https://www.getcoached.com.au/

Hi, I’m Vanessa and I’m a business coach based in Perth, Western Australia. I coach business owners to get out of chaos, create control and eventually scale their business and change their life. I’m also a business owner, just like you. I know first hand what it’s like to be the boss, the technician, and find the courage to change and grow. In my 17 years as a business coach, I’ve seen it all. I’ve seen businesses go broke, I’ve seen businesses get sold, and I’ve seen businesses triple in growth. Before business coaching, my business experience spans over 19 years across banking, finance, logistics, warehousing and service based industries. While I’ve learnt that a business cannot function at 100% without structure and foundation, it’s the people who create the biggest change in the business itself. It mostly comes down to changing people. The way they think, relate, take ownership and responsibility, and their confidence in their skills and abilities. When we change the behaviours, the business changes. As a coach, I work with you, and together we work on your business. The recognition I’ve been given with 7 ActionMAN awards over the last 17 years has been for my dedication to my community, and that’s exactly what my clients get.

VANESSA MOORE

[00:00:00] Best Book Bits podcast brings you Vanessa Moore, owner of Get Coached. She’s been a business coach for 18 years with a passion for getting business owners out of becoming employees themselves, getting owners to revision their why, bringing them back to Clarity and back on track to achieve all the things they set out to do in the first place.

Vanessa, thanks for being on the show. Thank you, Michael. Welcome. I’m feeling very welcome after our little warmup just before, so I’m very. Nah. No worries. Now business coaching, it’s a serious business, pun intended. It seems to be all the rage now. New business coaches, popping up like a new Japanese dessert shop at a shopping center.

That’s a bad joke, but yeah, before business coaching was cool. How did you get started in the field? I fell. . I didn’t even know what business coaching was until I met a friend at a local wine bar back in Victoria where I used to live who’d recently bought an action coach franchise and, Friday night drinks talking about people, he was coaching what they were doing in their businesses.

And [00:01:00] my experience having worked in banking, transport and logistics, finance and all that sort of stuff, we get into some pretty strong discussions around, what he’s doing with his clients and how he’s trying to help. And then, yeah, I was between roles and got a phone call from his wife saying, Hey, Bruce wants to have a chat.

Went and met with him. Went and started working with him two days a week, and then six months later I bought a license, went to Vegas, went training, and here I am and love it. It’s an amaz it’s an amazing story. I wanna expand on it a little bit. So you became an apprentice’s business coach, is that correct?

I am. I watched Bruce. and he took me out. He forced me fully outta my comfort zone doing bowl calls, trying to, get people interested in coaching working the phones. Then he took me out to coaching sessions, alignments, prospect meetings. So the eight months prior to me actually heading over to Vegas, I’d pretty much seen it, touched it and felt it so that when I get home, I come, came home to three clients and hit the ground running.

So [00:02:00] it was pretty, . That’s amazing. And you had a a background in banking before that for a while as well, so it wasn’t like you were just getting outta school or anything like that. You had a professional career. And So I left school and went to work for a bank. And back in 1988, that was like a, public servants role.

Banks were pretty prestigious then and all before online banking even existed. We saw our customers that actually came into the branches. , but my forte ended up being in the back office part. So I ended up in a department in town and administration, learning new things, systems structure just became part of what I did and I was pretty good at it.

Then I went out and did a bit of temping, ended up in a transport and logistics job, interview for a day, and stayed there for nearly two years. working in one of Australia’s biggest distribution centers and learnt a lot there again. Back to finance at Caterpillar. And then ended up working at a small business.

My very first small business, which was a third party logistics company. So I managed some accounts. I managed [00:03:00] Apollo bikes for Australia. I managed Amcore Victoria, and one day the boss came downstairs and said if any of the sub’s wives call, let them know that they’ll get paid on Monday. And this was Friday.

And I’m thinking how does. , you’ve gotta pay people. And apparently, cash flow crisis in a small business was a common thing. So that was my first experience of, in corporate you get paid it, the money’s just there. And that’s when I realized and learned that small businesses did struggle.

And I heard a lot more stories about the owners of the business that I was working in. And that stood me in good stead when I actually then started coaching. , all the corporate stuff, it’s, you go to work, you do your job, you get paid. There’s performance management processes, there’s inclusion.

It’s very strong in corporate, in small business, it’s very loose and a lot of business owners forget that. It’s the people that make the business, and if the people aren’t happy, the business isn’t gonna run properly. So I’ve been able to take a lot of that corporate stuff that I’ve learned into my client’s businesses with them for their, with their team [00:04:00] to firm up how their team work and how they work, as well as make sure that the business runs properly and hopefully doesn’t have so many cash flow crises.

Yeah. Thank you for sharing. Yeah, and it’s always important to expand on someone’s experience before they start their next career journey, cuz people listening right now, you don’t realize what you’ve currently, what you’re currently doing or what you’ve currently done in the past adds up to skill sets that you can put to use at a later date as well.

