This Aussie Left FIFO And Bought A Business

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Hilton.com. Hilton for this day. How do you have the guts to jump into a business

that you haven't even signed a deal for? No experience in buying businesses, no experience in

business. The least experienced person in the room, by far. How did you grow a business? He

had no idea about every dollar I've got to do these on putting everything on the line. I am purely

here to prove I'm not an idiot. We've doubled the growth, but we've got the same people.

Pre-prepared for a lot of uncertainty and hard work. Your second guess is yourself the whole way.

Today we spoke to Tyson from Dave's Mollers who runs a mind business. Tyson was a

five-foot worker who quit his job before he actually bought the business. He knew nothing

about the business and has been able to grow it in double the size with the same employees.

One thing that we took away from Tyson's conversation today is how he's transformed his business

by walking in with a smile. Something that has changed the way he engages with his workers. We

talked about how giving staff and people ownership has a huge effect on business and how he has

able to pay people to learn to actually grow. It's an amazing episode. You'll learn a lot about how

to take an analog based business into something that you can grow for the future. Back again,

for another episode at Unemployable Business. I'm Nick Rarkas. I run a consulting

company working for some of Australia's largest corporates and government institutions. I'm a

corporate escapee. Here I am with the Unemployable crew and I'm also part of the coaching community

in the Unemployable Business program. So I'm going to pass over to Stuart. Stuart, you want to say

though? Hey guys, my name is Stuart. I'm the head of growth of Unemployable. We do a lot of the

growth in the marketing for Unemployable to get us clips and get us viral and views. I spent a

lot of my career growing up on the internet and where that's where I learned how to do content

and all that kind of stuff. And no, I'm excited today to get to break into this business.

Thanks, Stuart. So, Tyson, do you want to introduce yourself?

I'm Tyson Ellis. To be honest, I'm just happy to be here. But I think I'm here because I run

a small business. I'm part of the coaching group and just sort of here to help maybe

inspire the next round of entrepreneurs. Fantastic. And so your story is interesting, I think,

to a lot of people that they could resonate with. You spent quite a long time in FIFO in and out

doing that. You've got a young family. And what the story that we're going to touch on today

is how you ended up not only getting out of FIFO, you ended up leaving FIFO, buying a business

that I'll let you touch on. But you did that. You actually quit your job before you even signed

the deal. And the business is obviously Dave's mullers. So I guess my first question to you is

how did you have the guts to leave FIFO and jump into a business that you hadn't even signed a

deal for? It might be more stupidity than guts. And talk us through like how you got there, I

guess. So if we take a step back and go, how did you get there? Yeah. It was, we had

nine and a half years flying fly out. And we had, it wasn't bad. We still really enjoyed it,

my wife and kids. We made the lifestyle work for us. However, it was, as the kids were getting closer

to high school. It was getting time to come home. There were a few requirements to come home.

I wanted to work for myself. I knew that. I'd never done it before, but I knew I wanted to. I

didn't want to drive in traffic. I'm not interested in driving in traffic. And I had to be close

to home. I didn't want to travel. And we, we knew a mechanic. Our family friend was a mechanic in

a small mullershop 15 minutes from home who said the owner was interested in possibly selling the

business. So we originally looked at it with my dad and my wife. Just sort of, we look at,

you know, we would look at a property opportunity or we'd just look at opportunities regularly.

And we probably went a bit too far down the rabbit hole on this one and we couldn't find a

chance to reason to say no. And they'd up tick in the box. It ticked all the boxes for us personally

from a family lifestyle point of view. Worst case scenario, financially, if we tighten the belt

in a few areas, we would have survived. So we just decided to take the jump really.

The to get the deal done, I ended up having to quit my job before we could sign the contract.

