast. Best advice I ever got.

 

Tim

But don’t know what else I could have said. So I just threw you know just start. But I understand the young Marty Vid’s was told he should become a butcher.

 

Marty

Yeah that was my careers teacher in year 10 because I wasn’t doing well at school Tim I enjoyed the sports and I enjoyed drama but I remember being hauled into the careers room and he said Marty I think you better consider being a butcher. Given your grades and I had different visions of Tim he had showcased me into this box and it was heartbreaking. I remember going home and crying.

 

Tim

Really nothing wrong with being a butcher but clearly you had higher expectations of yourself.

 

Marty

And I think it sort of gave me the first impression of how people viewed me like I’d never considered it up until that point. But the fact that he thought that was all that I was capable of was pretty damning and my ego kicked up and said you know partly I’ll show you and your 50 grand salary and I think it’s a funny feeling like sometimes those moments when people say those things feel horrendous but they’re the best moments.

 

Tim

Yes and we’ve been quoted as saying when no one believes in you, you have no choice but to believe in yourself.

 

Marty

I think that’s important.

 

Tim

Easy easily said than done.

 

Marty

Well I failed twice.

 

Tim

Well done.

 

Marty

Yeah.

 

Tim

At least you didn’t fail three times. You go back for a third.?

 

Marty

No because I was only there for the social aspect and I thought I could possibly get the Guinness Book of Records if I go back 30 years. But it was yeah it was very surreal because I didn’t know until a couple of years ago I have a bit of a learning disability and it was only through my son I’d pick that up.

 

Tim

Just a couple of years ago?

 

Marty

Just a couple of years ago because I could read but what was happening is my vision would always veer off the page so unless it was really relevant it would took so much strength just to read books and yet numbers. No problem.

 

Tim

No problem?

 

Marty

So it was quite bizarre but I never thought anything about it until recently where it matters. Yeah it’s tough like you go oh there must be something wrong with me. And when you get to the point where everyone starts to judge you like that you have no choice. You have to believe in yourself

 

Tim

Hey okay well there’s something I missed but it doesn’t matter. Everything is working okay life’s been pretty good you started and sold to good businesses so.

 

Marty

Yeah and I think in some ways that feeling of not being good enough in some way was actually a real fuel to go. You know I’ve not taken this. This is not how it’s going to end. And I have no disrespect to butchers I like meat and I like it cut well but it’s just one of those things where I go no if that’s how people are seeing me there’s something has to change here. And from that day forward I went about changing that.

 

Tim

So back then you were going through school your mum and dad owned a milk bar. Yeah back in the 80s good days to own a milk bar. You worked in that milk bar? What did you learn from doing that?

 

Marty

Yes I started work at the age of seven and the milk bar was fantastic as ethnic people in the 80s you know really red milk bars or pizza shops that was our gig.

 

Tim

And your Croatian?

 

Marty

Croatian background German Polish so milk bar just fitted the bill.

 

Tim

Right in the middle.

 

Marty

Beautifully. But dad did something very clever with me. He allowed me to run the bread stand and this was brilliant for business because I would get the profits at the end of the day of whatever sold on the bread. So at a very early age I started to pick up business techniques and doing things like when George came back from across the road he’d come into the milk bar I knew which loaf of bread he wanted and I’d put his milk out as well and he gave me a tip and I go. So people didn’t only want products they wanted to feel special and I picked that up very early on. You helped the tiptop man bring the bread in and he threw in an extra couple of loaves that means you know a couple of more video games space invaders back in the 80s like you know when rainbows black and white Tim.

 

Tim

Now when you then went on and launched your standup comedy career this fascinates me because I’m a huge believer that a comedy is necessary in business and be the disciplines of standup comedy are absolutely applicable business. We talk about why did you start to standup comedy career at the age of 16 aren’t you?

