Have you ever thought about writing a book, starting a YouTube Channel, starting a Podcast or starting a business? My name is Michael Knight founder of Bestbookbits. Apart from creating the worlds largest free book summary bestbookbits, I run a successful YouTube Channel with 60k+ subs, a global top 40 podcast and author of “Success in 50 Steps.” I consult with new content creators that want to write a book, start and grow a YouTube Channel or a Podcast Show. To work with me on getting this done with you, book a free call here.
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Best Business Bits brings you to Michael’s. This is a new series which will strip back business bear so you can understand the business landscape in 2023 and beyond. Whether you are thinking about starting your next business venture or looking at taking your already existing business to the next level, this content is made for you.
So no further. A two. We have two Michael, so you know me, but you don’t know the other Michael. Michael. Bronnen, who are you, where you’re from, and what is your story? Thank you, Michael. What an intro. Absolutely love what we’re doing here. I think it’s gonna add a lot of value to a lot of people, and more importantly, hopefully people come out of this and be able to implement some of the things we’re gonna be talking about.
A very quick overview on me. So I basically have been across startups pretty much all my life, I would say. Across predominantly tech, health and FinTech type of businesses, and now part shareholder of a company in the sustainability space, which is a very interesting space. So [00:01:00] just to go quickly around my background, so I founded my first company when I was 18, which was essentially a booking platform in the beauty industry, which was formed and founded because of a problem that was found, and that was to be able to book appointments on the go.
To within the beauty industry, founded our business, got quite a few users, had an ex exec from CBA and ex exec from Telstra involved in that business as well, and we saw that company when I was 21 to Zuma. From there on, I went on and basically joined a business within the buy now pay later space before the industry even existed and joined them as their fifth member, essentially scaled that business from fifth.
Five employees all the way to about 250 employees within two short years. Very much riding a wave, I’d say. So as you could appreciate it was hyper growth type of business and [00:02:00] we generated about $60 million in sales launch into the us, into the uk, and then ipo. So listed on the asx, which was very exciting.
I then went on and advised to some of Australia’s highest net worth families. Just around essentially commercializing tech companies and even did some advisory work for some international businesses that wanted to launch into the Australian region. And then from there on, I joined a sustainability company that was founded by female founder as a major shareholder of that business to essentially commercialize that business and ultimately take it to the next level.
That’s basically my story to date. A lot of moving parts and it’s been an exciting journey so far. Yeah. Perfect. Thanks for the introduction. Let’s take a little step further as well, just for the record. We are business partners, we are friends as well, and we do a lot of things behind the scenes too.
So tell us a little bit about your story, about you are the closest thing to Jesus and where does that come from? [00:03:00] That’s a good question. So I was actually born in Israel. In fact, I lived in Nazareth till the age of 13, and I don’t know if anyone’s religious, but Jesus was, I believe he lived in Nazareth as well.
So quite a long time away from where we were. But as Michael, advised to one of the companies that we run and one of the CTOs, he’s a very religious guy, so I give him, Crap every time we catch up. And he feels like he’s very holy every time he sees me, which is interesting. Yeah, that’s the story there.
people don’t just go into business because. They wanna make money, people go into business because A, they have a competitive side and a lot of things stem from their youth as well. So talk to me a little bit about sort of your youth and your teenage years as well. You’re a professional judo and, surround yourself with the best of the best and being in competitive sport and have a competitive spirit.
How’s that led to what you’re doing now And Sure. You don’t realize how important it is until you grow up, right? Yeah, so I, I started in Israel [00:04:00] judo pretty much from the age of four, I’d. And that was training at least three times a week. Pretty much competitions every weekend.
And I was put into that re because of a person who was one of the best in terms of judo nationally. So I don’t know if but Israel, when it comes to judo is quite advanced. And so my coach was an ex Olympian who’s. Gold medals a number of times in the Olympics, and yeah I essentially did that till the age of 13 over in Israel, became Israel champion under the age of 14, which is interesting.
No one really knows this about me. Absolutely loved the sport. Came to Australia, tried to do it. Didn’t speak a word of English. I got a bit intimidated, so I dropped out, which I wish I haven’t. And interestingly enough, some of the people that I, I’m still connected with, that I used to actually compete.
That I used to I used to actually beat an now Olympians, which is interesting and it goes to show number one, you know how important it’s to be [00:05:00] consistent and persistent and see things through back yourself no matter what happens. Because today we’d have be having a different discussion.
