MBA2560 Extended Interview: Claire Baines – How to Start & Run an Events Business

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Yeah, amazing. I'm so excited to be here. Thanks.

Awesome. So, Claire, you're the CEO of Hands across the Water. I spoke a lot about Hands across the Water to my audience, but briefly. Tell us a little bit about this charity that you lead and we'll go into the nuts and bolts of how that business works in a moment. But just give us a quick overview of Hands across the Water.

Yeah, sure. So Hands across the Water, we're an Australian based charity supporting about 350 kids up in Thailand. Our origins date back to the Boxing Day tsunami, which is 20 years this December. And it came about as my husband, Peter, he met a group of kids who had lost everything, lost their parents, lost their families. And he was over there working as part of the body identification team. And so when he met this group of kids, he decided that he couldn't just walk away from that and decided to come back, raise some money and build them a home. And so that is the very short version of the story of how hands began.

So I heard about Hands through good friend and friend of the show, Dale Beaumont from Business Blueprint. And he invited us in April of 2023. We were going out to dinner. He was like, I do this bike ride, it's gonna be 10 years for charity. I'm like, what's this charity about? He told me about the charity, Hands across the Water. Why don't you come and join us, Nicole? Omar, why don't you come? They were like, okay, yeah, that sounds great. That's a year from now. I Was like, you know, that's future Omar's problem. And he's like, yeah, yeah, just a small thing, you know, we're going to be riding for five days, 500 kilometers. I was like, what? Okay, I already put my pride into it, already said yes, so let's do it. But I'm so glad we said yes because of the experience we had learning about the charity, learning about Hands across the Water, learning about how much impact this has on these wonderful people in Thailand that Hands Across Water supports, and just understanding that a lot of people see charities as like, okay, this is a good thing to do. It's very cathartic. Okay, let me put my money somewhere good. But after the experience, I felt more like, I'm so glad I got to fulfill an obligation. I felt obliged after going through that experience and realizing the needs of these communities, you realize, okay, it would be really ridiculous if I did not do something, you know, like, you really realize that. And I'm glad that you are here on the show because it's kind of easy to lose focus on the purpose and what you're trying to do when you're trying to run the day to day of running a charity organization that also has built in business components. So we're going to talk a little bit about the cause and talk about, like, how that all drives through, but if you can help us understand the structure of Hands across the Water. Because one of the things I love about it is that when somebody makes a charitable donation, it goes straight to the children, goes straight to the people that you're supporting. And the way you guys run the organization earns its own money. So if you can, you're better at explaining. So why don't you go ahead and tell us?

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks so much. So Hands across the Water, I guess, started as a charity foundation here in Australia back in 2005. The official charity was set up and basically it was Peter running the organization with a board, and they were raising money and not a lot of overheads. So there was no expenses paid. Pete paid for all of his travel to Thailand and then started to run these bike rides, which you've had a pleasure to be part of. Then fast forward to about 2011. It got to a point where we looked at, or Pete was looking at the business and saying, I can continue to raise money. We can continue to run these fantastic bike rides, which are really great fundraisers for the charity. But I need some people, I need someone to help me do that because I've still got to go out and earn income for himself. So back in 2011, Hands Group was born. And that's a non for profit organization here in Australia that sits next to the charity. So through that entity we undertake commercial activities, be it events, bike rides, etc. With any of the funding coming into that entity paying for all of our administration costs. So our staffing, our marketing. And as the business has grown over the last 10 years, it's certainly helped cover a lot of those overheads that we see in the charity space.

So when you're running these events, like the bike rides, like the excursions, like the gala events, you're raising that you're running these events so that you can be able to fund the operational costs of the charity, Is that correct?