There was too hard to get the contract over the line being away. So there was a two month period

of limbo. But it was interesting. Okay. And so, so you looked at this business,

as you started looking to it, you went down the rabbit hole of, hey, this is possible. Maybe

this could work. This is, and you quit your job because you said, I couldn't get it, you didn't

feel confident that you could get it across the line whilst you were in and out. And so I think

what a lot of people don't know is how, how does, how do you actually buy a business? So what happens

between, like you obviously quit your job, what happens day one when you get there? And what does that

feel like? And so take us, maybe take us through, yeah, how you got started in that as part of that

buying process. And because the key thing here is you have no experience in that business. So

you've never done that before. No. Okay. No experience in buying businesses, no experience in

business, no experience in small engine repairs and sales. The least experienced person in the room

by far. It may have been a blessing or a curse, but it seems to have worked out. It was more

more, I'm sorry, I've lost my train of thought, but it was more, I'm making too many jokes.

No, so I'll say, yeah, so how did you, so imagine you, you know, you said we spent two months

back and forth, you know, we did the deal out of your business. Yeah. And so I think what a lot of

people don't know is not the, not on the deal side. Yeah. You brought into something that you

had no idea about. So what happens on day one when you, let's just say you signed the paperwork,

we did the deal. Yeah. What happens on day one when you get there? I remember. Is there a party?

Is that what? Yeah. There was a spa from a party. There was a, there was a lot of nervous

employees. Okay. Okay. Yeah. A lot of nervous employees. I remember, I had to, I walked in and

you've got to remember, I think there was four mechanics at the time. So four normal mechanics,

three sales guys and a bookkeeper. Okay. All who are still there. Yeah. So real business with

real business, real people. And you're the new owner. I had to go in. I had to sit them down

before I bought this was very important. This was the only requirement before I would sign the

contract. I had to spend time in the business. And it wasn't about the business. It was about

the people. So I, I walked in, I sat them all down and said, Hey, I'm, I'm Tyson. I'm trying

to buy these business. I'm going to invest every dollar I've got to do this. I'm putting everything

on the line. I can't do it without you guys. I am purely here to prove I'm not needed.

And will you please help me? I don't go anywhere. And, and that, and that was it. And then I went

to work and I worked alongside them. So I could learn the business well for the first 12 months.

That was basically all we did. I just tried to learn what the actual business did. They showed

me how things worked. We moved and adjusted and made plenty of mistakes along the way.

But it was, I just, I backed the people. We brought the business because the people had been there.

15 years. The mechanic had been there 17 years. Bookkeeper was 20 odd years. You know, like these

staff knew the business. So I've got, I've got a business background. And so when I hear that,

the first thing that comes to my mind is making you leaned into that with a fair bit of risk

and vulnerability, you know, and the smart, the smart person, the smart business guy would say,

get, you know, lock, lock those, lock those employees in contracts, you know, do all that kind

of stuff before you sign the deal or all those types of things are right. You did the opposite.

It sounds like you literally, before you sign the deal, you just sat down and said, Hey,

do you want to work with me? And are you guys interested in making this work essentially?

That's kind of what I took. And, and you took it on face value essentially. Yeah. Yeah.

I'll trust you if you trust me. And we both trust each other. I think it will work.

Okay. So, so for the people on the other side of the camera that might be like me,

that I've got a job, they're going to try to be smart and think, I've got to do all these things.

I've got to, I've got to, I've got to reduce all my risk as much as I can.

What's the unconventional lesson there that that because that's not a very conventional thing

that you would hear someone say. And so it sounds a bit risky. But maybe what's, what did you learn

from that? Whether whether you realize it maybe now, like looking at it now reflecting back,

I think we did that. Yeah. I think the definition of a risk is only the unknown. So the more,

the more knowns that you can create, whether they true or not,

that will reduce the feeling of risk and it will give you the confidence to make a decision.

I am, I'm out of other belief. If you make, there's no such thing as a bad decision.

The minute you give up on a choice, it will never get better.