But again, I genuinely believe that everything happens for a reason and having that competitive spirit is super important in business. Yeah, glad I went through that. Yeah, thanks for touching on that and we’ll come back to that because in business it’s, it is a competitive side. You have to have the right mindset, grit, and a lot of the skills and traits that you get from an early age in sport actually help and transpire into the business world as well.
But let’s fast forward now to today and what you’re doing. Talk to me about the undiluted startup. Yeah, sure. So as over the years, I’ve. A lot of time with different people, with different experiences, and I’ve experienced a lot myself and so I thought, I get a lot of people come to me on a very frequent basis saying, how do you do this?
And how do you do that? How do Start a company, how do you run a company? How do maintain mindset while running a company? Very common sort of type of questions around business specific. And [00:06:00] so what I’ve decided to do is essentially create, I guess what you’d call an online course to be able to give people my experience in a very short period of.
So I’ve basically, as you could appreciate, I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my lifetime in business. I’ve spent a lot of money in business and I see a lot of value of being able to, being myself, 18 year old again, going back and giving that expertise to other people that are either looking to start a business or looking to scale their companies.
That allows them to essentially save a lot of money and a lot of mistakes that I’ve made get access to some of the best elements of business that I’ve been able to collate over the years. Things, that I didn’t think about when I was younger, that have failed me miserably because of the wrong business partners or the wrong elements of business.
Things like shareholders. Which I’ve paid a lot of money for in the past financial models, having the right lawyers, having the right [00:07:00] accountants, trademarking, all that kind of stuff that people don’t really know when, first starting out, that can really buy your long term. And so what I essentially, really would like to do is ensure that people that are going through the process are able to do so without making as many mistakes as I did and without essentially costing them a lot of.
As much as it did to me to then in turn not give them the ability to quit. So that’s the main message. I think. I also find that not many people are teaching what I’m teaching with this system, and that goes back to things like timing, the three things that really. Impact the success of a business.
And that’s timing people essentially funding. So I think a lot of people are not teaching about looking at, things like trends or thinking about trends and also working with the right people and making sure you’ve got the right people on board. Not having, not pretending that you know it all, I think is very important.
Understanding that there’s people that are much, much better than you in [00:08:00] areas of. That could bring a lot more value, which then allows you to then scale at a much faster rate. And I think starting out in business, you don’t really realize that, right? Or you don’t know where to access those people, or you don’t know how to do it, or you don’t know how to structure the deal in a way that doesn’t cost you millions of dollars And.
So that’s something that I really would like to teach people. I think it’s super valuable, I think. Yeah. Thank you for sharing. I guess let’s talk to the person out there who’s a entrepreneur. You might say, or wanna start a business, have got an idea, they’re stuck in a job at the moment, and they wanna start a site hustle, make a little bit of extra income.
What are some advice you would give the person starting out fresh blank? They’ve got, a whole lot of time, not a lot of. And they wanna do something. What’s some advice that you would give these people? Yeah, sure. So number one is have a look at and start thinking about problems that you face as a person in your everyday life that other people would face.
I think that’s very important. A lot of people [00:09:00] try to really think hard about a business idea or a side hustle. Or look at something that someone else is doing and try and bring it in to do it themselves. As we’ve got more access to data now than ever before. More access to things online, et cetera, and it’s very easy to get distracted.
I think it’s very important to fall in love with the problem rather than try so hard to think about a business idea as such number one. Number two, I think it’s very important to surround yourself with people. Who have had the experience in running successful companies or have had experience in business in general, right?
And why that is, is because number one is there’s a lot to learn from that. And number two, it allows you to access resources more importantly, which you wouldn’t have early on. That opens a lot of doors. I always keep saying, as this me, it takes one connection to change your entire [00:10:00] life, right?
And. I think that’s super, super important. And then number two, depending on, how young or how old you are, which doesn’t really matter, but I think just having the mindset that it takes time. Like it’s not something that you can do from today to tomorrow that will start generate you the quick results that everyone’s looking for.
It takes years, like for me to be able to walk into a room and get, give advice. That’s gonna save you, anywhere from a hundred thousand to million. Or make you a hundred thousand to a million dollars, it’s taken me 15 years of experience, right? You can’t do that as an overnight. So I think for someone looking to start out, a number one is look at problems and trends that fit well with what you enjoy.