Yeah, 100%. So here in Australia, when you make a donation to charity, that donation is tax deductible. And here at Hands, all of that goes directly to Thailand, the commercial entities. So, you know, if you're paying to attend an event, if you're paying to attend a gala dinner or one of our bike rides, for example, the registration fees are what comes in into that side and that helps to cover the administration. And then you'll have fundraising initiatives attached to that. So you come and do a bike ride with us, you'll pay X amount in your registration fee that comes into the group and, and then you will raise $5,000 to complete that bike ride and that then goes into the charity.

Yeah. So what you just explained exactly was my experience. I paid a little over $2,000 or something for registration fee, and then I was responsible for raising $5,000 for the cause. And I found that the restriction rate is quite reasonable. Like I didn't have any frame of reference because I've never done a charity background before, but it seemed really reasonable then. It seemed extremely reasonable when I went on the ride because of the organ, the things that were included, the hotels, the transfers, all these people giving me water every five seconds. It was really overwhelming how much value, for lack of a better term, you know, you don't expect that. I thought it would be like, okay, I'm not going to get much because I didn't pay much. How do you guys set this registration fee to make sure it's not too expensive for the person that's partaking into this event versus, you know, making sure that you're raising enough money to cover your expenses?

Yeah. So great question. And if I step back probably about 12 months and this will sort of lead to the answer there. So 12 months ago, we're Currently set up. So we've got our Australian business, where we've got Hands across the Water and our Australian Hands group. Back in 2022, we received charity status up in Thailand and similar thing. What we wanted to do was create a setup up in Thailand where we had the charity and then we had a social enterprise sitting next to that charity similar to the Australian model, so that we could raise funds to pay for the administration. Now the decision that we made 12 months ago was that social enterprise model was a bicycle touring business and we had been running bicycle tours for 15 years. And so, you know, between Pete and I, we probably had about 60 rides between us and we went, I think we can probably do this on our own. Recruiting a team in Thailand on the ground to help support that. Up until that point, we had been.

Using a third party, just outsourcing that whole thing, like, you know.

Absolutely, absolutely. And so what happened was when we then brought that in house, that allows us to keep those costs down. We're still running, you know, two business entities essentially. We've got the one here in Australia collecting registration fees and then we've got the one now in Thailand who's running the bike ride for us. But because that all sits within the group now, we're able to keep our costs really efficient for those that come on our rides.

So for those rides that you're organizing in Thailand, are you running rides that are not charity rides, like just people want to take a ride around Thailand, like a touristy thing?

Yeah, absolutely. So in its first phase, I guess the last 12 months, focus for us has been our charity bike rides. So we do about four or five rides a year with different groups. We have a public ride and then we've got four corporate clients that we work with. And so in the first 12 months, our priority was just getting those groups serviced. But they're actually currently on a ride right now and when they get back, they moving into the day tour business. So where the head office is situated is down in Kallak, which is quite a touristy area in Thailand, in the south of Thailand. And We've got about 10 partnerships in place at the moment with hotels who come to us and say, hey, I've got a group of six people. They want to go out and do a day tour. Fabulous. The team go out and take them out on a tour. So there's the, the charity ride side of things for them, but then there's also this day tour kind of everyday income for them.

So when it comes to the tours that are Outside the charity, was there a learning curve for you to be like, okay, how do we run this tour business outside of the scope of we're trying to do rides for charity and have it maintained throughout, like having people on the ground and hiring and getting this team. Was it much of a transition or what exactly did you have to go through?

Look, I guess huge transition. Starting a business in Thailand, that's. That's very interesting. Lots of, lots of paperwork. But no, look, I think, you know, we learned a lot from the work that we did with our third party supplier. I mean, they ran an excellent business, they had their own day touring business and then ran our charity rides. So, you know, we've pretty much looked at their model and said, yeah, we can make that work for us. So there was certainly a lot of learnings from that business and then combine that with our own business learnings and experience from back here in Australia. So, you know, we've really sort of tried to throw everything in it and we're learning a lot along the way.