 

Tim

Yeah 16 it was 88 I did my first gig and it come out of that careers teacher interview and I loved Robin Williams Good morning Vietnam I saw it and we were going through some difficult times and I just remember watching that and I thought comedy makes it better. Good Morning Vietnam to me and Robin Williams was just my godsend. And from that day forward I just loved it. Billy Connolly Richard Pryor.

 

Tim

What made you do it?

 

Marty

Yeah, I was very introverted socially but I was extroverted within the family. And what happened was doing standup allowed me to be extroverted everywhere but it was courageous. I remember being at the Star and Garter first gig I practiced. No one moved they didn’t laugh they didn’t move. I was just horrific. If you ever see just people staring blankly back at you. That’s why they call it you die in comedy. Yes, it is. It is death warmed up. It prepares you. And Jim came up to me because I’d been doing well at drama. Jim came up to me who is an Australian comic and he said Oh look you’ve performed it well and that was enough hope to get me to the second gig.

 

Tim

You’ve had an interesting childhood at the ages between 16 and 19 you then lived in a caravan with your dad having separated from his wife your mum and you said you had to share in some toys shower. And from that moment you learnt I think you said you learnt to strive for a comfortable life ever since.

 

Marty

Yeah. Two things are really good that coming out the divorce I decide to go and live with dad and he was still building the house what seemed like for the next five years. But we lived in this caravan and slept on a foam mattress and in the middle of winter in the valley. It’s like sometimes minus two degrees and you put the hose in the end of it and it’s just freezing and you’ve got to get back and put the gas on the caravan just so you don’t get hypothermia. But it did teach me it did make me look for comfort I’m going look I can’t have this and don’t get me wrong tip. I lived a pretty good you know working class life like my parents never let me go without food and it was fine but that period was really really difficult because there was an adjustment for the whole family. But what it taught me was that I have to change this careers teacher told me be a butcher. You know I’m in this caravan I’m freezing. I had to hitchhike to go to tennis. I had to hitchhike to get anywhere really because I didn’t have any money and I was too young to drive a car. But it made me resilient and it made me really resourceful. It made me ask big questions at an early age to go is this it?

 

Tim

You finally escape the cubicle in 2000 to start your first small business which is a more mortgage broking business. Why do you do that?

 

Marty

Well I gave up on my dream of comedy

 

Tim

Never do that.

 

Marty

That was so dumb Tim it was so dumb and I remember I was earning about 40 grand a year because you know I was starting to run standup comedy nights in the valley and having fun doing that. But I was listening to the criticism I was listening to the things that were wrong about me. You said that joke last week. Yeah but that person in there. You know it’s like they don’t hear it for the next 10 years you get new audiences every time. But what I did I thought the comedians were interesting they were very kind because they kept me out of the drug culture because I was so young they were really encouraging but after 12 I said maybe you better go home.

 

Tim

You have a comfortable job in Westpac where you bought off your tree. Are you going to start I suppose you’re from a family of small business owners? It wasn’t a big leap. What did you see when you’re sitting in the mahogany office of Westpac that you thought oh hang on I can do this better.

 

Marty

Oh definitely in regards to the attitude of the bank in what I was seeing was when you did well in the bank you were actually punished because they’d always come back to you instead of going to the poor performer that always come back to you and go have you got more deals have you got more deals. And then if you gave a great rate to the client they would say you could have sold them this product that was higher which would have been a better return on investment for us. But what they didn’t see was by looking after the client actually looking after their client that client would then tell their friends and their friends and it was a momentum build but because the corporate world so transactional and it’s the next reporting season is all that matters and the shareholder and so philosophically I saw it as a great training ground. Met some wonderful people in there. I thought it was the best business course you could ever do and get paid for it. And then I thought in 2000 when mortgage broking came out I thought oh we can empower the client we can actually choose the best products from the best banks and used competitive tension and represent the climate I’m going. This is really good. I’m going. Does anyone know about this and I spoke to a business partner who was also out of the valley? Craig is it still a good friend of mine I said something in this really is we can get on the front of the wave and that was.

