Sabri Suby on The Mentor with Mark Bouris [Full Interview]

A podcast one production. Hello, and welcome to the Mentor. I'm Mark Bouris. Now, I guess this week is someone who has changed the game for digital marketing in Australia and his name is Sabri Subi. And since launching his digital marketing agency, by the way, it's called King Kong. What a great name. At the age of 27, he is now on track to turn over $18 million back this year per annum. The secret Sabri promises his clients results, which means, and I love this, if his staff don't hit their KPIs, the client's KPIs, that is you, the client, your KPIs, then Sabri does not get paid and they have to work for free until they hit you. The client's KPIs, your key performance indicators. You set the indicators. If he doesn't get there, it's. He doesn't get paid. I'm going to ask Sabri about why he introduced this unique performance guarantee structure, what you should be looking for when building a digital marketing strategy for your own business, and how Sabri's entrepreneurial journey all started as a kid growing up in Byron Bay, grinding peanuts for some extra cash for his single mum. A lifetime of trying to be a helper. So let's get into it. Sabri, welcome to the Mentor.

Thanks for having me on.

So do you still live in Byron or you living down here these days?

I actually live in Melbourne.

You live in Melbourne these days? So you grew up in Byron?

Yep, grew up in Byron Bay till I was like, 17 years old. And then I moved over to London for. For a couple of years.

So, like. But your Sabri Subi, what is an Arabic name? Yep. But your parents. Both parents Arabic?

No, actually, I'm a big mix. So, like, my mum's half Scottish, half Irish.

Yeah.

But Aussie. And my dad is Sri Lankan. Syri, Egyptian, Lebanese, French.

Wow.

So I'm a mongrel.

That's. But that's pretty unusual for. Was your dad born here?

I was, yes. Born.

No, no. Your dad, you did?

My dad, he was, yeah.

Okay, so. But it's. Why did they move to Byron? Like, I mean, that's sort of how many years ago we talk about that.

Yeah. So basically my. My mum was living in Sydney and she was a legal secretary and she found a school that she wanted to send us to and she looked at. It was a Steiner school and she looked at the fees for places in Australia in Sydney, and they were far too expensive. Started to look around Australia at other places and found out There was one in Byron Bay. And just thought, look, I'm gonna. I'm gonna make this plunge. I'm gonna do what's best for my kids. I'm gonna move up to Byron.

So how old were you when you moved to Byron?

I was four.

Four. So you went to the Steiner school. That's at the bottom of getting his lane there, isn't it? It is, yeah, I know, I know the joint, okay. It's still there because it's about half a kilometer from the bottom of my farm up there.

Okay.

The gettings lane. It's at the bottom of John Cornell's joint. Yeah, exactly, yeah. And Corny's. Two neighbours away from me, three neighbours away from me. And next door to him is another great mate of mine, David Gingell. So it's Corny Gingell and then another bloke and me. So. And the Steiner School. So that sort of tells me something straight up about your mum. Is it your mum driving this? I guess, yeah. Steiner school was a bit out there to send your kids to. Like, it's a bit unusual. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I can see how people look at it that, like, you really.

But it was considered then to be.

And definitely growing up, you get some shit like, oh, you guys are just drawing rainbows and like finger paintings and stuff like that. It's definitely seen as a little bit out there.

But explain what the Steiner School is like or what are they, how do they teach, what's the methodology?

Sure. Well, like, it's obviously founded by a guy called Rudolf Steiner and it's. There's a whole lot that goes into it, but in. In broad brush strokes, they kind of believe that children grow up in like, seven years cyc. And they believe for like the first seven years of a child's life, like, they shouldn't be watching television and shouldn't be really doing a lot of things that are, like, heavily academic because it limits the creative mind. So that's essentially like, you know, I guess it's fundamentals of, like, what it's based on. It's not like, very, very strong on academics, at least not in the first seven years and seven years of school.

You mean from 4 to 11 or you talk about.

So, so they believe, like first to 7, then 7 to 14, and then 14 to 21. Like, they believe that they're kind of very grounding Princip in terms of, like, the cycle of how people need to be educated. So that's really like. They are definitely more on pushing creativity and developing that Creative side of your mind, you know, for the first seven and then the first 14 years of your life.

What does that mean, though? Like, creative? What do. What sort of things do they encourage? Or.

So instead of doing like, you know, hardcore mathematics or algebra, like, we were learning things about, like the Roman Empire and about the Egyptians and looking at like, all of those kind of things.

Yeah, and. And I guess art would come into it.

Yeah, definitely. Art, painting, drawing, sculpture.

Yep. And. And in terms of being creative, I mean, do they go as far as, you know, kidpreneur style things, you know, like, I mean, maybe going back then, that wasn't something that was happening, but did they sort of get you to say, well, sabra, go open up a lemon juice store, you know, and sell lemon cordial or something, make it yourself. Do they go down that.

No, they, they don't really. Their whole thing is kind of like unguided. So it's not really about, like, you know, telling the children what to do, but seeing like, what is like growing inside of them and then fostering them so much. So not like, hey, go start a lemon. Lemon juice store. But they can see if you're naturally gravitating towards something is just like supporting that and helping that grow right there.

That's interesting. And it. Overall, the kids who you did you go right through to HSC?

I did, yeah.

So you went through there till 18 or whatever it is. So did all the kids. Do you remember, is your memory of all the kids and boys and girls and teenagers, were they all creative types? Like, over time, did you.

No. Like, some of the guys in my class went on to be bankers over in Hong Kong and do things that are very academic. So it's not like we all get pigeonholed into kind of being creative or we go off and do arts degrees or anything like that. There's people that, you know, our investment bankers and all kinds of things that come off the back of that.