I want to talk a little bit about building a team, especially hiring people from abroad, not in your home country. You know, many of our listeners are hiring people from overseas, whether it's from the Philippines or whatever it might be. And there are some things maybe they're caught off guard by. What are some of the challenges you found finding good talent when it comes to people from a different culture? Maybe there's some language barrier, maybe not in terms of understanding each other, but maybe just nuances that are unexpected and then just also retention. How do you make sure you have a team that is happy to stay with you or team members that are looking to stay in the long term, since you're investing so much in the hiring process and training them to do what they need to do.

We are so incredibly blessed for our team. We've got a team in the Philippines and we've had them in place for about 10 years now. Irene, who's our administrator, she hit her 10 year long service on the business blueprint ride that you just did.

She was fantastic.

Oh, she's amazing. She's absolute blessing, you know, so we've been working with offshore teams for quite a while. I think Covid had a lot to do with bringing us closer. You know, I think that was a bit of a blessing for particularly the team in the Philippines. And so I guess the learnings from working with Irene and Adrian and then taking that into Thailand, I guess presented, you know, there was both the learnings, but then there was also some Very stark differences. You know, when we started to work with our teams in Thailand, we obviously work very closely with the homes, and I think you're always going to have, you know, cultural differences and language barriers. And we have, really, with our homes, we've never gone in there with the, you know, what we say is the right thing. You know, we certainly expect the Thais to tell us how to bring up Thai children. And, you know, we don't try and put our limitations or beliefs onto them. So I think a big part of it is just working with them to understand their culture, their beliefs, and, you know, you find ways to get through those barriers around the language. We're fortunate in that our general manager of the entity up in Thailand, he speaks incredible English, and he's sort of built his team locally with the people that he needs. And some speak English, some don't. So I just. My relationship is with him and, you know, he builds from there.

Yeah, he was fantastic. He was fantastic and really great to work with and always with a smile on his face, even when people were very demanding because they're. They're exhausted, they're tired, they're. They're just coming off 100ks or something. They're asking for, you know, some air in their tires or something. I'm very curious about how you decide where the money goes in terms of how to help the organization, how to help the children that are in the homes that don't have parents to look after them. How do you decide how to allocate these funds? The reason why I'm asking is because many businesses that listen to the show, they might be doing really well and they want to be able to give back somehow. I'm going the easy way. I know Hands is great. I've had this experience, and I'm just saying, okay, I want to raise money for hands. I'm creating a page and, you know, some of my proceeds are going there, some of my revenue is going there. So I already kind of have a place to go and donate. You guys actually have to decide where that money goes and how it gets spent and all that. So how do you guys come up with that decision? Are there metrics you're looking at? Are there things that come up out of nowhere that you need to spend money for?

Yeah, so look, there's. There's probably a couple of things. So we're about $1.5 million a year in operating costs, and there's a couple of different structures. So we've got one home in Thailand that is completely 100% owned by hands, and we are its only funder. So we cover all of their operational expenses. And from time to time, there might be a special request that comes through for, you know, fixing the roof or air conditioning repairs, et cetera. The other relationships that we have and the two bigger ones with two other foundations in Thailand, and we're about 90 to 95% of their funding. So we are their biggest donor, and we work closely with them, helping them to manage their budgets and basically running these homes like they're businesses. You know, they've all got their. They've all got their P and ls, they've got their. Where's the income coming from? And what are my expenses? And so we work very closely with the two. The two partners up there just to help support them, whatever it is they need. And then again, from time to time, you do get the special requests that come through, and that's just taken to our board for consideration.

Okay. And so are you doing this on the ground? Do you have a representative that you're talking to? Is how is this kind of all managed, given the fact you're splitting your time between Thailand and Australia?