How important? is it for people to get business mentors? So like just that mentorship that you had, that apprenticeship with that person who obviously had the Action Coach franchise. And we’ll get into Brad Sugars in a second, but how important is it for people to have business mentors in their life and not just rely on their friends and family for business advice?

Yeah, that’s a big one because it’s really easy for people to tell you what you should. You should do it like this and you should do it like that. And if they’ve never done it, then you shouldn’t be listening to what they’re telling you. Yeah, it’s very important to find somebody that you [00:05:00] can trust that has actually potentially been down the road that you are on.

It doesn’t necessarily have to be, exactly the same, but at least have some idea, but also having people around you that understand where your gaps are, as you said in the skillset. So if you’ve got a really great idea and you want to start a business, that’s great. But if you’re the sort of person that never finishes anything, you need somebody to help ensure that you do finish what you’ve started.

And mentors change. I’ve had, I can’t tell you how many coaches I’ve had over the years and a lot of people say, you’ve got a coach. I’m like, yeah, I’ve got a coach. I need a coach. I’m a business owner too. Just cuz I’m a business coach doesn’t mean that I know everything and I’m gonna have you.

Fan dangled business that’s, pulling in millions of dollars. It everyone needs a coach at some point. Mentors, there is a little bit of a difference. Mentor is usually somebody that’s gonna share with you and help you through mainly discussion. Coaches are about accountability, getting it done, writing the [00:06:00] plan, making sure that vision is strong and that you’re actually setting your goals every 90 days and achieving what you’ve set out to.

One, two or three strategies. It doesn’t need to be this massive plan, and I think that’s a good definition that you make as well. So the difference between a mentor and a coach. A coach puts in place plans to make you accountable to do the work. Some of the best coaches I’ve had and some of the best coaches that’ve.

Spoken to have said they won’t work with someone until they know that client is committed to doing whatever is they have to willing to do to get that job done. A lot of people aren’t willing to do the work and what a lot of people want. Is a mentor who would just listen to their problems, make ’em feel good.

One thing that I love about you, you don’t sugarcoat stuff to clients as well that I’ve heard you mention. Can you talk about the importance of not sugarcoating things and just being a straight shooter with clients as well? And it’s funny, I did my at my networking group on Wednesday, I did my 10 minute presentation and one of my [00:07:00] clients was in the room.

And that’s one thing Anne said, the first time we. . I’d only, I only met her a couple of times at a couple of previous meetings. I just said to her, you’re in a toxic relationship. You seriously have to get the hell out of there now, . And she’s I highly even knew it. But that’s the one thing you gotta love about her, is that she’ll see it and doesn’t have, I don’t, I’m not afraid to tell people the truth, because that’s what they want from us.

They want us to actually have a look at their picture and look at what’s going on and say to them, . had a client the other week whose business has just grown so much since he bought it a few years ago, but he hasn’t necessarily grown. He’s grown with it, but not enough. So he needs to actually do some more work on himself now to be able to then get a little bit ahead of the business.

So then he brings a business up a bit more, and I flat out told him on last week, I said, this is what you’ve gotta do. This is where the, this is where the problem is now. This is what you’ve gotta fix. And I’m actually telling him, no, it’s not about the. he said, I agree. And there are coaches that I know that would be afraid to [00:08:00] do that because they’re worried that the client’s gonna turn around and say, oh, I don’t like that.

Bye. At the end of the day, it’s all about spotlight in someone’s dark spots and or blind spots. So as a coach, your job is to. Turn the lights on and say, Hey, this is what you’re not seeing. And the reason you get a coach is because you can’t see the box when you are inside the box. You can’t see the label on the box when you’re inside the box.

Anyway. I could sit here and talk about 1,001 little coaching nuggets as well, because as myself a coach I’ve, yeah, met a lot of them, and Emma, a coach myself. But back to your story, so before 2009, relocating to Perth, where were you? Where did you live before going to wa? I lived in a little town called Kibo in Victoria.

Now, not so little from what I’m hearing. About 60 Ks from Melbourne. I lived there for about 10 years before we moved to Perth. Loved it there. The commute to the city for work wasn’t, that fantastic. But it’s quite funny because the first client I got here in Perth was a 50 kilometer drive, and the coaches, he.

are you phone coaching? I’m like, [00:09:00] no. Only 50 K’s. Oh my God, that’s so far. . But yeah, Gisbon the suburb that we’ve moved to here in Perth, we moved straight into Applecross and we haven’t left. We’ve actually now bought here is very similar to the little town that I lived in back home in Victoria.

So replicated. Yeah, that’s cool. No, I’ve seen the Richmond thing behind you, so I knew you had to be a Victorian somewhere, so no. Awesome. Back to back to the Vegas training when you did that that training for six weeks in Vegas with the ceo Brett, sorry, one week, sorry, six weeks after your journey.