 

Tim

He was into it.?

 

Marty

Yeah yeah he was because you know so many hours and we can’t take lunch breaks.

 

Tim

I admire people I was speaking to Andrew banks from Shark Tank on last week’s episode and he too had a bloke come into his office in 1996 and he’s been running Morgan banks a big recruitment company and this bloke came into his office and said There’s this thing coming called the Internet and you’ll be able to pull all the job applicants online and Andrew was right you know that right at the forefront of the wave. And Andrew had the foresight to kind of trust this guy didn’t really know what he was talking about. And likewise, you, you know the people at the front of the wave you’ve got some insight you’ve got some kind of sixth sense because it would take some courage to leave your corporate existence because comfortable and maybe as frustrating as it was and back a horse that has never run before.

 

Marty

Or you know how I got criticised for comedy. But it was just amazing that that feeling of. But I knew that the pull towards it was stronger than to stay there and I had a couple of people say to me Marty you just don’t know what it is you don’t belong in a cubicle. Yeah I had a couple people say that and I also had a mentor say to me you don’t finish seventh in life by floating you know have a crack and back yourself you’re not meant to be here. So it’s for all that rah rah in the negative sense it’s those mentors that say the right things at the right time that you run with. And it did take a lot of courage and for the first six months were sitting there. Well probably the first three months where you. Why is the phone ringing and then we realise we had to go and make it happen? Because we’d been so busy for so long at the bank

 

Tim

How did you make the phone ring? Because in my brief two you prior to coming on air you said that you couldn’t compete on marketing banks had much deeper pockets to sell their mortgages and advertise and get the word out. You competed on story. What do you mean by that?

 

Marty

Well we had to position ourselves well because in 2000 people thought you went to brokers mortgage brokers when you couldn’t get money. So that was the philosophy up until about 2003. So what we had to show we had to demonstrate value. So we had to sit with people it was education marketing and we had to document our brilliance so our marketing was on the back end.

 

Tim

You had to document your brilliance.

 

Marty

And that’s what I did. That’s what we said. People aren’t going to guess what we do. We have to document our brilliance and we have to do the work upfront and utilise our time to show people the benefit of utilizing us. We had to educate a new industry and that’s how we do it. Well what we did was we sat in front of accountants. we thought. What Was the first 20 people we could sit in front of. That’s what we had to do and that’s what we did and we showed them the loan they were on because everyone was back on standard variable rates at that time. You get a one-year break right and they blow it out and margins were great for the bank. We showed them they could get professional packages and then we compared them and we said look you can save 90000 dollars here and eight years off your loan by doing three simple steps. They go. Are You kidding me. My bank doesn’t tell me this. As soon as I hear that. I go that’s wonderful. That’s wonderful. And then we document it and we document it so they can see it and still in the early days they’d go well why don’t I just go and take this to the bank. And you know were still up against fear and I said yeah you could do that but then you wouldn’t be getting this advice for the long term. We’re here for you for the next 15 years. Bank managers change every six months every four months.

 

Tim

Which is a great marketing lesson in itself. Every all business owners should be asking themselves I know what pain points are my customers and prospects got and how can I quickly remove them. And in fact, turn them into something that are an enjoyable experience.

 

Marty

And that’s the big point the difference.

 

Tim

Let’s go back to stand up comedy Martin what you learnt because there’s a number of things that you applied in this first business which by the way was called mortgage first. Does it still exist?

 

Marty

I’m not sure if it’s still it’s a case they bought them out I knew it was around for about five years. They’re a publicly listed company

 

Tim

Okay let’s go through these learnings. Audience responsiveness. Explain that concept and how it applied from your comedy days.