Number one, cuz if you don’t fall in love with it, you’re never gonna do it well enough or you’ll give up quickly. Number two is surround yourself with the right people. Start networking, the right people that have done basically what you want to do. and learn how to do that. And then, yeah, number [00:11:00] three is just basically, be consistent, persistent, and understand that you’re gonna fail a hundred times and be comfortable with failing.
There’s nothing wrong with it. I actually get excited when I’m uncomfortable, right? So I think just get comfortable. Being uncomfortable is very important, otherwise you become too complacent and it’s just too hard to beat the competition. So hopefully that answers your question. Perfect. Yeah. I’ll add two things on that.
When. Talk about your current problem. So that’s how Best Book Bit started. So people that dunno the best book bit story, I read 50 to about 250 books in a matter of about five years to research my first book, success and 50 Steps. And then went through a period of traveling the world, doing everything but reading.
And then I come to a stage, I think in 2016 where I wanted to reread the books that I read many years in the past, but I didn’t have time. So I thought I wanted to absorb the knowledge. On the go. So what I did, I got a microphone. I typed down all the notes that I used to read a book with a pen and keep, various [00:12:00] notes in the books.
So I basically, for my own selfish reason, I recorded the summary and uploaded it online so I personally could consume the content. I did that for about 50 50 audios, and I didn’t understand what SEO was at the time. People started to type in the book title and found my audio recording and liked it, so I didn’t create best book bits for the world.
I created best book bits for me first, and then it snowballed from there with the. Putting the written summaries on the YouTube with the video, and then, six years later, over a thousand book summaries, having the world’s largest free book summary platform all started with my own personal problem, that I wanted to consume content on the go, and I wasn’t looking at the market to see if there was already audio summaries out there, video summaries.
I I was very selfish and I was in my own lane and owned Shell as well, so I agree with you. Definitely look around your own backyard and see what problems you are struggling with, and then other people are struggling with the same problems too. [00:13:00] Number two, some advice I would give people that’s starting up if they wanna start their own business is don’t think about starting your own business.
Go to work. On finding and networking with people who have a startup. So become that number two person, that number three person in that company as well, go out and give value. So the cheapest highest value you can give someone is your time. So it costs you nothing but time and you can give value. So whether that’s your labor, Whether it’s just getting around them, asking them what?
What help do you need? Sometimes that is the best thing you could do, and you could possibly get equity in that particular company or get a position of title, which is gonna help either on your resume or it’s gonna help in your life skills as well. So don’t think about, you have to be the builder.
Sometimes you can just be the brick layer. Sometimes you can just be the laborer to the builder, so that’s another thing as well you can give for free. So start looking for opportunities young. If I would go back to my 18 year old self, I would pay high money for seminar tickets and sit on the front row and network with the people who are [00:14:00] already making money and doing things and asking for.
How can I add value in your company? Work for them for free. Just get around the people who are doing something and then that will transpire with you doing something as well. Hopefully that makes sense. Absolutely. A hundred percent. Couldn’t agree more. And just being proactive, like being proactive and always trying to add value is so important.
Yeah. Because you can teach skill, but you can’t teach personality. Or you can’t teach your hunger, if that makes sense. So I think it’s very important element is very important. Yeah. People looking for energy. People want people with energy to come in. Let’s move the conversation onto people who have a business right now.
They might be stuck at a certain level and want to take the next level as well, and they’ve got something good going on. Talk to those people that have a business and yeah. Wanna take the next level? What advice would you give them in the current market of going into 2023? Time and time again, I see these business owners always working in the business like.
It’s having your [00:15:00] 24 hours a day spent in the business, not working on the business, which I believe stagnates your growth. And what I mean by that is when you start a company, a lot of people feel as if it’s their baby, which is interesting. But I think just focusing on getting yourself working on the business rather than in the.
More hours and as quickly as possibly. So important, right? Because I’m a big believer of being able to bring in the right people. As I said before, to areas in your business that could elevate your growth or your elevate your brand or elevate whatever. Area in the business that you’re lacking. Very important.
Number two, I talk a lot about the 90 10 rule, which I’ve learned from some of Australia’s most influential business leaders. A lot of the time when I first was starting out, I was spending probably 80% of my time on things that were going really well in the business. Which turn I realize later that if you spend 90% of the stuff that’s going [00:16:00] wrong in your business and 10% of things are going right in your business, You can essentially allow yourself to improve things in the business and understand which levers to pull to elevate your business a lot quicker.