Yeah. So, I mean, I've only ever met one other person, went to the Steiner school. A Steiner school. They're all over the country, aren't they? They're. Yeah. These days. Yep. But what do you. What do you think you got out of that, that contributes to your business life today?

I think that, like, having, you know, an environment that wasn't so heavily drilled into, like, you've got to get fantastic grades so you can go to university and then you've got to get great grades at university so you can go work in a corporate job. I think that I would have Come from a background like that, I was. I would probably be less financially motivated or even just less motivated in general. I think the fact that, you know, I grew up in a small beach town from a single parent mother and watched her hold down three jobs and then got put into another environment where it was like kind of, you know, essentially whatever it is that you want to do, that's what you want to focus on. And I feel that that was, you know, you typically gravitate towards things that weren't pushed on you as a child, I believe. And because those things weren't pushed on me, it was something that I seeked out myself. And that hunger was like grown organically from myself rather than like, you know, my environment pushing that on me, or a teacher pushing that on me, or even my parents pushing that on me. It's something that's like fueled within me to go out and get that.

Cause it's sort of interesting, you know, I've had a lot of exposure to people from Byron Bay and most people who I know who I know who grew up in Byron Bay and not so much today's generation, but going back, what are you, 30, 35?

You're 34?

Okay. So going back 30 years ago, most of the people who come out of those environments particularly went to school and if they weren't in town, they're a little bit just that was considered out of town then tend to be not hippie, probably not a good word because one of the things attracts me about the place, to be frank with you, it's a bit alternative. People prepare to try different things, do different things. It doesn't mean they all walk around with a joint hanging out of their mouth or becoming beekeepers, even though I do have bees on my property. But I won't admit to having something hanging out of my mouth. But there's something different that must have been existing in your environment. Maybe it was your mum that sort of made you turn yourself into a business person. Like not that many people had Byron in those days ended up becoming business people today. There's lots. Not back then. And you did. I mean, you did go to the STEINER school. So what was it? Is it the. I'm trying to work out what was it? Was the schooling that was that was that motivated you, that shaped you? Or was it something genetically in you that shaped you? Or was it your social development around your mum that shaped you? Or was it all those things? What do you reckon it is?

I definitely think that it's a combination, except for probably the Genetic piece. I think that, you know, that we are, a lot of us are products of our environment. And I think that the biggest thing for me, you know, was definitely watching my mother work so hard and forge that kind of like what I call single parent mother work ethic in me. And obviously, you know, being dirt poor growing up and dirt poor in the sense of like my mother working so hard to basically make those sacrifices to put us in a Steiner school.

Right.

Instead of putting us in a public school, putting us in a Steiner school.

Because the state school is pretty good. Yeah. The Byron school down there is pretty good.

Yeah. Like in. In. So basically I think it was that and seeing those sacrifices and seeing that work ethic and you know, get. And basically I think the thing that probably pushed me into it is that from an early age, you know, I realized, like seeing my mother struggle, that I wanted to do something to help contribute.

How many of you are there?

There's like, I've got another sister.

I've got a younger or older. Older sister. Right. And where did you live? Up that way.

So we started off, we. We lived in Malumbimbi, which would have.

Been out there in those days. Mullums then, 30 years ago is not Mullum today. It was, it was. I was considered a little bit remote, especially from Byron.

Yeah.

And it was a bit, you know, it's not the most. Wasn't then the most desirable place to live?

Yeah, definitely.

Muwoolumba would have been worse, but Mullen was sort of out there 100%. Yeah.

And so I started off there and then I actually went to Byron Bass diner school near McGinnis Lane. Yeah. And then in high school I actually switched diner schools and went to Mulham's Dinosaur.

I was one of Malham, is it too. Right.

And moved to Byron Bay. Um, so that was kind of like the dynamic. And I guess when, you know, I was eight years old, I got my first job at a health food store grinding up peanut butter for $2.50 an hour. Did that for a while. Would give all that money to my mother and then realized that was only. I could only earn so much money in a week doing that. And that was when I. I started busking at markets on the weekends to kind of go out there and get more money to kind of give to my mother.

That's interesting because the environment in Byron, that or that whole region actually lends itself to that. You know, like Sydney's a lot harder to put a kid through that. That environment, it just, it's Just not right in front of you.

Yeah.

Whereas people on weekends have got. If they've got nothing to do, if they're not a surfer or something, they're going to go to the markets. There's always a market in Bangalore, Byron, Marlem somewhere, or in the. In one of the areas. And the same people go from market to market to market. I mean, I'm talking about the marketeers or the people with the tents or the kiosks or whatever you call them. They tend to just move around. That's their business.

Yep.

And there's a lot of home industries, you know, like, as you say, making peanut butter. I mean, did you work for. Who'd you work for?

Santos.

Santos down there in the. Were they an industrial state in those days?

This was actually their store in Mulham, not in Byron. I was 8, 7 or 8 at the time.

And how'd you get that job?

I don't remember, to be honest. I probably just walked in there and said, do you have any jobs going?

Would you have done that yourself off your own bat? Or was that something your mum may have said, listen, you should go and get yourself a weekend job?

That was 100% off. My. Off. My. My mother would never ask me to go and do that. That was just the kind of woman that she was. And before I got that job, I used to wake up before school and go help her set up in a cafe that she was working in. And then that was what kind of probably led me to looking at that weekend job. And then that led me into kind of busking and making, you know, $100 in a day rather than busking, doing. Playing harmonica. At first I had a whole bunch of set up.

Did you.