 

Marty

Well in comedy you would always be assessing the audience’s reaction to you to your comedy and if it wasn’t working well you had to respond very quickly. And that’s the same in business you’re looking at. What’s the response of your client and what we have to be careful of. Was content overload as well. So too much information is actually confusing so we always had to deliver. What did the client want? That was what we’d always ask so audience responsiveness in that situation was fantastic because we could again totally told them what we thought was fantastic or we could listen to what they want and deliver that and just add little value adds to them as we went incrementally along the journey but that responsiveness was really really good in comedy because if you’re going poorly it’s real time when someone’s asking a question you’re responding directly to that question and that’s really key. Just ensure that they’re happy with the answer because once that client is gone they could be gone forever. If you haven’t really catered to their needs and for us being a word of mouth business that was our whole business it was one client led to two.

 

Tim

Well who doesn’t want to be responded to as a human being. I like that number one learning from standup comedy audience responsiveness. Next one handle criticism.

 

Marty

That’s a really good one because of the fact that in comedy you’re trying to get the first person to laugh right. You’re always going to have 10 15 percent of the audience that absolutely hate your guts. Doesn’t get you. I’ve got a lot of responses but none I could say. But yeah that was the thing and then the first person get the first person laughing and what you’re looking for is momentum and soon as you’ve got 51 percent of that audience you’ve got the audience and so many people think that oh I’ve got to have everyone like me or else they always remember the one person out of the house that didn’t like them and harp on that. You know you don’t have to be 100 percent on everything you have to do the best you can in that situation and it’s amazing your brilliance can be focusing on your tribe. If the 10 percent of people in comedy absolutely love you at that night they start to follow you. That becomes your tribe. Play to the light Tim. Now think about this as clients. If I love those clients that are really responding to our business and their referring people I’m getting similar clients. Now can I respond to the clients outside of that. Absolutely.

 

Tim

But you want to work with them. Probably not. Maybe not.

 

Marty

Then you have the choice. But I found that to be really great to build momentum in the right direction which is that niche customer base that you want.

 

Tim

As you’re building this business. Your first small business. Are you actively reflecting on your stand-up days or is it just kind of part of your DNA that you felt? It’s easy to look back now and go oh I can see what I was doing there.

 

Marty

Yeah it’s a great question and that light heartedness came through. It always came through. There was always the innovation. The way I dealt with challenge and if people had a difficult situation we’d always smile about it first and soon as you got out of that discomfort of being angry and miserable there is a way through and I could see the way I set up team meetings. It would always be jovial. There would always be proactiveness like we always thought about what could we bring to the table that helped each other. It was very collaborative and I thought but those stand-up days even in doing corporate speaking and talking to various different investors and things it helped me so much Tim so much.

 

Tim

There’s not enough humour in business is what I’m thinking as you’re talking.

 

Marty

We’re dying from seriousness out there. Talk about mental health issues. My goodness. I grab a coke and have a laugh.

 

Tim

Coca-Cola. I’m addicted to prescription glasses. Let’s talk about the shortest way to a laugh. How does that apply to business?

 

Marty

Well in comedy as we know we’re looking to take out the nonessentials to get to the Punchline. Same as business. What is the direct route to get to the result. And that is an absolute key to again the simplification and amplification of business. If you simplify one plate spinning well you amplify that. You know you don’t have 56 different products. That’s not our gig anyway. You do one thing exceptionally well and that creates the platform but that is that taking out the nonessentials. What don’t we need to be focusing on is just as important as what we need to be focusing on.

 

Tim

If you want to see that in real life action. Seinfeld has done a video. It’s about a five minute video did it for the New York Times where he with his yellow legal pad he deconstructed a joke and it was a joke about Pop Tarts. And it’s brilliant because it starts across I think it spreads across two or three pages the writing of this gag and the amount of edits and the amount of crossing out and deleting words deleting verbs deleting adjectives deleting as much as you can. Replacing a series of words with one word I mean and he said this joke took him two years to construct purely through that process.