Sometimes some decisions you make will be bad at the beginning until you work really,

really hard to make them good. So the accepting, the changing the situations around you to reduce

the risk and be willing to put in whatever work is required towards an outcome with no expectation

of feedback for a very long period of time is basically what you need to do. It's more,

yeah. The risk, you can reduce the risk by knowledge and I haven't a stupid amount of work,

work ethic. Yeah. So I think it's important because most, if someone on the other side of that

camera has got a job and they're saying they're looking at business and they're seeing all

these unknowns and all these things, I think what I'm getting from you is you met that unknown

like you kind of said, I can't, I'm going to face it on the other side of the table and then I'm

going to back my ability and there's a bit of vulnerability in that. If you said, hey, I don't know

and I need some help, but you also backed your ability and said, no, I'm going into this and I'm

going to make it through, I'm going to work through it. Whereas I think a lot of people don't,

they'd never get to that point because I don't even start. So, so maybe and I'll see what if

Stuart jumps in. Yeah, go. There's something here to me that I'm like, wow, this is so impressive,

because you took a business that you had no idea about and you've grown it so much over the last

couple of years, right? Because for somebody watching this right now, they might go, how did he know

how to grow a business? He had no idea about, right? Because you didn't know about law and

lawy or any of this stuff, but you were able to take a business, not just keep it as it was,

but instead get it to the next level, get it to the next level. So, like for someone listening,

what do you think were a couple of the main things that kind of situate part to let you consistently

grow here on your? I think definitely coming into the industry with no preconceived ideas

and fresh eyes definitely helped initially because there was nothing that was wrong.

Do you know what I mean? I could go in there and I could do whatever I want because I didn't know

how it was supposed to be. Exactly. And then there's plenty of people who have done

everything. Anything you want to do there is somebody who can do it better than you. They may

not be the best, but they've only got to be better than you do. If you can find that person,

work with them, grow with them, find the next person, work with them, grow with them,

find a problem, find someone who can help you through it and just check them off one by one.

I love that. I think we spoke about this off camera as well. This idea of paying to learn

is super important, right? Because if I come to you and I could pay you to do the things for me,

but I learn while you do it, that makes me a better entrepreneur. And that's exactly what you did

to help you become more powerful because over the years, you become the paid social guy.

You become the guy who could run ads or do the strategy or do all that stuff or do Google my business

because you spent the time finding the person that was better than you and watched them do it,

paid them to do it, but hey, that's all right. I got it from now on. Let me take it off your hands

from now on and I can do this stuff myself, which is so powerful, I think. So maybe just touching

on that around, you said there was nothing, I just caught on what you said, there was nothing

wrong with the business. Technically, it wasn't working. The people who are obviously still there,

they were happy to stay there. Maybe talk through, I always have some friends in cafes,

and they say to me, the number one thing when you buy a cafe is don't change the cafe immediately.

That's their thing because they're like, and so maybe talk to me about what are the,

how did you go from buying to growing? And then maybe what are some of the thing, the changes

that you put in? And how did you do that? Was that just like, how am I going to make a change?

What was the first year like for you? The first year we had a joke that I'm not going to change

anything, but nothing's going to stay the same. And I tried really, really hard not to change anything.

I had a hard line, because this business was pen and paper when I bought it, handwritten

invoices, handwritten receipts, you know, like, yeah. This was, this was legit. My only requirement

was day one, we went digital invoicing, they had a tax machine. No, I think a few years before

they went to email. But um, so like these, these, it was working at that level. Like these,

it was a solid foundation to build an empire off basically, but we had, so we went in there,

I'll bring in digital invoicing. I had to apologize for that and that was a huge lift,

just to get people on computers and doing digital invoicing and digital receipts and all that sort

of stuff. And then from there, we just spent a long time making people comfortable with

things will never be the same. We're not changing anything, that things will, things will always

change. And it was, um, we, we managed to, the joke was after the first year, what are we changing

this week, Tyson? Like you said, you're not going to change anything. What are we changing this week?

What are we changing this week? And people follow excitement. I, I, I could go in there with,

hey guys, I've got this idea. Let, um, I, I would try to empower them to be, we can be as quick

as we want to make a change. And the quicker we are to make it, if it doesn't work, we can just

change it back. It doesn't matter. Wait, wait, it doesn't matter if we get it wrong. There's no,

it's us. We can just change it back and just empowering them and people will follow excitement.

People will follow enthusiasm. And, um, that people, uh, I get suggestions daily. Hey,

we could do it differently this way. It's one of our values. Like it, it works well.