You were in Vegas for 10 days. Apologies. Brad Sugar, CEO of ACC Action Coach. What is action? Who is Brad Sugars? What’s the training like? What’s the company like? I’ve watched a few interviews with Brad and read a few of his books. Amazing stuff, but from the insiders word what’s your take on it?

Yeah, Brad. Brad started action 30 years ago in August this year. He used to do the circuit as a speaker for many years with, you’d and Tony Robbins and people like that. And he’d continuously get [00:10:00] people coming back to different seminars. , I was at your last one. I went home and I did this, and I did that.

But then I stopped. That’s when he realized that coaching would potentially be an option for people weekly or fortnightly from an accountability perspective. Cuz they’re coming to the seminar to learn this stuff, but then they do it for, a month or two or three, and then all of a sudden they stop again.

We, as we call him the father of business coaching because action coach, we’re the largest coaching franchise in the world we’re in. Correct me if, I think we’re in about 84 countries at the moment. We’ve had thousands of coaches and it’s amazing the community that, the intellectual property that’s available to us as franchisees when we’re working with a client, the systems, the structure but we’ve also got the ability as independent business owners to bring ourself as a coach into how we coach our clients. So that’s the action thing. You might change it up a little bit to work a bit in a bit more of my way, if that makes sense. . Yeah. Yeah. And I’ve, look, I’ve [00:11:00] read the, some of the ips and the systems and processes as well with action coach.

That’s one of the beautiful things about having a company with intellectual property, with content, with systems, with testimonials, with a community as well. So not just your everyday, as I said before, Business coach. I’m a business coach. And you know what systems, what companies behind you, what’s your experience?

You might have success in businesses. Yes. And people might come to you for advice, but this is more men. This is the difference between mentorship and proper business coaching as well. Moving on. What moments or times do business owners, say, I’m drowned in, I need help and make the decision to actually go out and get coaching.

So what moments in a business owner’s life does this? Does this come to actually reach out? So when they stop resisting? So the formula for change is dissatisfaction, multiplied by your vision, plus your willingness to take first steps needs to be greater than your resistance. So many business. Work in their [00:12:00] business, they can’t sometimes even see that they’re drowning or they can’t sometimes see that there’s a huge opportunity in front of them because they’re just resisting cuz they’re so dissatisfied and it’s those moments, and a lot of people think that coaching is all about the negative and getting you out of chaos or being in a struggle or having a mindset issue.

Coaching is also about business owners that are pretty switched on, that realize that their business is possibly a little bit beyond them at the moment, and they need a coach to help them grow, which is what one of my clients is all about. It’s, it doesn’t just have to be that you’re failing or something’s going wrong.

It should also be about the fact that, you know what, I’ve got a level of control. There’s a little bit of chaos. I wanna scale. I know I can’t do it on my own. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So one aspect is getting outta their own way and stop the head trash as you call it as well. Our biggest enemy, and I tell this all the time, is your inner me enemy is your enemy. I know that as well. Someone that people call me a d, [00:13:00] sure, I’ve got a lot of energy, but, running multiple things. I’m like, my wife calls me the original a d, not the fancy one. People say, I’ve got a d d. It’s no, you’re, she calls me. You’re an original a d d.

I’m like, great. And this is the reason why I have coaches. I have mentors. I’ve got a tight team around me as well to keep me accountable. You can’t do it all by. and there are so many subject expertise people out there. Professionals get professional advice. You go to a restaurant, you don’t cook your own meal, you get a chef to do it.

You don’t just walk into the kitchen and cook your own meal. Why do you think just because you have a business, you think you have all the answers to make that business grow as well? This is one of the reasons why I wanted to get you on the show, Vanessa, to talk about, some of that stuff too.

But I want you to tell me a funny story. So tell me the story of coaching yourself out of a client who got into his business when his dad died in his twenties. He took over the business at 20 years later, he still owned it and you helped him sell it. Tell me that story. So his dad [00:14:00] didn’t die. His dad actually got was unwell.

A pretty funny story actually because. When I first met him at our pro at my sales meeting, prospect meeting I’d sent out the action coach information pack. He’d done the questionnaires and sent it through to me, the system that we go through and we are sitting there chatting away, and this is This is a more than 10 years ago.

And I was still a little bit green. I’m not as confident. I wasn’t as confident then as I am now. And he said to me, look, don’t sit there and try and tell me, sell me this action coach bullshit us rara. He said, just tell me what this is all about, . I just was like, wow. So we had an awesome conversation and he decided to take me on board as his coach.

he’d been in the business that long as the owner because his dad obviously had then all, retired and he was running the business as well as the technician in the business. And we sat at coaching sessions some weeks where it was just him pouring his heart out and spewing out so much negativity.