Yeah, so we've got very, very good relationships and trusting relationships with. With the directors in each of the homes. And, you know, we will meet with them again thanks to Covid and Zoom. We meet with them on a regular basis and get updates on the homes and the kids and what's happening, and then everything is executed on the ground by them. So from a. I guess from a charity perspective here in Australia, we will divert our funds from here in Australia into our foundation in Thailand. And from there, we've got someone in Thailand who can then, you know, divvy those up, depending on how we structure it for that coming month. When you Invest with Fidelity Go, it does all the work for you. So while FidelityGo monitors the markets, rebalances.

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Yeah, I think there's almost five businesses at once.

Okay, tell me.

We're a registered charity in three countries. So Australia, New Zealand, Thailand. So that's your three charity entities all raising money that we then send to Thailand. Then we've got the two business entities, so the one here in Australia running the events and then the one in Thailand during the bike rides. And I think the biggest challenge is we've only moved to this consolidated structure in the last probably 12 months. And I think the biggest challenge is working across all five, you know, budgets and PNLs and going, you know, this is coming in here and we need this money over here. And it's just like this constant, you know, moving the, hiding the pay and moving the pay and where does this go? And so, you know, plugging holes. Yeah, absolutely. Like it's, you know, you've got to manage cash flow for five different entities and all while maintaining transparency, accurate reporting, you know, because if anyone is, I guess, looked at and scrutinised in the Australian public, it's the non profit sector, you know, so people want to see our numbers. They want the transparency around where every dollar is spent. It's a juggle.

Yeah, it's a juggle.

You know, and one of the things that, you know, we don't like to bang on about COVID but it certainly changed, changed our model, changed our thinking. So, you know, we were really fortunate going into Covid where we had 18 months worth of operating costs in the bank. So going into, you know, March 2020, we had 75% of our fundraising was completely wiped out because of the bike rides and because, you know, charity and discretionary spending was, was completely canned. But we were fortunate in that we had that position where, you know, we could go for 18 months without raising a cent and not one child in our care would go without food, school, shelter. So that was really important to us. And so coming out of that, that's certainly, you know, where we're getting back to is that, you know, having that, that rainy day fund that if something was to ever happen again, that we would be okay. But to do that takes, you know, a lot of, a lot of work. On the fundraising side, we have increased our team in the last 12 months. So we've certainly ramped up our resourcing as we go into our 20th year, knowing that this year for us will be a really big year and a great opportunity for us to really, you know, amplify our brand here in Australia, but also in Thailand. And so the board and Peter and myself came to a compromise around the charity dollars in that we would start to take anywhere between 10 and 15% of our charity dollars we would put back into fundraising administration to then help us grow our fundraising dollars. You know, it's kind of shifting that mindset from if we don't invest, we won't grow. So if we can invest 10 or 15% of our charity dollars, then we can guarantee growth beyond what we've been able to achieve before.

That's good. You mentioned brand, and I want to ask a little bit of a sensitive question because you need to raise awareness. You need to create an image, a brand for Hands across the Water. Many of the entrepreneurs that listen to this podcast, they' kind of for good businesses. They want to donate a certain number of dollars or percentage of their profits like the, you know, Thomas Shoes model or Warby Parker or things like that to help a cause. But it's a tough one because they need to present the cause in a way that is not depressing and a way that doesn't, like, taint the brand of the actual business. So, for example, like, you know, if I'm running a hundred dollar MBA and my brand is about, you know, the future and opportunity and hope and, you know, all that kind of stuff. And then on my checkout page, I say, you know, x amount of money goes to this charity. Look at these sad faces. Like it just kind of, It's a tough. I'm not saying that this is not a reality that we need to face, but how do you brand or be think about your brand, hands across the water to help these children without kind of, for lack of better terms, you know, be a little bit of a sad story without kind of showing the silver lining of what's happening.