No, not a harmonica. And then I was doing like the. The Diablo and juggling and all kinds of stuff. Like, I didn't know what I was doing. I was just like. I'd put a baseball cap out there and start playing harmonica and people would start throwing money at me. So I was like, okay, this is a good gig. How about I just continue to keep doing this?

Yeah, so. So do you think that, though, is. I mean, you watch your mum work hard, but that's sort of been quite creative. I mean, is that from the school or do you think that's just something in your makeup?

I think it's probably something in my makeup and something in just identifying, I guess, opportunities. But I wouldn't say that it's just one single thing. I think it's a combination of all three of those things that probably, you know, made me the person that I am.

Well, but why is Sabri at young age, was your sister like that?

No.

Okay, so why were you the one that did that? Why did you do it, not your sister do it? What was it that was different between the two of you?

Look, I think my, my, my sister definitely had like jobs from a young age, but probably wasn't, you know, to, to that fact where like she would be comfortable busking or going out and doing these kind of different things. It was just something that, you know me, I guess maybe having that business mind earlier on is looking at. It's like, okay, I'm working for $2.50 an hour. Like there's literally only so much money that I can ever make that's ever going to have an impact to my mother.

Right.

So what are some other opportunities that I can do as an eight year old that is actually going to put me in a position where I can earn more money that's actually going to have impact. That's actually going to help pay for the groceries or the electricity bill or a parking ticket or whatever that would come about.

Were you conscious of mum work, you know, at that age, were you actually conscious that mum needed to be helped?

I was.

There was no one else there helping her. Correct, yeah. Is it because you saw it or she told you or she said we can't have this subway because, you know, I don't have enough money. Or was it a conversation or was just an observation?

It was definitely an observation, yeah. Looking around, seeing, seeing situations, whether it's like you get stopped by the police officer and you get a parking ticket and then, you know, seeing like your mother cry as a result of that because, you know, times are tough and that's another cost or another surprise.

That's a month worth of spare money.

Correct. Right. So like just seeing those things, it was definitely observational. It wasn't ever a conversation.

No, not a conversation, but I mean clearly it's a conversation today in, in what you do. Yeah. I mean maybe not particularly articulated, but it's, it's certainly in something in your makeup today.

Yep.

Do you think that school, Steiner school ever sponsored that conversation? So was your social environment such that. Because I'm trying to work out why Sabrasubi is doing what he does, you know, what drives him, what pushes him. Do you think the Steiner school sponsored that type of thinking too? Did they actually sponsor responsibility or like an ethic or, you know, like, were there other kids similar to you with a single parent? Was that an environment where they sponsor that and they made you think about that because I mean like when I was fucking eight, like I was at. I had parents living together, you know, Mum and dad were married and hanging out, so. But at 8 I never thought about anything. I just went out the park down behind me and kicked the football around the park, went to school, that's about it. I can't remember thinking this way. Yeah, maybe I was just slow, mature, I don't know. But you know, circumstances make you think this way, I guess. Yeah.

And look like to your question, like were other children like that? Like Byron Bay is an alternative place. Right. And one of the things that like all my friends growing up, like we all had like Australian mothers and ethnic fathers and they were all single parent mother mothers really, you know what I mean? So is that right? Correct. Yeah. So that was definitely something that like not seeing any of my friends with like both a mother and a father definitely probably played into it as well.

That's very interesting. Yeah.

And seeing like all these single parent mothers like work hard to provide their children with a good upbringing definitely forged it.

Because it's interesting, you know, she says because today husband and wife wealthy, he's an investment banker and she's whatever professional. They actually moved to Byron to send the kids to the Stein School as a, as a family. Whereas your mum went up there because that was an affordable place. They actually these days they go up there because we'll go and buy a really expensive house up there and I can run my business from up there because you know I'm whatever, I can do it online and she can run her professional whatever up there and they, they're the kids who go to Steiner schools today. Then it was more like lots of single parents go there who want better thing for their kid, can't afford what Sydney has or Melbourne has to offer or Brisbane or Gold coast, whatever. And they go there and there's probably a common theme of people parents who are like your mum and that it's amazing how that that parent parental input is so important in what forges you to become the person you are, you know, like. And because we all are a product of our environment, I think, I mean our talent pool lies in our genetics. But what we bring out of our talent pool is what we experience as kids. And I think maybe Mr. Steiner was right, Rudolf Steiner was right. First seven years is quite a formative period in your life. Yep. That probably formed a lot of your ethics because like at 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, whatever you started Trying to bring some quid into the house to help out your mum.

Yep.

From what you saw that, do you reckon that's sort of where your, what laid your foundations today? Because there are people out there today who run businesses who don't have a foundation.

Yeah.

And they wonder why they fucking fail or they wonder why. They got no idea. And I, for me, I think they gotta look at their foundation. If you don't have a foundation, that's fine, but you gotta establish one. Then you gotta find a benchmark to establish it. You gotta find something that resonates with you and allows you to establish a benchmark. You haven't got much time to do it. You've gotta take a period of time to actually sit down and say, what do I stand for? What's important to me? And when you're a kid growing up that's all provided to you, you didn't even realize it. I mean, it was just put in front of you. I mean, you could have turned out to be a rat bag. Yep. You didn't. What's the difference between that and you and others? It didn't turn out that way.

Well, first of all, like, I didn't like do any drugs or anything like that growing up.

Why? Why?

I don't know, to be honest. Like, I've never really looked at kind of why. But like, definitely my social circle and all the friends, like, you know, that I was hanging out with, like a lot of people were doing all of those things.

Everyone, they smoke weed. I mean. Yeah. Especially if you're in the surf in the surfing community.

Exactly. And more so even than the weed was like all the other drugs.

Right.