 

Marty

And this is the thing we had 22 steps in our mortgage processing system that we had created out of relevancy of doing it. Now some people have 69. Some people have 80 steps they don’t even realize it but we had condensed it into the biggest impact points within the business that we knew worked. Everyone followed it. We had it written down but it was the process of what we did. These were the touch points so everything was documented and everyone brought it to the table. But we got it down to 22 points and we do that time and time. Anyone could come into business and follow those steps

 

Tim

So you’ve applied all these stand up work to building mortgage first into a bit of an empire. In 2007 we’re going to sell this we’ve won a few awards we’re peaking. Look at us we’re funny guys and you get the cheque of a lifetime. How is that?

 

Marty

Surreal very surreal. Because I never had to have one of those toy showers again. Yeah look it was a surreal experience because I’d never seen that much money before in my life. So you know for a little country guy.

 

Tim

Country bloke grew up in a milk bar and was going to be a butcher.

 

Marty

European background and I was proud as proud as punch and it was. It’s hard to describe it but we went down to the bank and dropped off the check and the bank manager was gay what do you do. And it was like oh same as what you do. It was like this awful thing for that guy because I knew he was thinking yeah yeah. And then it was like that moment where you can enjoy your courage. But that was the you know when you say that courage to make that step when you went out of the bank and you gave up the security you weren’t getting fortnightly check anymore and everyone thought you were nuts and I thought wow that was that moment where I could enjoy that courage for the first time.

 

Tim

How did you enjoy the moment for?

 

Marty

Two days.

 

Tim

Really?

 

Marty

Well the strange thing is Tim it was my whole identity. So we had been going pretty hard for a long time. Craig and I and the people within the business and I loved the people in the business and it was just it was so surreal to have it there and then it was gone it was like your baby and it was it was all over. People talk about getting the cheque and that was exciting but you can’t ascertain and this is unfortunately the lateral thinking you can’t ascertain the loss of that opportunity platform because when it’s gone you’re going to start again.

 

Tim

You lost your identity. You move to Noosa? The best place in the whole of Australia and you had a melt down in the tropics.

 

Marty

I did. I was in the most beautiful place in the world and I got up one day and couldn’t move. It was just everything that I knew was gone and I felt like the 15 year old before I discovered comedy the same vulnerabilities the same fears. I was emotional all of a sudden, I had time with idle hands is not a good thing for me. It’s I like to be doing I’m a doer and all of a sudden I felt vulnerable. So it wasn’t the money didn’t change that feeling. When the identity was lost all of a sudden and I had to ask better questions about who I am. I was 34 at the time I’d have had a level of success whatever that means in my mind it was only one step of the journey and your only good as your last quarter. So it was it was an interesting time to see myself go into that vulnerability. It was yeah it was time to make some major changes.

 

Tim

And I’m guessing they weren’t. You seem to be a glass half full fella someone who’s not you know not necessarily going to suffer from anxiety or depression to the level that you did. I mean you said you didn’t get out of bed for two months.

 

Marty

Yeah well it felt like.

 

Tim

That came out of nowhere.

 

Marty

It was incremental over about four months but I didn’t see it happening and doctors were sort of questioning me on it going you know what are you up to. How long have you been out of the business for. What are you doing up here all these leading questions. I’m fine. I’m fine. My resilience you know my what I was doing with that first business was really validating myself. I needed that to feel good you know because I’d cop that criticism early on and this was the learnings that I picked up a little bit later on but I needed to prove myself to myself but also to everyone else in that business and that comes with a level of anger that comes with a level of driving beyond your body beyond your mind and pushing yourself to the limits. And when all of a sudden the valve is released it’s like. It’s like first there’s relief and then you go Well what is there and you go oh I’ve been busy for a reason and they were the types of things I needed to address personally and it was scary like my wife would never see me like that people hadn’t seen me like that and I didn’t want to tell anyone.

 

Tim

So how did you end up getting out of bed and getting on with life?