It wasn’t funny. And I’d leave there [00:15:00] going, oh my God, what am I gonna do? And one day I just looked at him and I said, seriously. Just this is bullshit. It’s gotta stop. You either want the business or you don’t. And he goes, what do you mean? I said he’s sitting there whinging and bitching to me about everything.

J just sell it. And he goes, oh. He said, maybe you’re right. I said you know what? Managing the team. I said, you know what? Running the business. I said, you love the work. sell it. He said, okay, . So we spent the next 12 months just working so hard on it with, cleaning up systems, financials, a bit of team attrition that we hoped for, sorting out, warehousing and all that sort of stuff.

And then he sold it to his, one of his largest competitors. So he did 80% wholesale, 20%. They did 80 retail, 20 wholesale, and they’re a national company over a hundred years old. And yeah, they bought him out and he’s still there as state manager and I think it’s nearly 10 years later. It’s a great, it’s a great story.

Yeah, it [00:16:00] is. And that’s, he said to me, I’m so sorry. The day that after settlement when I went in there and I met the new owners and stuff, he said, this is terrible. I’m gonna miss you. I said, I’m gonna miss you too. I said, but hey, order a story. And that’s what it is. That’s coaching is all about that client’s vision.

It’s not what we want. had another client say, you wanted me to coach. Within the business to try and get the business ready for sale so that he could sell it and retire. Signed due diligence. Then said, see you later. That’s a massive a massive market now. So I went to a seminar recently and they talked about there’s so many businesses around the world that there’s no one taking over these businesses.

The kids don’t want it. They’ve been in the business for decades, profitable business, and a lot of businesses will just close the doors and won’t actually sell the profitable asset as well. That’s another story. I’m not sure if you wanna touch on that or have any ex look. again, exit strategies, succession plans.

People should be thinking about them when they’ve been in business for five to 10 years. You should actually have some idea of what it is that you are aiming for. You are aiming to have a business where you only work two or three days a week cuz we don’t [00:17:00] retire anymore. It was quite funny.

You talk about how, tell the truth. I was talking to a guy the other day, he’s 69, and he said, I’m not sure what I wanna do. He said, I know I wanna retire at 75. I said, really? And do what? and he goes, what do you mean? I said we don’t retire anymore. You used to be able to strap the caravan on and drive around Australia cuz you owned your home and the kids were all married with their own kids, but the world’s got so fast, we’ve gotta continue to stimulate our brains into our seventies and eighties.

You can’t just stop and read the paper, have morning tea, go and play some bowls and come home. That doesn’t cut it anymore. It’s all about having clarity around what would your exit plan be? Would it. Build it, sell it, build it, shut it down, rape and pillage it to a point where there’s nothing left.

Do the kids wanna be in there? There’s, is there a team member that you could profit share in over a 10 year period at 5% over 10 years? So they own half of it, which means that, or they get 48% of it. You keep, 52 people need to start creating these plans at five and 10 years and [00:18:00] they’re not because they’re so busy working.

in the business that they forget about what’s on the periphery and all this other really important stuff that they should, even though I don’t like that word they could be doing in order to ensure future and stronger success. And here’s the thing, right? So a lot of people can st this is a funny one.

A lot of people can start a business, get success, good cash flow, costume. All of a sudden, five years later, they’re just, they’re on cruise control, but they never learn the language of business. They never learn the words to terms how it works. They never learnt the dance. They nailed a couple of steps, like a two step.

They got the two step going. Customer marketing, oh, sorry. They nailed marketing, sales, marketing, sales back and forth, like tennis, but they never learnt the game. And if they learnt the game early on, they. 10 x leverage buy it’s such a different understanding of a language. How important is it for even people about to get into a business or have just started into a business [00:19:00] to understand there’s more to business than just sales marketing and the same old as well.

Can you expand on that a little bit? I think. , the majority of business owners today are actually just employees. They’ve bought themselves a job. They don’t actually even have a business. Yes, they still need to find clients and do the sales and marketing. , but a, a business is a commercial profitable enterprise that works and eventually without you if you choose to, right?

That’s where, part of what we coach and teach through our action coach staff. And I honestly believe no business can work without the owner a hundred percent of the time. The owner still has to have some level of input. But yeah, a lot of people, and I see it, this Facebook, all these groups where people are in business and they get on and they ask for recommendations.

I’m doing email marketing, but I’m not converting anything. I should be converting really? Have you done the research? Do you understand how email marketing works? D yada. And that’s where I agree with you. A lot of people are not understanding the foundation and [00:20:00] the structure of what actually makes a business run.

They’re just looking at what sits on top and brings the money in so they can pay the bills, pay their bass, pay themselves a wage. They’ve got this lovely little product that they sell or this thing that they. , and yeah, it’s covid. Over the last three years, a number of people that started their own businesses is just amazing.