There is something you said there, Tyson, that I really want people watching this that touch on.

I think there's a big opportunity in Australia right now where they take paper businesses,

like you just said, and just digitally transforming them and making them more profitable by just

doing that. Yeah. And I think a lot of the people listening to this right now, I'll get a black,

oh, that's too hard for me. I can't do that. This guy didn't even have experience in business and

he was able to take a business on and transform it digitally to make it more efficient, right?

Hmm. I would say more efficient, probably more profitable because it's those steps that,

oh, yeah, we've always done business like this. It's never changed. But that's when the young

entrepreneur, the hungry person after they want to create wealth for their family and change their

life can find these businesses and just transform digitally to make them more efficient,

more profitable. You have a great business there. We are a great example, purely tactical example

of that. Every time a mechanic did a job, they would call the person, just to tell them it was

finished, works fine, no worries at all. How many people answered their phone during the day?

From a number they don't know. I don't. I don't ever answer a phone number that I don't know.

I'll tell you how many nobody. Yes. So that handwritten job card goes into a box and sits there.

When I had a look at this a few months into the business, we had $30,000 worth of workshop jobs,

just waiting to be paid. Really? The customer's just waiting to hear from us.

As you know, we had called. They haven't even picked up their stuff. No.

And I was like, why is this? What's happening here? Why can't we talk to people? Why? It's crazy.

It's crazy. So we went to text messages. Disappeared. We run it like $2,000 a week

outstanding. And that's just that, you know, that's the ongoing flow over purely from

and the mechanics love it because they don't spend any time on the phone. Exactly.

Because they're like talking to people. Yeah. They're mechanics for a reason.

Exactly. So yeah, that's crazy. I don't want people to miss that. That's so important.

You had outstanding bills that weren't getting paid because no one's going to pick up a phone

that I don't know. Right? And that's money for the business that's lost because they're all

like that. Oh, man. Yeah. No, no, no. It's um, you touched on a couple of things. So

maybe if I just, you mentioned something you said, I it's one of our values now.

And I, I've worked in small business for the first seven years of my career. And then I was

in big end of town, really big end of town. And so you don't hear a lot about values and things

like that in small business. And I think one thing that I keep thinking about is you came into

this business, all the, I can imagine what it felt like the employees are sitting on that side.

You're like, I want to be the new business owner. And the biggest thing that I think about is

how did you take them on the journey on, on, on, on, and maybe, maybe they're all there.

Maybe they're not. Doesn't really matter. But you, you, you knew that you knew that this

business was based on them because it's a, it's a, it's a people business to a degree.

How, because I do this for a living on big companies, paying you to try and get people on the

journey. Yeah. And so I'm keen to see what, what you did there. But also what the lessons are

that worked. Maybe the things that, that you wish you did it done earlier or, or you maybe

would have done later from a people side. Because I think we talk, as entrepreneurs, we talk a lot

about business money, profitability, growth. Yeah. But there's not a lot of conversation about people.

Yeah. Yeah. I think coming from a hands-on background, it was, it came, it was more natural for me to

lead from the floor. So to be hands-on to the boys. So I learned their job by doing it. I learned

the business by standing next to them, fixing, you know, cleaning up. I touched every part of the

business to learn it with a humility. And I think that, that just earns respect. I feel, and,

and seeing, demonstrating that I was committed, enthusiastic, committed, driven, passionate about

the business, it just, it excites people, brings them along. People, people are drawn to, to that.

I'm very lucky. I've got it. He's going to love it if he hears these. One of my sales guys actually

pulled me up a few years into the business after a particularly rough patch and pulled me up

upstairs. And these takes, these takes courage from him. And I respect him immensely for doing it.

And he sat me down and he goes, you know, the biggest impact you can have on this place is

like turn up with a smile on your face. It was like, you walk in the door happy, everyone's happy.

Wow. You walk in cranky and busy. Everyone's cranky and busy. And now I was like, wow, like it just

hit me. I had, I'd had a rough couple of weeks, you know, and it was just one of those ones, you know,

like they just, they, they will, people love a good leader. Yeah. And you just got to be that good

leader. That's so important. And I think it's not talked about enough as well leadership. Yeah.