That come about, that was something that just never interested me. I just never ever wanted to even try it. And I wouldn't say it's because I was like on the straight and narrow. It was just something that I didn't have any desire around the thing, you know, coming back to the building that foundation and I guess, you know, why do I do what I do? I think that coming from the upbringing that I did, you know, the thing, the reason that I do what I do is I believe that like businesses and business as a vehicle is probably one of the most profound ways to drive change. Right. If you can help somebody geometrically grow their business and really help them, that impacts not just their immediate family, but also their social network of people that look to other businesses as to what is possible. And, you know, if you want to be in a situation where you can give back to people and you can contribute in the world, you're going to need resources to do that. Right. And I believe that there's no better vehicle in the world to build wealth than to own your own business. So like, that's the thing that gets me fired up every day is seeing all these businesses that we're working with in my business and seeing how we're like really changing people's lives. It's not so much in working with like you know, the huge billion dollar companies that gets me excited because you help, it's some digital marketing manager, they can take all the credit and then they leave in a year or two. Right. Or you help them drive an extra one or two hundred million dollars. But it's the small to medium sized businesses that you can step into. They might be turning over 400 or $500,000, barely making the payroll. And you come in with these strategies and help them blow up their business to the point where they're doing 2, 3, 4, $5 million and seeing the impact that that has on people's lives and you know, what other opportunities that provides for that family, for that social network and how they can give back through any charitable courses that they want.

So is this Sabri Subi doing for the single parent business what he did for his mum when he was nine years of age?

Certainly that's the thing that gets me excited and that's the thing that I think about, like I'm not, I don't really care that it's like digital marketing or it's Facebook ads or it's Google Ads or whatever it might be. Like that's just delivery vehicle for me. Like the business, like the big problem that our business is, is focused and centered around is solving the biggest problem that businesses face, which is how do I get more customers.

So, okay, in your mum's case, how she put more money on the table and to survive the week. Yep. I mean, is this, do you think this is just another expression of what you did when you were 11 or 10 or 9 years of age? You saw mom needed some help and your vehicle was, you know, the harmonica or the local market or wherever it was. And you learned that if I put the effort in, I can actually help mum out. I mean, you're doing, to me, it looks like you're doing exactly the same thing now for business. Small businesses or business. Yeah, smaller businesses. Yep. Who are like single parents. They struggle. It's, you know, and a lot of times they just gotta make ends. They just make ends meet and they don't have all the opportunities. And a lot of times they are like single parents. They don't have the big shareholder base. They don't have a whole lot of people supporting them. They don't have another party providing a whole lot of income and security. And like the billion dollar business you're talking about, you know, in a relative sense, these small businesses, I think they're the same. I have that feeling. They are like single parent family businesses. They are like a single parent. They need help. Are you like the perennial helper? You're, that's your go. I mean, you like to help. Do you think that's part of your makeup?

Look? I, I definitely don't want to say that. There's nothing like self serving in it. But the reason, like, it's beyond money for me. It's not like, oh, how can I just get ahead and how can I make.

Well, it has to be beyond money to be successful. Yeah. And that's what I'm trying to establish here for our listeners. And maybe you've never thought about it before, but maybe you have and you just. I don't want to discuss it, but my gut feeling, when I just met you, but my gut feeling is Sabri is still a little boy who wants to help others out who aren't as lucky as some others. Not, not him, not relative to him, but just some others. You're just saying here's a, here's a, a universe of people who don't have the same opportunities everybody else in the other universe and I can fucking help them.

Yep.

Yeah. Is that what we're talking about?

Yeah. Like that's exactly how I do feel in terms of like, I want to make an impact and I want to give back and I want to send the elevator back down to people to basically help them go through the footsteps that I have and see the growth in my business that I have. And it's something that I get, you know, like a lot from is seeing people that are struggling and then helping them dramatically change their business where I know I can do it in a, you know, one or two tweaks and they can be in a completely different position in 12 to 24 months.

It's interesting. I have a view. I'm going to go to the break in a second, but I have a view and I just want to leave everyone thinking with this about this. My business is about helping people too, so. And, but I'll be honest, I am honest. It's a selfish thing that I do because I actually get quite a great deal of satisfaction out of doing it. So I'm actually self satisfying myself. It happens to be a good outcome for everybody so therefore everybody benefits from it. But I'm selfish in that I'm doing it because I want to self satisfy. I want myself to feel better about myself as a result of having helped somebody and it. And for me it's have having grown up in a, in a Catholic environment where you know, you have to, as my mother's Irish Catholic like you have to, you have to sacrifice things for yourself in order to help others. And it's. I've gone beyond feeling guilty. I'm now, you know, understand where I'm at. But it is nothing wrong with feeling that way and getting your jollies out of helping people. I mean I think it's good Alan Jones does it. I mean, and you know, I don't need to do it. He doesn't need to do it. But I do it because I actually get a great deal of satisfaction out of it. It's beyond money. I actually want to do it because I think it's the right thing to do and I enjoy doing the right thing by other people and seeing them improve. That's. Would you make an admission to that?

I mean 100%. That's the only way that you can really stay motivated and stay after it. Right. Because as soon as you get some kind of any success or any, any of the trappings of success and you earn some money like that gets old very quickly. So you do need to have that other thing that, why that drives you to do what you do every day. Otherwise you're just going to take your foot off the gas and you get bored. Exactly.