It really is. How many of ’em are still are, I don’t know, but as they say, the statistics tell us eight outta 10 fail in the first five years and eight outta 10 fail in the second five years. So you’re looking at two in a hundred that will survive 10 years in business. Yeah. Wow. Talk to me about covid with business owners.

Obviously you, you are around, you’ve been around for 18 years, business coaching, and what was the environment like coming out of it and how are people, business owners still suffering now in 2023 post. Here in Perth, we didn’t have our first lockdown till 2021. Like we had restrictions in the first year where we couldn’t go out and eat and that sort of stuff.

And it’s funny, I was thinking about it the other day cuz I’m gonna write a [00:21:00] blog post cuz I’ve started all new marketing this year. And yeah, look, it hurt a lot of people. We. My clients in particular, we were lucky. We had a group call every Monday where we touched base every Monday morning to make sure we got ourselves through.

I ran free calls for some other business owners but it was survival of the fittest. And yeah, there were some clients that I had who did their biggest months ever because they were in packaging, wholesale, all that sort of stuff. And then there were other clients where they basically needed to.

dropped 30 or 40 staff run skeleton. They made it through. And they’ve come back. But it hurt a lot from an employee perspective because one client in Melbourne that I’ve been coaching over there for 14 years, lost a stack of staff because they relied on a lot of overseas people working there. And there’s, yeah, it’s a lot of.

and it was people’s opportunity to pivot and thrive or say, okay, I’m gonna close the doors for now. Lay off some people [00:22:00] and start again. But it’s coming back slowly. We are lucky it’s different in Perth, we we really weren’t that hurt by it, if that makes sense. Over in Melbourne, yeah, they’re still trying to recover.

There’s still restaurants over there that don’t open Monday, Tuesday. They only open for dinner by reservation, so if you haven’t got a booking, you can’t walk in because they, that way they’re making sure that they spend on what their, like their wholesale actually covers exactly the number of people that they’ve got in.

They’re not overspending and their wastage is low. Even even gyms in Melbourne. Gym’s closed and there were, hospitality and gyms were some of the hardest hit as well. I know we spoke off one a little bit, but I’m possibly going into the bricks and I’ve been in the online business game for quite a while.

We’ve got also a national property company that we, we do quite well, but going into a gym franchise as well, a multimillion dollar gym franchise in Melbourne. , what do you know about gym franchises? Have you much experience in gyms over the years, have been around for a while, but any experience or tips?

No. No. I don’t like exercise . No, that’s [00:23:00] cool. That’s cool. I thought I’d just touch on that. And I think it’s funny, I had a I actually had a referral to a, a guy that is looking to potentially franchise his pizza brand that he’s built over here. And I was asked the question, you what should he.

And as, as I said, yes you need to speak to a franchise advisor because there’s a lot of loopholes and a lot of issues in contracts and stuff that you need to make sure you cover off on. But a franchise just needs to be able to be put on a USB stick and hand it to somebody. It’s a duplication or here’s the box.

I’ve got my neighbor, she’s starting a Pilates franchise on the 18th of March which is pretty exciting. because, yeah, franchising’s great because it gives you a foundation and a structure that you can work. and you’ve then got support. I was at a I’ve got a good mate who owns a snap printing franchise.

I was there last week picking up my printing for planning day. They’re my clients too. Snap printing the best. They’re the best. Oh, don’t, if anyone’s listening, use off. Don’t use that. User’s Officeworks, [00:24:00] stop, use snap, print. Go to Snap. They know you name. It’s the best thing you’ve ever done.

Honestly, best service and the beautiful part of it. Hillary introduced me to their area manager. What are you doing with an area manager in a franchise? , the support network in that one’s fantastic. It’s all, it’s awesome to start your own business if you’ve got a great idea.

But franchising’s another way to get in, and then you do learn the language. Yeah. Here’s the thing, right? They’ve heard a quote many years ago in the digital marketing space, is people try to recreate a train. No need to, recreate a train, get on the fast train that’s got the tracks that’s going in the direction.

Just buy a ticket. Get on the train that’s already moving. A lot of people spend the time. I’m gonna lay down the tracks. I’m gonna find out a new route. I’m gonna build the train, I’m gonna get the fuel, get the conductor. Sell tickets to passengers. You could have just bought a ticket. And this is the same as business and life as well.

People want to recreate things that already work. Just get involved in the things that work, pay the price profit [00:25:00] later. So a lot of people trying to profit now, it’s just a dumb way of thinking. But as you said, if you’ve got a unique offering, for sure, but don’t recreate the wheel, just get on that as well and understand that, I was talking to a guy that owns a garden gift sort of shop in South Perth, which we frequent quite often.