And in a much day way, basically. And I’ve learned that, I did that, implemented that across companies like Open Pay for example, and allows us to scale at a much faster. I think also not trying to own everything is very important. So understanding what you are good at and what you are passionate about and then placing yourself in that role is very important.
So you see a lot of people starting at business who own CEO or management roles that just simply shouldn’t be in that role purely because they’re just good at something else, right? Not having an ego and understand, understanding deeply what you’re good at, and then stepping, aiming to step towards that role, and then bringing other [00:17:00] people that are much better in like management, for example, or being a CEO of the business.
If you are good at product development, for example, you should be in that role, right? If you are good at marketing and you’re the best of the best in marketing, you should be in. So I think it’s important, number one, is to understand the business deeply at the start. Absolutely. And touch every touchpoint and wear multiple hats, et cetera.
But then very quickly, bringing the right people in I think is very important. So they’re probably the key things I’d say for those starting out. Also, leverage, like I think leveraging other brands is super important early on. So I’ll give you an example now at Beso, for example, which is a business that I’m commercializing at the moment.
We’re doing deals with some very credible brands, right? The likes of Qantas. We’ve just done a deal with MasterCard, so brands that have credibility and people trust that brand. And as a young business, as our marketing budgets are not as large as some of the other companies marketing budget.
[00:18:00] So how can we align ourselves and our company with these. And market to their customer base to allow us to then gain leverage over the short and long term period. And then flip the coin where we then become that larger brand, and then essentially we can leverage and start monetizing the fact that we’re that larger brand.
So I know it’s a complicated one to grasp, but essentially leverage is very important in a business, to allow yourself have that power. Elevate the brand. Great advice. And then talking about the third business owner, which someone would be a mature business looking at possibly exiting that particular business or acquiring another business that fits into their business as well.
But talk to me a little bit about value based deals. Yeah, sure. So I think number one is it’s super important understanding what your goals are, long term and short term, right? So if for example, you’re starting a company and you have an exit, It’s important to understand what you’re hoping to [00:19:00] achieve.
Is it a three to five year exit strategy? Is it 10 years exit strategy? Are you looking to IPO the business and list the company? Are you looking to get acquired by another business, as you said before? Are you looking to bring another business on board? So I’ll give you an example. I’ve just started doing some work with the original founder of Baby Bunting, who listed that company very successfully and then went on and.
A very successful beauty brand, which he sold extremely well. And he’s recognized, he just started a tea brand called Ma Maiden. And he’s just realized rather than trying to run another beauty brand, he sold that beauty brand off and then acquired another tea company because he knew that he will elevate his brand with intention of having exit strategy in mind, et cetera, et cetera.
So I think it’s just understanding. , where are you trying to get to? And then working backwards to how to get there, essentially, if that makes sense. So if your exit strategy is a three to five year exit strategy at a hundred million dollars, [00:20:00] right? You need to understand what is it that companies that are looking to acquire your type of business are looking for.
So they might look for things like ensuring that no more than 20% of. Revenue goes towards marketing, for example. They want to keep it below 35%, for example, or making sure that your e b D is over a million dollars, for example, to then pay you outta seven x multiple. So just starting with the end in mind and then working backwards is is very important.
Otherwise you’re coasting, if that makes sense. And it’s just not a good way to run a. Yeah, great advice. Let’s go back to the fundamentals. Talk to us about business fundamentals, people that’s starting out, or in the business as well. Let’s cover the bases first and then let’s start running to those bases and give people some ideas on that.
So fundamentals, talk to me about that. As to scale of business is exciting, yet it’s very dangerous, right? And people don’t realize that. So a lot of businesses can grow too quick. without having the [00:21:00] fundamentals in place to be able to cater for that growth. So what I mean by that is, let’s say for example you run a tech business and you’re about to land a deal with an enterprise and enterprise business such as Medibank or Bupa, for example, right?
And I can talk to this because I’ve gone through this process. Say for example, you’re about to land that deal, but you don’t have anyone to manage that. and how you roll out that deal. So it’s one thing to do a deal, it’s another thing to ensure that the rollout of that deal is done in a way that actually brings your results into the business.