 

Marty

I remember I woke up one day and I said that’s it because they wanted to put me on antidepressants at the time and I’m going I don’t feel depressed my mind still working here I’m just physically tired. So what I did was I started walking just thought I did. I just went Forrest Gump on the whole thing. I’d just started walking and that was um yeah that was how it started and then I thought you know I’m going to make this count this is not where it ends and the walking really helped me it got my body moving got my mind moving I started it better I gave up alcohol stopped drinking there was lots of things I went to Vipassana which is a 10 day noble silence thing that will blow your mind if I ever do that.

 

Tim

I dont know but I have done a science retreat.

 

Marty

Ten days I was in there and and I realised every thought manifested in my body I felt every thought and my body. And after three days I wanted to pretend I had a tooth infection just so I could get out. I’ve got to leave my mind at this place. After day five day six of this beautiful kundalini energy and that that gave me.

 

Tim

The sexual energy motivation.

 

Marty

I don’t know what.

 

Tim

I think it is between the legs type of thing. Yeah you’re up and about where.

 

Marty

Not there. But That was it. It’s interesting you say that because we had Charlie five years later. We had had some unfortunate events with conception but I don’t think we would have had Charlie if I hadn’t made those changes and stop drinking and be more mindful and did my acupuncture like I created a life plan for myself I took care of myself

 

Tim

You know you’re a blokey bloke. You’re Croatian so imagine your old man is quite a lucky bloke you know. You’ve gone and done vipassana you’ve done acupuncture you’ve got your Kundalini up and about all sorts of things are going on. Were you pushed into this?

 

Marty

No no I knew I needed to do something and I didn’t want to medicate. I just go I didn’t want to drink anymore. I only did it for confidence in the first place never enjoyed it but did it because socially it was good and.

 

Tim

You used to drink if we went on stage during you stand up.

 

Marty

Early days yes. And then once I got paid more that did it.

 

Tim

Yeah I also read somewhere where you said you did a business call a course called What Works which saved your life you said.

 

Marty

Yeah because that came out of the it was a week after the career’s teacher had written me off right. So I went in there they basically said oh you can design the life you want in regards to professionally. And I thought hang on a minute I thought this thing was high school. You know there’s a road map isn’t there and they go no no no you can create a business. And we’d been in small business but that was the first time that I went through a process where I started to visualise things I wanted in life. So I ran a stand up comedy night in the local area.

 

Tim

You go through your breakdown you come out of it. You moved back to Melbourne and in 2009 you start a second mortgage broking business and you’re back to you know ground zero.

 

Marty

Yeah because in 2008 before the GFC like people thought we sold we were geniuses pure luck before the GFC but coming out of the back of what I went through in Noosa I could see businesses start shutting down I could see the newsagent been there 20 years the butchers but they closed down and I thought geez these are good businesses that are going under and it felt like you’re on the path to somewhere that wasn’t going to be good and I was mentoring other businesses at that stage. And one thing I found with mentoring I love doing it but I couldn’t directly impact from the doing. I could advise but I love the doing and I thought and people kept saying how do I make the money. No no tell me how do you build a great business. How do you deliver beyond expectation? You know it’s like all these things that I was really passionate about Tim people were just discounting for the dollar and I thought you know what it was Grand Final Day 2009 and footy always inspires me. And I was watching this Fortune 500 program and I thought mortgage 500 it’s progressive Indy 500. It says what it does. Mortgages in the name flood mortgage first everyone thought we’d mortgage.

 

Tim

So this idea came simply from a name. I thought I like that I reckon I could build a business around it.