He’s just started paying himself a wage in the second. , and he knew going in that he wasn’t gonna be able to pay himself a wage in the first year. And as I said to him, that wage is pure profit. He said, no, it’s my wage. I said, no, it’s profit. Anything. The owner pays himself, he can’t as profit because mo, a lot of businesses, their owners aren’t paying themselves for the first 2, 4, 5 years.

Crazy people within their out. They’re like, this is all great, but tell me, how do we grow our business? I will tell them for you, Vanessa, five ways to grow your business. So let’s get into it. Number. Number of weeds. Two conversion rate, three average sales, four number of transactions, and number five, margins.

How many businesses don’t even stop and [00:26:00] say, okay, let’s just stop for a second. Pause, relax. Take a CEO, E o, Monday day, take Monday off as a ceo. Look at your business. How many leads were getting through the door? How many potential clients do you attract? You do your quarterly planning days, but yeah.

Can we jam on this a little bit? Ways to grow your business, leads, conversions, sales transactions, margins. What what do you do with clients? The five ways is in the planning day workbook, it’s there. We talk about testing and measuring as part of the four ways it’s there. How people use it in their business is vastly different for every kind of business.

For some businesses as a, for retail, they need to. When they hit their break even during the day. So what they should be doing is checking what their average dollar sale is and if they sell 50 coffees, is that break even? Other businesses need to know that if they’re investing X number of dollars in advertising and marketing, that their leads and then their conversion rate and what they’re actually selling is covering their advertising and marketing and profit.

But it’s different for everybody. The most important thing is tracking the number and understanding which numbers you [00:27:00] absolutely need to know cuz frequency of transaction in my. , I sign a client and they pretty much stay. Average sale for me in my business will, planning day one-to-one, mentor club, growth club, they’re all different for me.

What am I investing in? My marketing? What am I converting? That for me is what’s important and making sure that what I’m charging is making sure I’m doing better than Breaker even, and I’m not underselling what I do, but not a lot of people are sitting down and understanding those. Yeah I’ve got three s from there.

Number one, testing and measuring. Can you expand on that? What do you mean by testing and measuring? If somebody rings, hi, just so I can help you best. How did you hear about us? That’s the first question I ask. Oh, how’d you find me? Oh, Google Maps. Cool. Oh, Googled business coach. And you saw my get coached website.

Yes. Because you need to understand how people are actually making that phone call or sending that. , then you wanna find out if they’ve bought before repeat or new [00:28:00] in your beauty industry, you wanna know how many people are rebooking. What’s your rebooking rate? It should be at least 80%. If it’s not, why not?

Why aren’t people rebooking? It’s understanding the demographics. I’ve got a hairdressing client that now knows what percentage of their clienteles knew every. , what’s male? What’s female? What’s the average spend of a man? What’s the average spend of a woman? Cuz they’re actually sitting down and starting to actually understand it.

They don’t need to advertise because people just put in hairdressing, south Perth. And guess what? They come up . It’s instant, but we still need to understand what’s new, what’s repeat, and if you don’t know your numbers, then you’re flying. and yeah. Second question was how many business owners out there or businesses are undercharging?

Yeah. Look, I sat down with my wholesale client a couple of years ago, and we absolutely ripped the nuts out of the numbers over the previous three years, especially having had covid. We worked out exactly where our overhead percentage of turnover was sitting [00:29:00] as an average over the three years.

and that. So you need to work out, if you’re buying something for a hundred dollars and your margin is 20, your operating costs are 20% of turnover, you need to add 20% to that before you do anything else, cuz that 20% pays to run the business. People, a lot of people don’t fully understand that those operating costs are fixed regardless of how much you buy and sell or how many services you do.

That’s what you pay to run your business and they still don’t. and accountants aren’t teaching their clients. Some don’t. Most of them don’t. Cuz they look through the windscreen. They rear view mirror, not the windscreen. You get me going for hours on that one. ? No. Con, continue. Continue. And one thing that you talk about as well, all businesses are the same.

It’s the different, the differences is just what they sell. So you know that those things don’t change. So you look at any business is gonna deal with things like leads, conversion rate, average sale number of transactions at margins. So that’s re you can it’s replicatable as well.

Changing [00:30:00] gears, you talk about the seven deadly sins that failed business owners make as well. So I wanna expand on those as well. Number one, you talk about pride. Why is Pride a sin in business? I’ve obviously referenced back to the seven deadly sins in the Bible. Just being too proud to ask for help.

There’s a lot of business owners that I’ve met over the years that, you know, no. Oh, it’s too expensive. Oh, no. No, I can do it myself. Yeah, no, that doesn’t make sense. Or a lot of people that I have spoken to, just as an acquaintance, oh, no, I don’t need help. I know what I.

And then you Google a business three years later and the doors are closed permanently, or they’ve gone into liquidation. Why not ask for help? Why not actually say, you know what, yeah, I might own the business, but I’m really not great at this bit of it. Can you help me? It’s ego. Same thing as ego.