So what you’re having to do is then hire people, right? But if you’re hiring too late, then you’re in the danger of that deal now going through well enough or collapsing on you, if that makes sense. If you hire too early, you spend too much money on hiring those people before knowing you, you’re going to get that.
So when we talk about fundamentals, I talk about setting up the structures [00:22:00] to allow you to be able to scale before you scale. So if you own a beauty brand, for example, you might want to make sure that logistically or if you own a product brand as such, right? Physical product brand, you wanna make sure that your logistics are refined.
You wanna make sure that my, your microeconomics and your business is profitable before you. Which then in turn leaks money in the business, right? You wanna make sure that you are able to ship things in the right manner when you’ve just done a deal for a hundred thousand units, which you’ve never been able to deliver before, right?
So what I’m trying to say is to be able to scale, you need to make sure your fundamentals and your foundations are set. Otherwise, what’s gonna happen is you’re gonna grow too fast and then essentially collapse because you just can’t cope with that. And companies do that over and over again where, they have this exciting organic growth, which they didn’t even plan for.
And then they’re like, we can’t keep up with this. We can’t, and they collapse. Or companies that have raised money [00:23:00] recently, for example, talking about 2023, 12 months ago, you look at companies raising money at absolute crazy valuations that I never heard of, right? So they brought all this investor money into the.
Spent all this investor money in the business not being profitable and now having to raise money again. And they can’t do it because their business is not a profitable business. It’s leaking money, which means that if they raise money now with inflation up at the roof with staffing costs, going crazy with all this kind of stuff, they’ll see themselves in six to 12 months because they’re losing too much money, even solvent or going under.
So I think having the lens. , number one, keeping profitability now is so important going into 2023 with the whole macro economics and looking at what’s happening around the world. And number two is, yeah, being able to set the foundations to come out, once the, bear markets out much stronger, [00:24:00] right?
I think it’s stuff that we really need to start talking about, and you’re. , big large companies around the world actually having to, get rid of like 17 to 20% of their workforce, right? Which is not a comfortable to be po a position to be in. So if, let’s say you’re a young business now, how can you keep your business as lean as possible and get the best, optimal result in that business so that you’re not having to let staff go for.
So there’s a lot to think about going into 2023, but I think it’s very exciting times because we’ll see some very exciting companies come out of this and we’re seeing a shift in the world, even just around finances, like how there’s digital currency coming out. It’s, you look at historical data, you can really understand where we’re going based on the.
Yeah. Perfect. Yeah, there’s a lot to take in. You touched on something that I want you to expand on. You talked about microeconomics. What, talk to me about the importance of microeconomics in 2023. Yeah, sure. So I think previously, looking 12 to 24 months ago, [00:25:00] companies were thinking more about their valuations of the business rather than their profitability of that business.
So what I mean is a lot of companies were focusing on growth at all. Whereas now it’s more so important to think about your profitability and your bottom line so that you can actually survive, if not thrive through these times, right? So what I mean by that is microeconomics is looking at your profitability, right?
What’s your lifetime? Customer value, right? What is your gross profit? Gross margin, understanding, improving those elements, as quickly as possible. As you’re scaling your bottom line is looking healthy I think is super important. If you are sitting on 5% of your top line, that’s quite worrying, right?
You want to try and aim for anywhere from 20 to 40%, ideally of your bottom line to have somewhat a business that’s gonna survive or thrive. And then obviously, just now, for example, [00:26:00] with be, so we’ve done that exercise recently, to ensure that our business is profitable. Tweak the strategy to be going after businesses our business unit that’s more profitable rather than growth at all costs, so that when we come out of this, it’s okay, we’ve got money in the bank, now we’ve got positive cash flow, and now we can really scale having our own funding.
And then at that point, you can increase the share value as much as possible for shareholders. And then ultimately, if you wanted to exit or whatever it’s done in a way. Put you in the best position, right? So only recently you probably would’ve seen, Mr. Yam had to, for example, put down 17% of their workforce.
Like that’s because they’ve recently raised money and they weren’t necessarily profitable as a business. So they have to do two things, right? It’s either you increase your sales dramatically, right? Because if your microeconomics are not up, Or you bring [00:27:00] your costs down or you do both ideally, right?
And so to bring their costs down, they obviously had to remove some workforce. And you see this with the likes of Google and other companies that recently spoke to this. Understanding your customer lifetime value, your profitability is super important now, more so than ever before. Yeah, thank you for sharing.