 

Marty

Moment of inspiration and I had this vision of seeing to it. When you have that wisdom you’ve always got to speak it out loud so you could hear it because otherwise you suppress it back down and that’s the meditation But in regards to that it was like I could see the client sitting with financial advisor mortgage broker business lender all in the boardroom and I could see the colours and I was searching I don’t like the chaos of not knowing what I’m doing. It always feels uncomfortable for me but then it just all sparked in the name. I love the name. I love the progress in it. And then I thought lease 500 I thought business 500 I thought legal 500. I thought I could explain everything I’m doing with this number. It was like that moment where I’d go Cole back up the truck we’d go. It’s time to get back in the game.

 

Tim

Your wife what she said?

 

Marty

I love the beach. I promise where we have a kid we’ll be back. We’ll be back. She is really supportive. I’m very fortunate with that because can you imagine living with me.

 

Tim

I don’t know you’re be pretty funny.

 

Marty

She laughs a lot laughs.

 

Tim

At or with. You don’t know. So what did you do differently was it more mortgage 500 or did you just do the same as you did with mortgage first.

 

Marty

A little bit different in regards to mortgage first was just about mortgages we really didn’t do anything else. We focused on that with the 500 group as it ended up being we got specialist in these different areas so we had done what the bank had tried to do but they didn’t talk to each other. So the financial planner didn’t talk to the broker in the bank it was all very separated whereas with the 500 group we would all be the specialists.

 

Tim

The same business partner as the first business?

 

Marty

Different business partner?

 

Tim

How did you choose him or her?

 

Marty

First business partner we were both friends in a similar situation. The second business I started on my own and then I wanted to have the commercial lending side so I went and approached the people that were basically writing a third of commercial business for one of the banks. I won’t say which one. It just goes there are the royal commission.

 

Tim

Yeah yeah.

 

Marty

But yeah I went and approached the people that I thought we’d be fantastic in the business so I’ve never hired. I’ve only ever recruited and approached people I wanted to be in the business.

 

Tim

You know I’ve never lost a staff member.

 

Marty

No one in 17 years.

 

Tim

That’s awesome.

 

Marty

I think that’s probably what I’m most proud of in many ways because people wanted to be there and they did great. They were all in the top 15 percent of the industry utilizing a lot of these innovative tools that we were doing.

 

Tim

What’s the best marketing you did in mortgage 500 outside of putting together a great offering?

 

Marty

We did something called an appreciation night so a lot of people will get referral fees crossing in these types of industries. Give me a property and I’ll give you 10000. I hated that. I didn’t like that at all. So what we’d do is again this is focusing on the lie the people that supported us once a year we’d have an appreciation night so we’d go down to a beautiful winery and we’d put on comedians of course we’d entertain them.

 

Tim

Were you one of them?

 

Marty

I emceed but what would happen it would be a sit down dinner. Everything else in the industry was always cocktails come in for a few drinks come and go as you please. We treated them really well we entertain them and we got more business out of those appreciation nights because they were already people that were supporting us. So we told them if you weren’t here we don’t have a business. So we looked after those people and those people looked after us and it was always a mutual benefit.

 

Tim

You sold it in 2015 six years after opening it for another check of a lifetime?

 

Marty

Well this was different because I exited this time and this was on the basis of seeing Charlie my son jumping on Hastings Street in the ocean.

 

Tim

Was this vision a vision that you had?

 

Marty

I knew once we had kids that was always going to be a very strong option.

 

Tim

You came back to Noosa?

 

Marty

Yeah. So I exited at that stage and then I still continue to run servicing the clients I wanted to. And then I exited totally out of the industry would have been about a year ago now

 

Tim

Did you have a moment of doubt or down?

 

Marty

I still get scared because that time was pretty harrowing. So I’m very conscious of it but I do things differently like I meditate 20 minutes in the morning 20 minutes in the afternoon take care of myself in that way. I’ve got projects that I’m working on so I’m busy and that’s important.

 

Tim

Projects as in the?

 

Marty

Podcast. I still do mentoring

 

Tim

Still writing gags?

 

Marty

Yeah I did. Strangely enough I was writing gags this morning. Yeah well I do it because it really helps my creativity in my business thinking.