Have you ever been challenged? I should go to the break because we've got to talk to our sponsors. I want to come back. I want to ask you, have you ever been challenged? I don't want to talk about the business itself so I go to the break but I actually want to ask you have you ever been challenged? You ever got to a point where you feel flat and low and think oh fuck, this is not, this isn't killing me. I'm not getting, I'm not getting motivated anymore because that happens to everybody. Happens to me too. What I really want to know not what I really want to know. What I want to know is our audience always feels this. It's all very well for everybody to come in all highly motivated and you know, we're all mad sort of business guys and we're having a wonderful time. We're doing great things for everybody. But do you go through processes whereby you think, oh, fuck, I'm bored, or I'm flat or why am I doing this? What happens? Do you guys know those prices?

Everybody does.

Yeah.

And if someone says that they don't, they're lying to you.

And how do you deal with it?

Yeah. So there's two ways that I deal with it. Like, one thing that I try to do every single day to keep me on purpose and really keep me sold on what it. What it is that I'm doing. Because, you know, people don't really realize that you have to sell yourself every single day as to why you're doing what you're doing. That's like the very first thing.

Sell it to yourself.

Yeah, exactly. So, you know, I've got, like, you know, I write down my goals twice a day. I have a look at where is it that I'm trying. Trying to go, right? And whether I feel like it or I don't feel like it, it's something that I've got to do. And then I have, like, a vision board that's laminated, that's in my shower that I look at every single day that shows me exactly where it is that I'm trying to go and what I'm trying.

What's a vision board?

A vision board is like, basically all the things that you. The life that you're trying to create. Do you know what I mean? What is it that you're trying to create? Where are you trying to go? What is that better version of yourself? And how do you really realize that it's not like.

It's not. In other words, you're not talking about. I'm saying this to the audience, but you're not talking about a plaque with a photograph of a Lamborghini on there and, you know, like a penthouse apartment in the top of, you know, somewhere fancy. What are we talking about?

There is a bit of that. There is a bit of that. Yeah. So I. I have got two. I've got, like, all of the things that, like, have added up to the journey of Sabri Subi and where he is now. And then there's all the things that. That I want to do. Some of the material possessions, others aren't, but it's basically everything that you're striving for and that you're trying to get.

Can you share a couple things for us?

Yeah. Like, there's obviously photos of, like, my family on there, and there's things that I do, like, you know, building A business foundation and like being able to train up other entrepreneurs at mass scale and other things like that. And then there is obviously houses and things that, that it is that material possessions that I certainly want to achieve and want to go and possess. And then there's just the whole impact part as well. So most people stop at that. Like, right. Writing your goals down and having a clear vision of a better future is nothing new. But then some of the stuff that I do when I'm feeling low or when I'm lacking is I start to look at those vision boards and my goals and I start to think of what are the consequences if I don't achieve those. Right. What is the pain that that's going to create? Like, what is the kind of person that you're going to become if you don't realize your potential? SABRI and really, I believe it's like where you know that axes of motivation and what it is that you want and then the pain caused by you not achieving those, where those cross is, it's that center point that really sets your soul on fire and will really shake you up out of any kind of funk that you're going through is when you start to think of the consequences of you not going out and doing those things.

That's pretty cool. So, and you look at this each day like this waterproof board or something, it's laminated.

I have to look at it. It's forced. It's forced to get me on purpose every morning before I start my day. And then I've got my goals actually recorded on my phone and I jump into my car and the Bluetooth just syncs and it automatically starts playing.

Right?

It's this like, it's like an indoctrination of where it is that I'm trying to go and what I'm trying to do. So when I get up in the morning, I see that I jump in my car, I'm heading to the gym, my goals start playing to me. And it's like regardless of if I woke up feeling a little bit low that day, it's this ritual that I go through that gets me into a state where I am on purpose.

It's interesting. Like if, if you're practicing meditation forms, often they ask you to visualize and then chant three times your goal, not, not so much your goal, what it is that you are doing. In other words, I'm going to do this and I am doing. So I am doing this, this thing, this is the thing that right now in my life that I Want to be, I want to be or I want resolved, and I will, I am resolving it and say it three times. And that often happens in the build up to meditations. And what you're sort of doing is you're, you're programmatically managing your own brain, your own neurological system to, to build those outcomes into your brain automatically. It's just an automatic thing. It's, it's quite an interesting process. I think scientifically it probably makes sense to me. And I'm not that I'm a scientist, but I'm just saying the science of it makes sense to me. And you're programming yourself every single day. You don't have a choice in it, you're just getting programmed.

You've got to, because there's so much negativity, there's so much inputs from the news, from the media cycles, from social media that just try to bombard your brain with negativity and with shit.

Right.

So if you're not feeding your brain the positive stuff and if you're not not like actively putting it in the forefront of your mind, where to focus on, then you start focusing on the wrong things and then you end up in the wrong place or you just talk.

There's just too much chatter in your head. It's pretty simple.

Correct.

Here it is. Bang. This is what you're doing. This is the game. This is the game we're in. This is why we're doing it. It's in front of me, visually, I hear it. That's my start. Yep. And that's how I start every day. That's. I mean, some people do it with the gym, et cetera, but then you can add Jim to it. But that's a pretty simple thing. It only takes seconds.

It does.

Literally, like, you know, minute or two minutes of listening and looking. Yep. That's very. Let's assume you have a shower every day. Yeah, I'm only joking, but like, that's very clever. So, okay, I want to talk about your business. I mean, we talk about you and let's talk about your business. Tell me about your business. What, what is your business's purpose and what does your business do?

Yep. So we're in the business of growing businesses and we help our clients get more clients. And the way that we do that is by helping them increase their traffic leads and their sales.

Okay, so how do you do that? So the business name is King Kong. King Kong, I love it. I watched a guy who's called King Kong Box last weekend. Unfortunately, he's A great boxer. He's a Cuban guy, he's heavyweight. He looked like King Kong. But King Kong sort of conjures up all sorts of images for me. Good images, sort of powerful images. Is that the reason you call it King Kong?