Yeah, it's a really big part of our brand not to show those sad, sad faces. You know, these kids have come from some incredibly dire circumstances and it's not serving them well for us to tell their story in that capacity and, you know, share photos of, you know, sad and malnourished kids. So for us, we've always been about hope and we've always been about futures. And, you know, we've just gone through our new strategy for the next five years, and our focus is really around building brighter futures for our kids. And it's always been part of our mission. And, you know, when we're sharing the stories, you've got to find a way to tug on those heartstrings because you do want people to support and to engage. And so for us, we find the stories of hope that come from, you know, we can say that our kids have come from a sad background, but we focus on the education they're getting. We're focusing on, you know, kids like Ann, who she's now a trainee as part of our bicycle touring business. You know, she came to home hug as a young child, grew up in the home, went on to become a staff member in the home, and is now doing a traineeship for us through Hands Experiences Thailand. And so it's the back end of their story that, you know, I think the, the funding and the donations are really helping to, you know, just helping to empower them and to give them that different life to what they could have been.

I want to share my experience. At the end of the ride, we ride into the home in Cadillac and we meet all the children that we're riding for and we get to meet the child that you. You're kind of writing for. In the last week or so, I met mine and so did Nicole, and it was beautiful to do that. But writing in that last day, I was thinking in the back of my head, you know, what is it going to be like? I was a little bit worried that it's going to be like a little depressing and a bit of an emotional thing. And I didn't want anybody, I. I didn't want to get emotional and affect the children and make them feel bad. Like, you know, is my Situation horrible. And you're crying because my situation is horrible. And then I was really surprised because we saw so many smiling faces. And you realize that these children, despite of their past, they have a happy life and they have a great community of other children supporting each other. The older ones are looking after the younger ones. They were happy to kind of interact with us. We played Uno together and had a good time. And it was just such a surprise because I was like, they have a good life. I'm not saying that they're living it up like they're millionaires, but they have a content disposition that I wasn't expecting, you know, and I. That really was something that I really enjoyed about the whole experience was going there, seeing the kids. They're doing all right. It's encouraging for you to just say, okay, I want to continue to do this because I know that my money's helping rather than the opposite. So I want to talk a little bit about your business is to help these children, is to raise as much fund as funds as possible so you can help more homes. A big part of that in any business is reoccurring revenue, is, you know, lack of churn for, you know, for lack of a better return. But not having churn where people just donate once and they never donate again or go on a bike ride once or raise funds $5,000 once and never do it again. How do you guys think of reoccurring revenue or reducing your churn or trying to get people to buy into the cause for life? You know, one of your poster people are. Is Dale. Dale has been doing this for 10 years and raising lots, lots of money through his organization. But how do you get more Dales in your organization to help you guys out?

We would love more Dales, you know, people like Dale. And there's another one in our network, Steve Carroll from the real estate industry. You know, they have been so integral to that ongoing revenue. And I think what we've been able to provide at hands and what we're really proud of is, you know, we can provide a fantastic shared experience for individuals, for corporate groups, and, you know, the. I guess the sweet spot and the magic for us is in the people like Dale and Steve who have their own communities, and they want to create an experience like this where they can go and enjoy five days on the bike with their clients, their team, their closest confidants, and know that, you know, you're not only getting that fantastic shared experience with those people, but you're actually making an incredible difference to the kids. So I think Hands has raised over $30 million since, since its inception in 2005. And I'd have to say between Dale and Steve, they're probably close to about, you know, three or four million dollars with the two of them. So there's that side, you know, there's the bike ride, there's the shared experiences, you know, so we're constantly trying to evolve that and see how we can take that to another level. And then on the other side of the coin, we've got, you know, really strong corporate relationships. And so our chairman, who is the, she's the chairman of nata. NATA is a, is a retail, consumer electronics, retail group. And they have been incredible supporters of us since 2007. But you know, like any business and any business owner, you've got to look at those relationships and say, you know, what are we doing beyond that? And so how do we get another Dale? How do we get another nata? Because, you know, at any point in time something could happen and it's a huge risk if either of those partners were to walk away. There's a really big, big gap for us to fill. So, you know, it's, it's my job and it's our team's job to continue to, I guess, build our offering and try and bring, you know, more people on the journey so that we can diversify where our revenue is coming from.