You chose to lead amongst with them. Yeah. Across instead of that being the authoritarian leader,

she's busting out, you do this, you do this, but you chose to lead with them. I feel like that's

what gets people to buy in and want to be there with you in your company and build it. Because

they feel like, well, no, Tyson actually cares about what I have to say. You gave that person the

opportunity to step up, speak up and be like, listen, and like a lot of the people that are going

to listen to this, like, oh, how does this apply to me and in the future and my businesses and

stuff. Think about it. Every business is a business of people, right? You hire a lot of people.

You need a, you need a talent talent is the most hardest thing in business is talent. It is so

difficult to get the right people that want to buy into your mission. And if you lead them as an

authoritarian, it doesn't work. You need to get them, give them buying. You're going to let them

spread their wings so they can tell you a, put a smile on your face because they'll make this place

better. Yeah. Because that is a definition of a true leader of a someone who's just like, you know,

try a boss. Yeah. A boss versus leader. And if you are watching this and you have a business,

think about your people because at the end of the day, they're the ones that are going to be showing

up every day to make your mission a reality. Yeah. Yeah. So just to touch on that, I think,

I think there's a lesson in this because I have this lesson personally that I can share. So,

I ran a business. I got, I got to about 12, 13 hit count. And I got to a place where I,

I felt trapped was, I wasn't enthusiastic at your point. I probably didn't have a smile on my face.

No, I think about it. You needed me. So I just got to give you a kiss. Yeah. And I think, I think

the thing that I learned in that was if I reflect really openly in my, like about my role in my

business, I, I came to the conclusion that your business is a lot of the times limited by your

energy as, as your owner or the founder. And even though we were growing and doing stuff, my,

my energy and my love or that was diminishing. And I think what I'm, there's a lot of business

owners, I think of myself sitting there and going, how did you, and I say this with respect,

you've got a lot more business. Okay. What, how did you get, what's the vision behind this for

the people? And how, if you are someone that is having a shit, you're in a shit phase. What,

what can business owners do to improve on that? Because we all go through that. I went through that

for not months a year probably. And I just think, what, what is it that maybe you've learned going

through that phase and getting yourself a person that had the courage to, to speak to you,

which is a credit to you, because it means he was, he, he felt comfortable enough to do that.

But yeah, what would you say is the lesson there for any business owner that's in a rut

at the moment? And it's not just art, it's hard. Like we're not making money. There are lots of

other reasons why people win a rut. And I just keep to see there's anything that you've learned

reflecting on that. Most of the time, if you're in a rut struggling, feeling bogged down,

most of the time, it will come from somewhere within you, you know, you're not doing enough,

you know, you could be doing more, you're not stepping up to your own expectations most of the time.

And you'll be, oh, you know, oh, it's hard. I can't be bothered. It's this, it's that.

Just have a go. Take, take another risk, put some skin in the game. You know, you can,

the beautiful thing about being your own boss is you can, you can do whatever you want.

Just take the next step. Take, take, take on the contract. You don't want to push harder in the area

that you're not really great at force yourself to learn something you can't do. You'll, you'll,

you'll never be bored. Bill Ackerman says something that I think is relevant to what you guys

are talking about. And it's really is day by day. Just take a step by step and figure out the next

part. You don't have to look ten years ahead. Just take a step by step and you'll, if someone's not

happy with the way you lead, take steps towards being more of an open leader. If you're paid

socials not working, take steps towards making better content or getting, you know,

finding cheaper ways to find the right people for your product or your services. It's always about

step by step because business is a marathon. It's not a sprint. If you sprint at the door,

you're done. You got to keep in the game. I think somebody else says like,

Jens, the guy from Nvidia, I forgot his name. Anyway, that guy, he says, it's just playing the