Yeah, and something different. No one in our space had a brand. Everyone's called like the Internet marketing experts or top search engine rankings or something spurious like that. Right. We've been, you know, you don't forget that your digital marketing agency is called King Kong.

Yeah, I mean, it's a good name. It kicks. So King Kong, who are your clients? Tell me who your clients are.

Yeah, so we basically specialize in helping, you know, service based businesses, for example.

What's that mean?

Yeah, so like lawyers, doctors, dentists, property developers. Yeah, they'd definitely be in there as well. Basically anyone that has the average lifetime of a client that's greater than $3,000, that's typically our sweet spot. They should have like a sales team and be really ready to kind of scale up their business. And we do it through a bunch of different channels. We don't care if it's Google or it's Facebook or it's Instagram ads. We're channel agnostic, which basically means we just go to wherever the lowest lying fruit is for that client to help them grow their business.

So just let's say for example, I'm a dentist. Yeah. Hard thing to market, dentistry. Highest outside of psychiatry. Highest suicide rate in the world. Tough gig. You know, no one wants to go to a dentist. Nobody wants to go to a dentist. And particularly kids. How do you help them? What's a typical situation?

Yep. First of all, we look at where are the customers?

Right.

Where are the people that need your service?

You mean new clients or new clients.

Right. And so something like that is like if someone's looking for a dentist, they're going to Google. Right. They're going to Google, they're typing dentist in the suburb that it is that they live in. And that's the first port of call. You need to make sure that you are where your customers are looking for you, otherwise you're invisible to them. So we look at obviously running some Google Ads, we look at getting them ranked organically and also on the Google map. So they've got a heavy presence there and that's finite. Right. Depending on how many patients that they're looking to put on the books. There's only so many people that are searching for a dentist each and every month. So once you've tapped out that channel Then we look at, okay, what's the next level that we can do to apply to help you get more growth? It might be okay, you've got a book of 3,000 patients, but most of these people aren't coming in every 12 months and getting a clean and getting a checkup. So how about we run Facebook ads specifically to those people and in entice them with an offer to get them to come back in. Or what are some other services that you make a lot of profit off? It might be teeth whitening. That's a mass market service that everybody wants. Everybody wants to have a Hollywood smile. How about we run Facebook ads to everybody? We knowing that that is an offer that would appeal to everybody and start pushing a message, a stimulus in front of these people to get them to act and then come back into your, into your clinical.

And do you manage the data for them as well or do you show them how to manage the data as opposed to just doing the top of the funnel? Like, do you make sure that, you know, you are. The data identifies who we're talking to and that somehow you can actually, you know, someone might be interested. For example, I could be a dentist and I might. Some people might be interested in teeth whitening, some people might be interested in braces, some people might Teeth training. Let's say there's six different types of sets of people who are interested in me. Do you then help them build up programmatically ads that go out to each one of those individuals and start to follow them around?

Correct. So one of the, our obviously big points of difference is that like we're completely ROI driven. Like we don't talk about any of the soft intangible metrics like impressions and clicks and all that crap. We're like, how much money did we spend and how much money did we get out? Right.

Yeah.

What's the cost per lead? What's it costing us to acquire a customer? Are we going to earn in profit off that customer over their lifetime and really break down the unit economics of it and really apply like, you know, this kind of venture capitalist thinking to looking at the hard unit economics of building a business. And we're looking at each sector, we're looking at what the close rate is of these leads compared to these leads and where do you get the highest return on your investment? You might get a cheaper lead for these guys, but are they contributing as much profit to the business?

Well, they're. Monetary diversity. Correct. You might get 100 leads, but one converts.

Yeah. So we're looking all the way from the first click all the way to closing the loop on that sale to have a look at which is the channel that's the most profitable.

So you're applying science, which, I mean, one of the things I really fucking can't stand about social media or using social mediums to market your business, digital marketing, is that people just think it's all about the noise. Oh, I got like 3000 followers and 10 likes. But. But who gives a shit? Okay. It might be okay. In the old days, it was okay. When you weren't trying to commercialize it. It was really actually about social, about my holiday or something. That's cool.

Yeah. You can't take likes to the bank.

Yes, correct. So. But what I think is really important is that. And there's not. Not a lot of the agencies do what you do, you know, like there are lots of digital agencies out there, but they're actually old advertising agencies that call themselves digital agencies now because it's very hard to make advertising pay anymore. So. And they just make noise. And they're good at making noise. Take photos. Good to take photos. Everyone looks pretty, all good. But it's not. There's no, as you say, roi, rate of return on the investment. There's no return on the investment. You know, like I'm spending 10 bucks and I'm getting $13, and that's. That makes. It means I got $3 profit, so I'm okay. And how do I get that from 10 to 7 to 6 to 5? How do I start to reduce my cost so I can increase my margin or at least increase my profit over time? So you're. And I noticed something interesting in the brief that you don't charge your clients until. Or you got some arrangement.

We've got performance guarantees, so we've got skin in the game.

Explain how it works.

We're willing to stick our neck out and guarantee results, but actually we don't get paid, essentially.

Explain it.

Explain it. Yep. So it's different on different service offerings. So like, you know, on. If we're doing SEO and trying to get people ranked, like we guarantee.

Explain what SEO?

Yeah, Search Engine optimization. It's the. There's free organic listings on Google that businesses appear and you're not paying per click to be there. So like with those businesses, we actually guarantee to get them ranking, otherwise we simply don't get paid. Ranking means on page one of Google for their big key money terms that drive most of the.