Nicole and I are hoping to be a big contributor step by step throughout the years. I know dale's got a 10 year head start of us, but one of the things I'm really grateful for is just introducing us to this cause just because Nicole and I have been wanting to give back and we've given to other charities here and there. But one of the things that I found interesting about Hands across the Water is that you can dedicate yourself to one charity and you can actually make a bigger impact. Instead of, you know, let's say you're donating $1,000 each instead of doing that to a new charity every month. You know, doing that at one charity is actually going to make more of an impact. So I have a question about. When you talked about partnerships, you talked about sponsorships. You know, how do you guys like to structure this so that this is a no brainer for the partner or the structure or the sponsor?

I should say, look, I think there has to be benefit in it for, for the person wanting to come along and along on that journey. Let me give you an example of, of a client that I worked with so Steve from the real estate industry. So to give you the backstory, I worked as the head of sponsorship and events for realestate.com. that was my corporate role for a number of years. Steve was one of my stakeholders. Now I left that business to start my own business. I started my own event business. And basically I wanted to bridge the gap between corporates and charities because I saw the value from the bike rides we were running through hands and I thought, well, how do I help bridge this gap? So we engaged. I built an event for Steve. And I said to Steve, I'll be involved in this event as long as there is some form of give back to a community organization. Now, he selected charity, which I won't disclose. We raised $11,000, gave that over to the charity, and about six weeks later, I received a letter to say, dear Donor, thanks for your $11,000. That's it. And so, you know, knowing what I knew about hands and that relationship and what I could see as the potential for Steve, I took Steve for a coffee and I said, let me tell you about how we deal with our donors and how we treat our clients, whether it's a thousand dollar donation or whether it's a $200,000 bike ride. And by the end of that coffee, Steve said to me, he hadn't met the kids, had not, didn't know much about hands beyond my involvement, because obviously we'd connected and he knew about it through. Through my work. By the end of that coffee, he was ready to launch his own bike ride. And in that first year, he raised $300,000. And that went straight into the hands. Hands bucket, you know, so when you, when you look at that relationship, it went from an $11,000 donation to a charity to a $300,000 donation because of the experience that we created, because of that shared experience with his clients, with his, you know, it allowed him to get closer to the people he wanted to be closer to. And he now comes back year on year because of that connection and that relationship. He loves the kids and loves the cause, but he's coming back because it builds relationships with him and the people he wants to get close to.

I mean, you just touched on something so important. A lot of people, they donate money to a cause and they don't really get any kind of feedback on, like, what, where did my money go? What happened? And I think one of the things I really enjoyed about it, like I mentioned, is like, we went to the home, we met the kids, we had an amazing dinner, we saw a tour of their school. They took us by the hand and showed us like their classrooms and how clean and wonderful and tidy it was. They show us their farm and where they're growing fish and showed us their, you know, their dogs and their names and why they're mischievous and all that kind of stuff. And you really got a glimpse of, okay, this is where the money's going. This is, this is kind of their life. This is, this is the result of the donation. And I felt like you get, you get really bought into it and you feel like, okay, how do I continue this, how do I make sure that they continue to have this life? So I think that's a really good reminder because for those who are even raising money, like we raised money for hands, we ran event to do that to remind those people that donated, hey, this is our experience. This is what we did. This is what we saw. So that they can then pull out their wallets the next time we raise money for hands. So that's a really good point. Just showing the fruits of the labor. Building a portfolio with Fidelity Basket Portfolios is kind of like making a sandwich. It's as simple as picking your stocks and ETFs, sort of like your meats and other toppings and managing it as one big juicy investment. Mmm. Now that's pretty good. Learn more@fidelity.com baskets Investing involves risks, including risk of loss. Fidelity Brokerage Services LLC member NYSE SIPC looking for a Valentine's gift she'll truly love?