, it's just playing the lottery and every day I get to have another chance to play it by taking

it step by step by step. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's staying in the game versus being quick to rush and

fall out. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. So just talking about that, like, you're, you've put steps in place

into the business. You've grown it quite a bit. If you want to talk about just,

when I say growth, like where it was to where it is now in, in to whether it's head count or just,

just general size, but what I'm, what I'm keen to know there around the growth is,

what's changed around, what's changed for you personally in that growth phase? So you've gone

from something small. You've now put in systems in place, SMSes, the help customers,

mechanics not speak to customers and so on. Maybe what, what does the next stage of growth

look like and what does that mean for you as a, as an owner or as an entrepreneur about what

you need, what does that mean for your growth? Yeah. So if I think about business growth and then

your personal growth before you are now, what does that look like? The business growth comes off

a lot of, there was a lot of low hanging fruit early. So we got a lot of early winds, I would say,

I wouldn't say they were easy, but it was still low hanging fruit. Do you know, it was, it was

easy pickings, so to speak. So that builds a bit of confidence, which helps get rid of the

imposter syndrome. The first 12 to 24 months of no changes meant that the business never felt

like mine, like it was always, and it was intentional, I knew, I knew it and it was just something I

had to swallow, but it never actually felt like a reflection of mine. Like when you buy a house

and you don't, yeah, it doesn't feel like yours. Yeah, it doesn't have your couch in it yet,

you know, it's not, it's not your bed in the bedroom. It feels, it just feels a bit weird.

We've managed to double the business, we're just shy of five years, we've doubled the business,

we've got the same head count, and we've, we pay more wages than we, than we did, which is great.

So we're doing more with less people and they're earning more money doing it, which is also,

which is, which is pretty cool, which allowed us to buy a new commercial property and expand.

So we went from 150 square, which included a lean two down the back, which a mechanic worked in,

to 360 square concrete tilt panel shed, full hoist system for the workshop, full epoxy,

showroom floors, you know, the whole, like quite a nice, quite a nice area. And that we painted it

now colors. We all moved in over the weekend. And it was, we had wives there, we had all the kids

there, the uncles, Arnie's, Vange trailers, we moved these entire 30 year old mechanical business

in a weekend. That's crazy. We closed the doors right afternoon and opened for trading Monday

in the new shop. Wow. It was a weekend. And was it, were your staff there, like helping everybody?

So that was, that was staff, the staff's wives, the staff's kids, staff's, yeah,

like my workshop managers brother turned up with a van and a trailer, like my parents were there,

we had, we had all the kids, you know, hanging blades on the shelf at three o'clock in the morning,

you know, it was, it was chaos. Yeah, it worked really well. And that was,

um, we let the mechanics set the workshop up. It was like, Hey, guys, this is your space,

build your workshop, like build your dream workshop. Um, and that went great. The showroom was,

Hey, guys, where do you think they should go? Where do we want the counter? Where do we want to

display these? Where do we want that? And by the time we had finished, we had a shop that reflected

the people who were there, everybody had an input into absolutely everything that was there.

And that a great way to kill my imposter syndrome. That was the biggest growth personally for me.

But from a business, the, the mechanical output in a new up-to-date, like upstate-of-the-art workshop

has gone through the roof. They're, they're customers feedback on the showroom. Like they've

been coming to our shop for 30 years. Yeah. And to come into a shop in a nice new showroom with

the same faces behind the counter and the same products on the shelf was like, Oh, this is,

this is really good guys. Yeah. Yeah. I can imagine the pride that they would have, and

credit to you for the autonomy that you would give them to do that. You know, instead of saying

this is exactly how I want to done, which is, which is, you know, your help, your creating

succession planning by actually giving them ownership. And I think one thing that you hear,

I don't know if you know the statistic, there's, there's all these stats Gallop run a survey on

engagement. So Gallops are a big survey company. They, they do an, they run an engagement survey.

Essentially measures how engaged are employees. And every year, the lack of engagement increases.