So when I turn, when I type in dentist, white tooth dentist, double Bay. Yep. Your. Your what your objective is, your task is to get that dentist up in the number one or two. Correct. Yeah. So when I type it in, whatever my search engines I'm using, let's say it's Google. That's the name that pops up correct in either one or two at the top. Because I'm not gonna go right down through it and say, oh, why don't I look at number five? Usually just gonna hit number one or two. That's the, that's, that's the sort of the thinking around it.

Yeah, exactly. So that's just like one example, like, of obviously saying these are the, the 10 to 15 terms in your industry that are driving 90% of the commercial. Commercial traffic for that keyword. Then they might be running Google Ads or Facebook and will actually guarantee to reduce their cost per lead. Or that. Yeah. Their cost per lead to get a client in the door. Otherwise we don't get paid. Right. So we certainly like to partner with people and take on some of the risk because there's so many charlatans in this industry and there's so many people talking about, oh, look how many impressions you got. My. How fantastic is this? Right? Where none of that crap means anything. Right. And it's just a means for agencies to hide behind these metrics where for us, you know, we're put in that difficult situation where either campaign doesn't work. We're stuck naked in the cold with nowhere to hide. We're not going to be like, look how many people saw the ad. No, no, no, no, no. That doesn't mean anything to you. And I'm obviously a big believer that we are compensated by how difficult the problems are that we solve in our marketplace. And because we're not shying away of it and we're saying, no, we're here to get you an roi. You know, it puts us in a position where we do get compensated as a result of that.

That.

And we're talking hard line metrics that really matter.

I like that as a model because you put your balls online. I mean, I like that. That's fucking. That's tough. And you got to perform. Yep. How's the business going? How are you going? Like, how many years you've been doing this? And how's it going?

Yeah, it's going really good. We've been going for five years. I started it from my bedroom with no more than $50 and an old computer that my girlfriend had bought me. And I started off making 100 to 150 cold calls a day, calling businesses up, up and trying to win them as clients. And I did that for the first year, had a whole bunch of clients, got an office, got a team. You know, we're now at the point where we're turning over more than 15 million bucks a year. I've got a team of 65 people and we're just scaling out internationally right now.

And you're a national. You're across Australia now. I mean, I guess you can because a lot of it's digitally based. Yep. And you'll go like, how many clients would you have?

Like, if you touch hundreds and hundreds we get. And we're getting tens of thousands of new customers a month.

Yeah. So. And I noticed a book in front of me here. So what is that?

Yep, sell like crazy. I launched this at the start of the year. What's that about? Yeah, it's all about selling like crazy. It's about how to get as many clients, customers and sales as you can possibly handle. So I realized that obviously a part of my mission as we identified is to help businesses, but not everyone can afford my agency. Right. And there's a lot of businesses that were reaching out to me being like, hey, I can't afford you guys, but can you point me in a direction or somewhere that I can go to help me grow my business? And there isn't anywhere that I could point them to do it. So I put together this book which is basically it kind of encapsulates my eight phase secret selling system of exactly what it is that you need to do, regardless of what industry that you're in, and just go out there and just beat the pants off the competition.

So how much did that book sell for?

Look, right now it's basically selling at 1995 bucks on Amazon.

Is there an audio version?

There is, yeah.

What a punish that is doing that you did it for.

I did. It is absolute hell on earth how long it takes. It took me four days and I was doing like nine hour like shifts of it. But like I've done a lot of media, I've done a lot of video content, but nothing was as more grueling as putting that freaking audio book.

Reading what you've written is the hardest thing ever. And all of a sudden you say, fuck, did I write that? And you feel like changing. You're not allowed to do it because you've got to be totally faithful to the book. Yep. I did one at the beginning of this calendar year. My God, it took me forever. Like I could only do it in three hours spurts. Because I started losing my voice after a period of time and I start thinking, well did I write that? I get all muddled and my own thing. So I took me like nearly a month to do it. My book was slightly thicker than that but it took me nearly a month to do it. But it was fun. I'm glad I did it. Is it on audible?

No, because Amazon really rate me in terms of those fees. So we're selling it directly through our website which is selllikecrazybook.com the website is called selllikecrazy.com sell like crazy book book.com.

Right.

And you can actually get that for free right now. If you just help us out with the shipping and handling, we'll get it out to you. But yeah, it's, it' basically you know, everything that I have learned and applied, we've applied IT in over 416 different industries and niches and we've generated our clients over $1.33 billion worth of sales. And this is as you can see, this is not like some little like thin crappy lead generation book. This is a tell all. Like this is not an upsell to my agency or anything like this. This is a standalone product that you can get read and apply and every chapter has like a step by step thing that you need to do at the end of it to really help you go out and grow your business.

I think it's like people listening. I mean, all right, the headline on this book is Sell like crazy. You might think, oh yeah, right. But like the bottom line is you as a business person you must know how to get, get leads, build your brand, get leads, leads that you can convert and then, and the best way today to do is in the digital environment. There's a lot of science around all this sort of stuff. It's not just something that you can just whip up in a day and become an expert on. And there's a lot of trial and error in relation to it. And every industry is slightly different. So I mean I haven't read the book but like anything that helps people work out how to use the digital environment. Social media, which I hate that word but anyway social media to get there their people in their door and to build their brand out I think is worth looking at. So if you're in that industry, what's particularly interesting here is you're talking about services by the way. Yep. It's much easier in the product environment. You've got something to physically show. Service is a Hard thing to explain. And we. I picked on dentists on purpose because that's like a tough one. Yeah, I mean like dentists would probably take the view. Shit. No, I can't market my business. How hard is it it. But you're talking about tools here that allow dentists to actually start to market their business more. If they read this book. Yep. You'll. They'll be more tooled up to be able to have a, have the, at least have the opportunity to start to.