Yeah. It is, it’s that voice, what did you call it before? The in enemy. Yeah. Enemy. So your enemy is your enemy. You can take that one. So that one’s open that. I haven’t iped that one yet. I like that. So the Eckhart Toll book the New Earth, A New [00:31:00] Earth will Get Rid of the Enemy.

Yeah. Yeah. I’ve done the summaries of that there. I had a client actually read that on Boxing Day in 2007, and he rang me that night. Did you say 2000? . Yeah. After this podcast interview, that’s new Earth. I’ve got the power of now. It’s green. I’ll get it. I read it in 2007 and that changed my life. That book.

Cause that’s really weird. That really weird that you just said that. Yeah. He loved it. I loved it. It’s amazing how even, something like the wisdom of the Peaceful Warrior going with that book and the ability to pretend you’re sitting under a tree and just close your eyes and see purple and shut that voice down.

That’s a. Absolutely. People just need to put a W in front of ego. So it’s called wego instead of ego. It’s wego, and that is the power of other people. Some people think life is a solo project. It’s not. Businesses aren’t a solo project. Without customers, you have no business. And [00:32:00] people forget this and they think they can do it all themselves.

Just we’ll get onto the second one in a second, but online business versus offline business. So many people I’ve got an online business, but is it a real business? Yes, I make money. Yes, I’ve got customers. Yes, I can track all those things, but, brick and mortar versus online. What’s your take on it and what’s a real online business?

Still the same. You still gotta make sure you’re getting customers during your marketing j , doing your best, doing your tax, checking your pricing, buying your products, selling your products. The only difference is you might not have team, but these days, even with an online business, you can still have team that are virtual working from their own place.

Yeah. Look at, some of the wealthiest companies in the world. There are a website, amazon.com. It’s a website. There’s no yeah, they’ve got physical warehouses now, but literally there are just a website. Anyway, moving on. Business sin number two, gluttony. Why is gluttony?

What is gluttony anyway? The people like, I’ve heard the word before, I haven’t read the Bible, which I have, but what is gluteny? Gluten’s just being greedy, putting yourself first. [00:33:00] Some business designers can do. if they don’t see the big picture. It’s all about the mindset and some, I’ve coached a client who didn’t care what his staff thought.

This is the way it’s going to get done. It’s my business. If you don’t like it, bad luck. Not a good business. Yeah, I understand. Yeah, and we’ve all worked for places like that as well. It’s my way, the highway you. If you don’t like it, leave, there’s the door. No one’s forcing you to be here. You signed on for the job.

Waiting for the re How many businesses out there that are just waiting for employees to resign and, cause they can’t legally fire them, but they’re literally just wait. They’re pushing them and the old saying, they’re pushing them out the door. But how many businesses out there that employees are actively trying to push the business out the door and get the business closed and actively, Actively not destroying the business, but not caring for the customers because the way a business owner treats their employees is the way the employees treat the business and the customers.

Yeah, absolutely. [00:34:00] It can be. And look, as I said earlier, performance and management, pro processes and performance appraisal programs and stuff like that. If you’ve got them in place, you can easily remove a team member. You just have to have the s. . That works. It works. Within what Fair Works State Quite clearly.

Written warning. Written warning. Written warning. Witness opportunity to make amends or reparations or change behavior with a bit of coaching and training. Still not doing a great job. See you later. I’ve been on, I’ve been on the other end of that. And totally understand how many small businesses out there that don’t have these in place, and that’s where they find themselves, stuck into a little hole where the owner feels like they’ve lost control because they haven’t set up the structure at the start of the business and then find it hard to gain control once they’ve lost control.

And a lot of them forget that. If you find a, like a coach, if you find a really good, trusted HR profess. Where you can potentially get one off advice or you can buy a package of hours. And I know a [00:35:00] few really good ones. That’s somebody that everybody else sh everybody should have in their little back pocket to ensure that they’re on the right track, stay away from business.

There’s a couple of larger ones out there that I won’t mention that have had cases, court cases taken to them because they’ve. Not provided the correct advice or they’ve misrepresented what they can and can’t do. But vet whoever you’re gonna work with. Go and meet with them, tell ’em what you want, and then ring fair work and say, this is the advice I’ve been given.

Is it correct? Yeah. Fair work’s so accessible. It’s not funny. And as business owners, it’s maybe important to spend the money. On a monthly basis on the things to cover your base as well. Nothing worse than non lawsuit or get your name tarnished in your brand and your reputation’s everything.

And if it’s gone. Just a random thought. How bad is Facebook news breaking news? Another company’s gone under. every day. Another company’s gone. Aren’t they breaking news? This builder’s gone. That builder’s gone. Why? We just get, we never get fed with the success stories. We just [00:36:00] get fed with so much fear in the marketplace as well.