And let’s switch gears a little bit as well. So in, I do personal development coaching. I coach people with business health and mindset, and we’ll jump into some mindset soon, but a lot of the times your worst enemy is not external. So your worst enemy is your inner. Me and that because you’re too close to yourself, you’re too close to your goals, you’re too close to your life, you’re too close to your habits.
We can go on and on about how close you are to yourself. Okay. How important is it for business owners or. To get external business advice to someone that comes in, they can basically get everything off their chest, look at what they’re doing. How important is it for them to get a business coach or get a business mentor and [00:28:00] business advice as well at all stages of business growth as well.
I always go back to, to, to this analogy of having these three layers, which you and I very much agree on. One layer is your friendship group. And your family, which you’re always going to have around, and you will always be able to go back to then you have the middle layer, which is essentially the circle of like-minded people that pretty much on your level have done the things you’ve done.
You can talk the same language, understand you know where you’re going and what you’re doing, and then you’ve got the people that have. What you want to achieve, right? And you look up to, as mentors as such, right? Two per important to, if you stay in the two bottom layers, for example, right? Then you never can get ahead, right?
If you’re staying just at the top circle, then you still have an issue because you’re not number one, keeping other people happy. And number two is, you’re not [00:29:00] able to then focus and narrow it down on what you’re currently doing, right? So I think it’s super important to. People that you look up to then who have experienced stuff that you haven’t experienced to be able to get guidance on, because I’d rather get guidance on something that I know for a fact is going to save me years.
Of heartache that I don’t have to experience necessarily. And also it’s going to, save me a lot of money based on the mistakes and expertise that they’ve made. So as our business, for example, specifically, we’ve got a very strong advisory. We’ve got the likes of X and L’Oreal, and Asop, et cetera.
People who have got market expertise. And then you’ve got people who have had like really strong business e. That’s as a company lens. Then on a personal level, from a personal development perspective, it’s important to then go, all right I want to put my health first, for example. Who do I need to go to ensure that I do it in the most [00:30:00] efficient way possible?
So then you go to people who have researched this space for 20 years who have subject matter. To then go for it. You know these better than anyone. And then same thing with business. It’s just the way it goes. Like you really need to not rely necessarily, but spend more time with people that have done the things you need to do because then you learn and it’s the best way to learn, right?
You and I both know this more so than any, anyone before, like we network, like network like crazy. And I’ve got three degrees, university degrees and I can tell you now that I’ve learnt more in. 24 months that I’ve learned in my life. So yeah, I think practicality and doing things and being becoming uncomfortably is super important.
Yeah. I want to, I just wanna add on that analogy of the three layers. So my analogy of that three layers is there’s your friends and family who you’re gonna walk with and you can walk with anyone. And then there’s that circle of people that you wanna drive with. Okay? So you’ve got walk-in drive, and then there’s only a certain people which you wanna fly with.
So you’ve got walking drive. [00:31:00] We all walk with our friends and family and anyone, there’s only a certain amount of people who wanna drive a car in a car with that understand us. So they’re your close circle of, people that you can open up to. So your close circle of friends and business partners as well.
But then there’s those people that are in the sky, in the clouds and dirt and you wanna fly. So that’s my analogy of the three layers. You can’t spend all the time in the air with these people because you gotta come down to earth. You gotta come down to ground. So you gotta be grounded so your friends and family ground you.
The people in the sky are the people you walk up to. You see a private jet or a plane in the sky, you walk up that’s who you want to be, but you also wanna drive there as well. So they’re your three different vehicles and you just got to, yeah, keep grounded, keep your mind in the sky, but also, Go fast on the ground in a car with the people that you wanna work with as well.
So that’s a, my analogy through there and yeah, exactly like you said. So I was at the gym this morning. I did a six month body composition. I got injured put on some weight again, and I thought, you know what? My wife started pt. She got this personal [00:32:00] trainer. She’s doing really good. She’s happy. You know what?
I’m just gonna pay the money for a new coach. I know what I’m doing. Get the results. I just need accountability and I need to stop doing it myself. Yes, I know the stuff, know the information, know the ins and outs of health, watch all the videos, writing the book on it. But at the end of the day, I just need to partner with someone who’s already there and does this full time.