Sell their service and not even tooled up. Like I actually give them a step by step framework like a fill in the blank formula of exactly how to identify who are your best customers, how to put bait out there that attracts only those best buyers, and then how to make them something I call a godfather offer, which is an offer so good that they can't refuse and use all the technology around that and emails and Facebook ads and Google Ads just to go out there and just crush all their competitors.

Well, that's worth a read look or worth a listen to or maybe what you do is you get it on the audio. On the audio in as an audio book. And every morning you can do what Sudbury does, is you just turn this thing on, listen to it for 15 minutes every day until you've got get through it because you've got to put yourself into this position today. Most businesses today, my experience have got no fucking idea about proper idea, real idea about digital marketing. They don't. They haven't got a clue, especially around the science. Sabri, I. Running short of time. I'd love to talk to you for longer, but I always give everyone an opportunity to ask me one question. I don't know if you've got one. It sounds like you've got everything nailed, but have you got a question for me?

I do. I hadn't thought of it, but you've put me on the spot. And I guess the, the biggest thing, you know, I've obviously looked into your background, you know, and you've. The thing that impresses me about you is like you've done it multiple times. Right. Like so whatever you're doing isn't your first rodeo. What is it that you learned, you know, from Uizard that you've applied to ybr?

I always have a partner for a start in terms of my businesses, always have a partner who can provide me either capital capital in some format, either in like physical capital dollars or intellectual capital or production capability, which. Or all three, if that's possible. So I, I don't like to operate in my own environment. My, on my own, in my environments. Generally speaking I'm taking on the banks or someone like taking on someone big. So you need bench strength. So I took, I had Kerry in as my partner before when I did the yellow brick road business. I first off had Macquarie bank as my partner and Channel 9, Channel 9 still my partner. More recently I brought in a new partner into the yellow brick road business which is the big hedge fund out of the, out of the States which is going to give me the bench strength to actually produce my own product, mortgage products so I can actually take on the best. A hedge fund called Magnetar. Okay. They're the, the ones behind, if you remember the, the, the big short.

Yep.

Magnetar, like a pretty famous hedge fund, they have massive balance sheets, New York based, London based as well. But they understand debt markets which is my market as an asset. So when I lend you money, that's my asset prior to that, it's a lie. I've got money that I haven't lent. That's a liability, it's a problem. So they're a big partner, they have big balance sheets. They're going to help me get back into the manufactured mortgage product of my own as opposed to me being a reseller of somebody else's product. And that's where I make my money, always my money selling my own product as opposed to reselling someone else's product. The reason I haven't done it in the past is because the capital market opportunity hasn't been there. So the markets don't allow me to do it. So what I've learned from those days is in my industries I need big organizations with big balance sheets who want to make a difference, understand that I want to make a change, that I want to take on the big guys in the industry, that's the banks, and offer an alternative product and or service that goes with the product to the incumbents. That's what I'm trying to do. That's what I did at uizard. That's what I've been trying to do at Yellow Big grove for nearly 10 years now. And it's taken me that amount of time to wait until the markets allow me to do it. I'm talking about the capital markets that.

Allow me to do it. Why did you cash out at UIZARD at that time?

Time complex was Kerry was my partner and Kerry didn't carry Packer. That is, he didn't really like the, he saw a problem coming. He could see the gfc. He didn't call it the gfc. He could see a problem coming in technical sense. When I explained to him the technicalities of how this, how the, how we built our business up in terms of all the layers of financial instruments that I had to put in place, Kerry didn't understand the stuff. I mean that's my area expertise. But Kerry understood one thing is that sooner or later it's going to come undone. Because he knew that other people out there were doing stupid things and lending 110%. So he thought there's gonna be a problem. He didn't know when it was gonna come, how it was gonna come. He just said it doesn't matter. He said to me one, he said, I'm a multi billionaire. He said I can't even afford for this to happen. So he said we should try and find a. We should try and find a buyer.

Okay.

That was in 2004. He was four years ahead of his time in that regard. So I found a buyer. Yellow Brick Road, I learned from that. Yellow Brick Road's a totally different sort of business and I'm all about de risking my risk and my partner's risk. But Magnetar also went through the gfc. They're smart, they know how to de risk the business. So I need some. They're a global grunt so, you know, areas that I'm never exposed to, they're exposed to. They're a great partner. I'm really happy. It's taken me a year to get them on board. I had to get through the Royal Commission, had to get through all the regulatory changes. They had to get foreign Investment Review board approval because they're a foreign fund. It's all just happened literally. I only got foreign Investment Review board approval last week and they've now become a partner of mine and they've invested quite a lot of money into my business and it's only go forward now. But like everybody else, I got a product and you know, at the end of day, doesn't matter who my product is, I've got to tell everyone about it. So the whole digital environment, you're talking about the science around it, it that stuff that we are working on right now, you know, because I can make noise but I got to turn that noise. I got to convert it into someone who wants my product.

Well, let's have a chat.

Good man. Never miss an opportunity. Good to meet you, Sabri.

You too.

The this has been the Mentor with Mark Burris.

You can follow Mark on LinkedIn. The Mentor is recorded in the studios of Podcast One Australia Producer is live proud audio by D' Arcy Thompson. For more episodes, head to podcastoneaustralia.com or search the Mentor on Apple Podcasts. Hey guys, if you enjoyed this video, make sure that you click the like button and subscribe. We're dropping a video on YouTube every other day, and if you've got any questions about any of the content that I covered in this video, just basically leave a comment with heysubree in the comment section. And every week we're also trying to go through all those questions and get them answered. So go ahead, click subscribe, and we'll see you in the next video.