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Com sxm. I want to switch into like events planning, logistics coaching mode now, Claire.

That's my magic.

There you go. Because you've done a lot of them and in different sizes, different levels, all kinds of stuff. So Nicole and I run a lot of events and we're actually running a five day retreat for entrepreneurs in Queenstown, August 4. So just a month from this recording and it takes a lot of work to build these events out and to plan every single logistic and all that kind of stuff. We also do smaller events where we do a one day event where we do, like, workshops or masterminds. And we did one of those to raise money for hands, and when they made a donation, they got basically a ticket. So what is your advice? When somebody who's like, I've never ran an event. I've never sold tickets to anything. I don't even know how to book a venue. I don't know how to make sure that people buy and make it valuable. What is the first steps they could take to kind of start thinking about it, planning it, and having the right goal in mind?

Yeah. So look, my. My biggest thing. And, you know, I'm teaching. I've got an operations manager who's teaching. Started with us four months ago. And I'm trying to put this. This is like my bible that I use for events. So whenever I start an event, I will always sit and spend a few days writing a strategy document. And it's everything that I need to know about the event. Date, location, venue, you know, what are my objectives? What do I want to achieve out of this event? What are some success look like? And it's a working document that I just throw everything into. You know, from there, I start to build out what's the theme, what's the brief to my designer. And so you really start to create this map of what each event looks like and where we're going with it. So that's my first piece of advice, is just spend a few days and just sit down and really understand what you want to achieve. And then you can start to kind of bolt on and do all the logistics side of things.

So when it comes to the logistics, some people say, don't sweat the details. Some people say that the magic's in the details. Like, Nicole and I are maniacal about the details because we feel like how we do anything is how we do everything, and anything that we run is going to be a reflection of our brand. Is that healthy? Is that even advisable for somebody who's starting their first event? Should they. Is there a certain limit of, okay, these details matter? And these details is kind of take it or leave it.

Look, I'm a little bit like you and Nicole. I probably get caught in the detail a lot, and that's because I feel like there are those little touches that can mean the absolute world to someone. If you think about our bike rides, it's coming in. You've done a 20 kilometer leg, and someone comes up to you and grabs your water bottle and fills it up. That's a really tiny detail that means so much to you when you're on the bike. So I'm always thinking about, what are those little wow and delight moments? And they don't have to be huge. You know, if this is your first foray into events, I guess just put the hat on and go, what would I want in this moment? So if I'm turning up to an event, what is it that I'm looking for? Am I at, you know, have I just turned up to an event where I'm going to take a heap of notes, for example, and, and I've left my notebook at home? So do you have notebooks on the table for people? I mean, that's just a really basic kind of example. But you know, think about it. In the eyes of you walking into that event, what is it that you want to think, feel and do while you're there?

Yeah, that's a good one. So the annual event that we do, that retreat for the entrepreneurs called Oscon, it's in the snow. And a lot of entrepreneurs here in Australia have never been to the snow. So one of the things we give them as a surprise is like a beanie and they're like, oh my gosh, I forgot about, you know, cold. So it's a little thing. It costs, you know, $25 or something like that to get it embroidered and that kind of stuff with the branding. But it makes a huge difference. And I do think that especially at the start of the event, the first impression really matters. So if the first thing they see is like a little gift bag or, you know, somebody really welcomes them by name or whatever it might be. I feel like the start of the event matters so much because it sets the tone, the attitude that they're going to bring the event. Because as you know, the event is primarily the people that are attending that they're going to make the vibe, they're going to make what's going to happen. And if they're coming with the right intention, the right feelings and the right attitude, it's going to make all the difference. Have you ever run an event where you needed to check somebody at the door and say, I'm sorry, but this is not a good fit, or they're maybe, you know, not contributing in a positive way.