I don’t do this full time. I do multiple things. So same with. Just because you are in the business, you need to partner with someone who does his full-time advises businesses. Do you advise businesses? No, you have a business. Doesn’t mean you are an advisor of businesses. So this is the importance and this is why we’re doing this series as well.
So I just want people to understand why we are doing the best business bits is because. At the end of the day, this topic is not going away and we want to speed up your growth in the most efficient possible time, and sometimes you have to invest that money. Personal growth, you have to take your money out, you’ve gotta [00:33:00] pay people to get business advice.
It’s not the slice of the pie, it’s the size of the pie. Can you talk a little bit about that particular philosophy as well, Michael, that I’ll learn from you in terms of the slice versus size of the pine, how important it is to think about that? Yeah, absolutely. I think very good analogy, and I keep, I.
Honing out about it just because it works and I know it works. We see it time and time again. You look at the guys from after Pay when they initially started their business, they were. Sitting on about 50% each in terms of share holding ownership. And four years later, when they sold the business at 39 billion, they own about 7% of the company right now.
Why was that? Is because they needed to bring in the right people along the way, which they obviously gave them a share of the business. They’ve also needed to bring on investment, a substantial amount of investment, so they were happy they. But based on the money coming in, they had a clear plan to scale the business and knew that they could increase the value of their [00:34:00] shares.
So they were happy to give away a chunk of their business to get it to where it needed to go to. I keep honing on about the fact that I’d rather own 10% of a billion dollar business, then a hundred percent of our million dollar business. It’s just the way to do it. You can bring the right people, you can incentivize them in the right way, everyone.
And it’s just, it’s the way to do it. I think going back to your point around accountability, I think is super important to touch on because all the businesses I’ve run in the past, we’ve had a non-executive director, for example, right? What that does is if you’ve got a few co-founders, it essentially creates tension in the business and keeps you accountable as a management and leadership team to do what you say you’re going to do.
Because if you are promising, I. Things, and you are got a plan that you need to execute on based on their investment. You wanna make sure that you’ve got that middle person that keeps you accountable, right? And so going back to your, [00:35:00] what you’ve just said around your personal coach, et cetera, you are happy to pay because you know that investment in yourself, stays with you forever, number one.
There’s no better investment. You can invest in property at 7% annually, which now it’s a negative growth at the moment. You can invest in the share market, you can invest in companies and get great return if you invest in yourself. If you’re a person who can’t invest in yourself, how do you expect an external person to invest in you and back?
You running a company, right? Like that? It makes no. I think that’s super important element to cover and then around the shares. Absolutely. Bringing the right people into the business to take it to where it needs to go to. And you happily can give away shares. Obviously there, there’s things that you learn about as a business owner such as, vesting and what that means, where you basically have to own your shares for a certain period of time for them to activate.
So you give comfort to shareholders and give. To a management team, cuz essentially if there’s no [00:36:00] business, there’s no you, there’s no business. Yeah, absolutely. And going back to the percentage of shareholders like recently advising companies and business owners, if you are doing $300,000 a year and you earn a hundred percent that business, that’s well and good, but.
It’s the same as owning 10% of a $3 million business per year profit as well that has the potential to, exit the 10 million and that 10% turns into a million dollar exit pay. So sometimes people looking at business the wrong way. So they’re looking at it maybe for how much money does this make per week or per month, or not realizing that the actual business is building it up to the point where you can exit for what we call a capital event.
Is, what is the exit of this? What every game has a timeframe and has an as an exit? No game exists forever. And it’s same with business as well. You need to treat business as before you jump into it. What are the rules? What’s the what’s the plays? What’s the exit? What do I want out of it? It’s such a great game of life because it’s [00:37:00] been around since it forever.
Yeah. And everyone’s gonna want different things, right? You might want a business that’s a cash flow type of, That you can bring people on and you can go away and get paid passively at some point, right? Or you might be a person that’s looking for your payday and exit a business, or you might be a company that’s looking, you wanna create a company that exists beyond your lifetime.
So you might list that business on the ipo. Zuckerberg, as with Facebook, he started that business, obviously listed it on the Nasdaq and happy days, right? So it, it all comes down to just understanding what you want to. And then, understanding what resources you’re gonna need to bring in to be able to achieve that.
And for that you’ve gotta give up away some of your business and that’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with that, there really isn’t. It’s. , as long as you know that action or that activity is going to get you to the next level, I, it’s great. And I can add on that as well. So similar to goals. So if you write all your goals down, so there’s only two ways you can accomplish your goal.