So it's like, it's over 60 or 70% are disengaged. So when we think about productivity here and you

think of a business that has people in it. And most people are thinking about, Oh, we're going to do

this to make the business grow. We've got to do that to make the business grow. If you think,

anywhere from 60% of that business is just idle capacity. Not because they're, they're, they're,

these, it's just that they're not there. They're, they're, they're physically, but something,

something, something else is elsewhere. And I think, to me, what you've done there is, is,

you lifted productivity so much, as you said, we've, we've doubled the growth, but we've got

the same people. And you've given them ownership, which means that, um, they actually feel like it's

theirs. And they have autonomy around how they do that. I don't know how you've done that,

because I may I'm a control freak. So, so was it hard? No, no, no, no, no, no, you say it so easily,

what I know, yeah. It's, it's because it's done. Okay. It's because it's done at the time. You're

second-guessing yourself the whole way. But yeah, like, that's the job. Yeah. Really, like, that's,

oh, that's, that's my part of the job. That's my part of the deal. I, I have the vision, I take the

risk. And more, the better I am at bringing the boys along for the ride, the better I am at my job.

I, I think also that it's a coincidence that everybody was willing to do all that and be

productive because you started to pay them more, for example, or whatever, like you incentivize

them, you look after them, you treat them right. I don't think it's a, it's a coincidence that

they're able, they're willing to be there on the weekend, helping you move the business,

getting it, getting it where it needs to be. Because I think they say, show me the incentives,

and I'll show you. Yeah. Yeah. So, like, you, you, you are, like, literally incentivizing them,

being like, look, I, I, I paid this same guys, which is pay them more, and they're happy to be

here. Why? Because you actually, they, from their perspective, they got families and kids,

they've got a feed, and they see the guy that I work for in this, in this company actually is

willing to pay us more, because he cares. So I'm going to care about him as reciprocity. I care

about him, he cares about me, and this is why this works. So, so just to touch on that, um,

there's a lot of themes and topics in Australia about, um, there's a, there's a lot of entrepreneurs

that, that talk about the challenges with hiring Australians. And, you know, there's,

there's offshoring, there's right to disconnect, you know, um, laws, there's all this,

there's all this stuff. Now, what you're, what you're sharing here is actually an alternative

view. Yeah. Well, and I'm, I'm seeing that because of the behavior and, and what you're doing. So,

I guess what, what, if people are struggling with their people, you know, we, we, we see all

these things in the headlines or whatever. What, what is it that, that you've learned that

other business owners can take from that, instead of just saying, ah, it's too hard,

mate, I was going to off shore or do whatever. Um, what is it that, that, that, that you can share

as a learning around that, because you clearly have got a highly engaged group of people that

take ownership, ah, and, and, and their, and productivity is up and so on. And I don't, I don't,

I could be wrong, but I assume no one's, no one's worried about right to disconnect and telling you

that, you know, what time it is. So, so maybe I'm just, because we don't hear enough about that,

I think, you know, we hear about the bad stuff. Yeah. And what you're describing is a really good

story and business with people that care. And we're missing that a little bit, I think, in, in,

in general, as business owners, you know, there's a lot of stuff with employees that, that, that

everyone kind of begrudges on. Yeah. It's, um, it always, it always starts at the top. Every,

every issue, if you're the owner of the business, everything's your fault, everything's your problem.

If something's not right, it's, it's because of something you've done. Um, if everybody's

attending to offshore or to go down more automated routes, the point of difference that you can

provide to your competitors is to not, if, if you can engage people in person to supply a service

that people are trying to do remotely, you'll never be beaten. No one's going to beat an in-person

service. Um, and that it is harder, um, which is probably why people shy away from it. Um,

if you can't manage people in person, you're probably not going to manage people offshore very

well either. You just won't see it. And so one follow up to that, um, because I, I started to learn

from, I've started to reflect for me a lot. And I, I've started to think, okay, this, this idea,

there's a venture capitalist called Paul Graham, he wrote an essay around maker, maker and manager

time. And so I, I realized for me personally, I just went into manager time, I sucked into being a

manager for a really long time. That, that made me really unhappy. Um, in what I was doing in the

business, got some lessons from, from today from you, but, but I think how do you balance that?