 

Tim

You sent me a number of sort of philosophical statements or ideas or concepts and I just want to go through eight of them I think you sent me eighty nine of them but I could only choose eight. So I’ve called them life according to Marty I’m going to read each one out and you are going to provide some short brief commentary if that’s at all possible. I expect you to make us laugh rolling in the aisles now. The first one is deliver a great experience that you would share with friends. Pretty self-explanatory. Many don’t do it though.

 

Marty

Yeah. What are people saying at the barbecue about you and your business.

 

Tim

Nice. Do new activities to be the novice in the room and learn new things.

 

Marty

Yeah so I’ll do 40 day challenges like I did yoga for 40 days having never done it before. Gave up drinking for 40 days and never drank again. Strange but also I did cartooning and that was strange because all of a sudden my son started drawing. So that was different. And so I do that to be the novice in the room to be hungry to learn. And again that just adds upon what I know. So it’s more tools.

 

Tim

Probably going to say neural pathways that had to be does I don’t even know what they are. But I think conceptually it’s the right thing to say. Get to know your team beyond the result you want them to get for the business.

 

Marty

Get to know the person. Don’t just look at the transaction. Don’t micromanage. Get to know them. Get to know their family. Get to know what inspires them. If you know what their life’s vision is you’ll get their life’s best work.

 

Tim

You don’t earn a living you are living.

 

Marty

That’s my favorite quote. Because I thought money would validate me but I realize that the end and really the money. Take the dollar sign off and it’s just playing sport right with the people you love. If you look at it like that. That’s how I look at it. So I like the game that’s a really important statement because when I had Charlie I recognized that you know you don’t earn a living you are living you’ve won you here and you get the choice to do with it what you want and yeah there’s challenges in life but we live in pretty damn good times.

 

Tim

Yeah sit a big blue sky vision 90 day goals and daily action plans.

 

Marty

Yeah. So people have to have a vision to enjoy and they want to believe in someone they want to believe in a vision and if that’s in alignment with them then they’ll come along for the journey. But then you’ve got to get to work here. You’ve got to get to work. And then how we bring that down is setting there 90 day goals for what they want to achieve. We had based targets that we’d like to meet obviously but the base targets were three times the industry average. So we weren’t there to play small. We wanted to play big but that’s how we did it. But then once we had a look at the statistics we’d move them away and go. Now how do we build a great business and if people didn’t meet target we would want to know more so what they’re going to do now to be able to help them and guide them to be able to get where they want to get to.

 

Tim

Bring concepts together in new ways from different industries.

 

Marty

I love that that’s been my Hallmark but even up here in Noosa 10 years ago I saw a serviced office called the Noosa boardroom up here and I thought this is great business its a really good business. The numbers stacked up it was fun and so I bought that in the mortgage industry. And so we had people when they were brokers under our banner they would pay something that they couldn’t get anywhere else so it was a win win scenario but we were able to control the 420 square metre facility with boardrooms and the directors didn’t pay a cent. So most people pay 40 50 grand for a premises but we made sure that everyone won. If those brokers went out there somewhere else they would be paying double. We gave them the IT and the printers were all there. We covered that but that was again that’s an idea of left field by talking to people in different industries that you can apply into your own. That’s just magic when it comes to.

 

Tim

And there are so many learnings we can get from outside of our industry. Andrew banks again last week in the show made the comment that stop hanging around with people in the same industry is you hang around with people who have the same business model as you. Clever. I thoroughly enjoyed talking to you. How can people hear more about you what’s the podcast called.

 

Marty

Yeah the Marty Vids show and now you could subscribe to a Vidsneyland a happy place on earth the happiest place is taken. But again that’s the same progress.

 

Tim

It’s not about Marty by the way guys just remember that. I think we should finish this episode with a one hour meditation.

 

Marty

I’ve started let’s go

 

Tim

Laughing too much. Thanks buddy.