And that’s probably stopping a lot of people from starting businesses as well. Do you find that, or do you hear much about that, about the negative media, about business owners closing their business? Not really. I I think, the media’s always gonna focus on the. , the good news stories are maybe one in 10, hence why I don’t even watch the news of an evening anymore.

But when they come out and say, this builder’s gone under, that’s gone under, that’s gone under the majority of the time. They haven’t, there’s just been some ions of administration or receivership or something where the numbers just aren’t right. They own more than they own. Just take somebody going in there to clean it up and usually they’re in, they end up back in business anyway, which is the ridiculous part of the way our.

System works over here in Australia. Someone posted a question on a Facebook group the other day about potentially declaring bankruptcy or doing this and all these people that had said, oh, declare bankruptcy. I did. It was the best thing I ever did, and now I’m back in business doing this, and this, and I’m like, [00:37:00] Hang on.

You’ve left all these people holding the baby that you own money, and now you are back in business. And that’s why this new director ID thing we’re hoping is actually gonna stop the phoenix from rising again, because it’s unfair that people have gone and done that and then they can just go on and not be held accountable.

Yeah, we could talk about that director ID thing later on, but that’s quite an interesting one as well. I take Virgin for example, you know when the coronavirus, you know when those events happened a few years ago? The Virgin Australia, oh, it’s gone under just, it’s just a re it’s just a reshuffling of the deck and just doing a debt arrangement.

They didn’t go under, they’re still operating. You know what I mean? So it is, it’s just the hype. They like to make news stories back to the business ins number three. What is a sloth? When I think of a sloth, I think of a man with a tie with his pie from lunch. He’s pie source. He’s down his tie, and that’s how he runs his business. It’s not clean, it’s a bit [00:38:00] dirty, and there’s a lot of people out there that do that. And skipping through the other ones you’ve. Yeah, I know. Yeah. And just to move on with the other ones, you’ve got Lust, envy, wrath and Greed as well. I’m sure The Business Inn seven Greed.

Yeah. Lust is one that I bright, shiny look at that business. I want that. I want that. Then do the work to get that everyone can have the business that they wanna have if they do the work, be committed. Be the pig, not the. , we could speak for hours about business, but for people that are listening especially from Australia, I’m pretty sure you might do, international online coaching as well.

But where can people find you, Vanessa, find out more about get coached as well and your quarterly planning days and yeah. Where can people find you? So get coached.com au. The current website that’s out there and live is about to be replaced. The new one is coming. Made some decisions last year to give it a bit of a freshen up after a bit of audit was done on it and it wasn’t really working very well.

And I’m taking it, I’m taking it down a little bit. So it’s [00:39:00] succinct and to the point. There’s a lot of information on there around who I am, what I do, how I work, and, my absolute passion around making a difference to people. And quarterly planning day, if you’re here in. Happens February, may, August and November.

It’s an awesome day. Great community in the room. Lots of sharing. Lots of talking. It’s not me standing at the front of the room telling you what to do. You actually sit down and work. You actually even get a pack of colored pens cuz color makes the brain work. So it’s a pretty epic day.

You get a post-planning day session with me. So even if you’re interstate and you wanna fly in to. , the venue is actually a spar and resort. You can you stay there as well and there’s a pool and the food’s great. It’s close to the city. That’s what I’m gonna do. Do it as a holiday. Do it as a little mini break as well.

Yeah. And how important is it for business owners, even like quarterly, just to take a break and talk to another person? Independent advice to say, this is my business. Get involved in a community of business owners and say, you know what, [00:40:00] these are not my problems. So many people have walked the path in the mud, came out of the mud.

Success stories, values. How important is it for people to get together as well? Anyway, we that wasn’t a question by the way. It’s just a statement, so Yeah, please go. I’ve got a quick one for you, Michael, at my networking group on Wednesday. Client. Brad walked in and one of the guys that comes to planning day was there, and at the last planning day he’d mentioned that he was having a problem in his business with his mindset around this and this.

This other guy walked up to him and said, how’s that been working for us since the last planning day? , how good is it to actually build these relationships that come out of that room? But people actually care to ask you the question and. , you said three months ago you were struggling with that.

How’s it working? Yeah. And that’s the importance of community and just, and doing that. So yeah, congratulations for what you’ve done and put together that community as well. I will be there. Obviously I’m just just yeah, in the process of finalizing a big contract as well, so very exciting. Lots.

Stuff going on as [00:41:00] well, but to my audience out there, yeah, best book quiz will stick around for a while, but I am doing other things at the moment. But thank you for being a guest, Vanessa, and to my audience, go out and yeah, check your stuff out and if you are a business owner or yeah, get some advice absolutely get some business coaching off Vanessa Moore as well.

So enjoy the rest of your day and enjoy sunny, Perth, what it’s called in Melbourne today. Okay, I will. Thanks for having me, Michael. Appreciate it. Thanks Vanessa.