Because how do you balance your maker time versus manager time? If you want to put it that way,

make a times like the creative, what can we do next? What am I doing? What's the next thing

that I'm building? And the manager's time is not managing people, but you're, you're, you're in

the business, you know, you're up, you got to make sure things are moving and you're supporting

your people. How do you, how do you manage that? My wife's going to watch this. I'm going to have

to say not well. Oh, it depends what day of the week it is. That, that is the struggle. That is

the struggle. Um, some days are great. Some days I'll, I'll get a heap done. Um, I practically,

knowing what times you work well, doing certain tasks and just trying your hardest to protect

that time. I'm super productive in the morning. I, after about two o'clock in the afternoon,

I can't think. Um, so I don't make any decisions after 12. All my thinking decisions time is

either in the morning, um, in the gym, tinkering in the shed. Um, so it's protected uninterrupted

and it's me time. When I'm at work, generally it's execute. It's, okay, this is what needs to happen.

This is what we're doing. This is what I'm working on. Work, work, work. The, the thinking time,

I try and buy myself time to, to think. Um, and finding that time is the hardest part. Just

physically finding that time of the day and respecting it because it's super easy to fill you day with

stuff and busy, busy stuff. And I am not good at this. This is not something I'm good at.

No, I think everyone struggles with it, but I'm curious. I was just, yeah, sorry, how you deal with

that. Yeah. Yeah. Mowing your lawn, uh, spending time in the gym is, is my two main thing. Yeah.

Nice. Yeah. That makes sense. So maybe touching on going full circle around, um, before we close

out and see if there's anything you want to add. Uh, imagine I always asked the question,

someone is behind that camera, they might resonate a lot with you because they're a

five-fold work or they've done something similar and they just have said, hey, I've done enough

of this or something has to change. What is it that you've, if you're younger self looking back

now with what you've done? Is there anything that you can share lessons or learnings around that

for someone that's on the other side just going, I think it's time that I've done enough of this,

but I don't know. I just don't know how to do this. Maybe I want to start a business or I definitely

think that's the route for me, but I just don't know how to get started. What to do?

Trusher instinct. Everybody, everybody has a specific set of skills that nobody else has.

The courage to lean into yours and ignore the noise is, um, is the name of the game. The more you

can do that, that's your competitive advantage. Find something that is exciting enough that you'll

stick too long enough to make work that ticks those boxes for you and, um, you're sort of halfway

there and then be prepared for a lot of uncertainty and hard work. So back yourself. Yeah, yeah.

Relentlessly. Yeah, cool. Anything you want to add to your before you run?

Ah, that was awesome. Man, I really enjoyed like going into that with you. It's like, I feel like

I always learned so much about business because I've never owned a lawn care business. I've never

done any of that kind of stuff. So I always love hearing it from you. It's like other people's

perspective. Like I love when you talk to me about the way you run your businesses and all that kind of

stuff. I learned this is why everybody needs like content like this in Australia. They like people

are starving for good, honest, Australian business content because a lot of content is doom and gloom

in Australia sucks to start a business in this country. But it's not always the case. Sometimes

there's really good things that come out of starting a business in this country. And that's why we

want to keep making this content because there are people that are going to resonate with you, you

need and be like, maybe I can't start a business in this country and actually get ahead because

like I don't want to do property. I don't want to do all these other things. I like business. Yeah.

And that's why I love listening to your story, man. There's never, there's probably never been

more opportunity at the moment and coming. Yes. Yes. I agree. Anything else you want to share

before we close out and say thank you. That's that's on your mind that we didn't touch on.

I don't think so. I think we I think we can I could talk for it for a few hours.

So that's all that regretful. It's awesome. Big thank you. Tell us about the business. Dave's

mullers. Where can people find you? How are they getting touch? Dave's mullers repairs and

sales. Jim Boomba. We've just moved to 58 Anders Street. The website, daysmullers.com.au

is by far the best. Any of the chat widgets, any of the lead forms on there will click you through.

And some will be in in contact. You've got it shows all our product shows who we are. We've got

a little bit of YouTube. We're pretty funny on Facebook. It's worth checking out Dave's mullers

on all the platforms. Awesome. We will check it out. Thanks for making the time. Thanks for coming

to the studio and and sharing. There's a lot of Elliott about that. So yeah.

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