Either with time, you do it [00:38:00] yourself, with time or you do it with money. So you can either buy the result. So if it’s a goal like, I wanna buy Ferrari, that’s just money. So if I gave you the right amount of money, that goal will be completed straight away. Most real goals take time. So building a business takes time.
Yes. But it gets to a point. You’ve gotta stop doing the $10 an hour jobs, the $25 an hour jobs, give away a little bit of the business or invest money into the business to make it grow. You’ve gotta stop. Really just stop, think, plan strategically. Look at it. What am I doing with my 24 hours during the day, my 168 hours during the week?
What? What is that next level for you? So it’s investing time and money and stop doing the low value jobs. To get that, that what is your highest value in the business? And sometimes that’s recruiting. That’s literally going out there, getting a business partner. You need a business partner. If you wanna scale at 10 x, you can’t do it by yourself.
All great businesses have more than one employee. So it’s if you are the business, you don’t have a business, you have what they call a [00:39:00] practice. There’s a difference between a business and a practice. A doctor has a doctor’s practice unless he owns the clinic and he’s not a doctor. A lot of doctors work for business owners who own medical clinics or hospitals.
So you’ve gotta understand the difference between a practice and a business. Can you talk to me a little bit about that? Yeah. There’s nothing wrong with being a doctor, not owning your practice. If that’s what you want to do by all. That’s, do it right? Or you could be, you see this in healthcare more so than any other industry, right?
Majority of healthcare practitioners, they’re not commercial, right? So they’re clinical. And what that means is that they’re basically are very good at what they do clinically, right? So they don’t know how to run the business majority of the time. And that’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with that.
But at the same time, you. Someone like Kya, who owns Smile Solutions, who I’ve had the privilege to do some business with in the past, the guy is a business machine and he’s clinical as well. He started off as a dentist and then opened one of the most successful dental clinics in Australia [00:40:00] with, I don’t know, I think they’ve got like 10 of rooms or probably more than that.
And I ended up building in the city practically. And he understands the value of commercial, commerciality. Yeah, I think that’s all good and well, and then the other thing I guess that we haven’t really touched on is again, understanding why you’re doing what you’re doing, right?
Are you doing it to buy yourself a job and that’s what you wanna do? Are you doing it to grow something beyond your lifetime that will exist? Or are you impact driven? So like with, our current. We’re very much impact driven, right? We’ve got a mission to eliminate 1 billion plastic bottles by 2035.
That’s why we do what we do every day, right? Impact. We’re a purpose for profit business, right? I think it’s just understanding what you are good at, what you want to do, and then again, leveraging other people’s skills and experience to move ahead and move forward in areas that you don’t know how to do.
And if you’re a doctor or a surgeon, And you wanna have a successful practice and you’re not good at running that business, then bring [00:41:00] someone to run it for you. Bring a ceo, or bring a, you look at primary dental care, like they, they’re one of the biggest dental groups in Australia.
They’ve got a proper leadership management team in place, but essentially would’ve been started by someone who’s probably clinical. So that’s what I think we were talking about in is just understanding that. Let’s put a bookmark in this chapter and we’ll come back to this.
So this is gonna be an ongoing series where we talk about business. We might invite other business people on as well to, break down their business too. But if people that want to find out more about what you do or how can they work with you with business advice what would be the best place to find is that the startup.
Yeah, so obviously I’m across socials, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, et cetera. It’s probably the best place to reach me. Otherwise, diluted Startup is basically established now, but we’re working through the course at the moment as we speak, but that’s certainly one area where I’ll be teaching a lot of my expertise with.
But feel free to reach out to me on socials, no problem, or via email at Hello. [00:42:00] at to michael bronsman.com. It’s another place you can reach me and yeah, I’m sure. I’m sure you’ll see our brand a lot more being forward. Yeah, perfect. I want to thank you, Michael, but yeah, again, if you are a entrepreneur or a business owner and just, need some advice on, or you’re stuck, reach out to myself or Michael as well.
We both can help with some business advice and life advice as well. I’m put you on the right track too. But Michael, wanna thank you for your time. This is best business. Bits part one. We’ll definitely come back for part two and three. And yeah, appreciate your time again and enjoy the rest of your day and I’ll speak to you soon.
Okay. Thank you for having me on pump. Thanks.
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