Oh goodness, what a question. I used to run some really high profile events for clients and I think I've run a couple of those events and you know, you might have had one or two that you need to have some stern conversations with or, or just a pull aside kind of conversation, but probably not anyone that I've ever turned away from an event. Depending on the types of events you run, you certainly get people who turn up with, you know, expectations, I guess, and, you know, potentially higher expectations than what the event is. But yeah, I can't think of any one to single out.

Yeah, that's all good. Let's talk a little bit about time, because every event has a schedule. How do you keep time? How do you make sure people are on time? Especially like our group was like 70 plus people. How do you make sure everybody is showing up where they're supposed to show up, whether it's for dinner or for the morning briefing or whatever it might be in anybody's event schedule. How do you make sure that people are on time and you start on time regardless of what happens?

Good coffee. Giving them coffee. Yeah, look, I guess in my experience it's building enough fat into your agenda and into your run sheet, you know, so whether you're running a five day event or whether you're running a half day session, you know, people will be late and it will be because of traffic, it will be because of, you know, they haven't got their outfit sorted, but people will always be late. So I think making sure you've got fat in the agenda to be able to account for that is probably my number one. And then, you know, in terms of rallying people and getting them there, I mean, you can lead a horse to water, you can provide them with all of the information you need to be able to arrive at the right time. But, you know, at the end of the day it's, it's going to come down to them, isn't it?

Yeah. I want to give a shout out to Rob Walling, who runs an event called microconf. He's been running it for over a decade. It's a, it's a conference for bootstrapped SaaS businesses. I'm fortunate enough to be speaking there in Croatia in October. And this event is, I spoke to Rob about this because the schedule is basically like morning session, it's three hours, a huge lunch break, afternoon session, three hours, huge break. And I'm like, what's up with this? Like, what's going on here? Like, there's no, like session after session. Why did you do this? And he was just like, you know, entrepreneurs are scattered. Some people are not on time, some people are just, you know, I want to make it easy for them. The first session starts at 10. The next session, you know, the afternoon session starts at 2. I want a lot of fluff and when he started this event, people started using this term, I'll see you on, in the hallway track. And the hallway track, it basically meant the time in between these wide sessions where we get to talk to people and chit chat. And what did you learn from this session? And the event became so popular because it wasn't this like strict, you know, 20 minute sessions, one after another and you better make the next one or you're gonna miss the other one. And multitrack and you know, and it really made it about the people that are attending and the conversations you're having outside the sessions. So I think that's a really good insight of maybe don't try to fight human nature so much and you know, people will be late, some people will not be on time. You want to be, you know, start on time as you, as you like, but try to make your life a little easier along the way.

Yeah, yes, definitely. And don't take it personally. So don't show up on time.

Totally. That's a good one. That's a good one. Because I used to. Nicole and I are former teachers, so we run a tight train schedule and we're like, hey, what's going on here? You just decided to come late. It's been 30 seconds. Yeah, I know, but 30 seconds is. My dad used to have the saying that, he used to tell me this all the time and maybe this is where I got it from. He used to say it's very hard to be on time. You're either early or you're late. So it's actually quite hard to be exactly, you know, 11 o' clock on the dot, you know, so it's. You make a choice, either I'm going to be late or I'm going to be early. So I thought that was something that really stuck with me and you know, maybe I can uphold that and I can keep that standard for myself but not impose it on others as much as possible. Claire, there's a couple things I want to chat with you about before we close off. But you have a lot of responsibility like this. What you guys are doing are incredible. This is not like, hey, you know, I'm selling, you know, iPhone accessories and you know, last quarter we didn't sell as much as last, you know, but we're. You have people's lives in their hands, like really, you have mouths to feed, you have people that are relying on how well you run the organization so that they can have a future. How do you balance that pressure and have a healthy lifestyle, still have Time to. For yourself, for your husband, Peter, for, you know, self care, for walks in the park. Like, how do you not switch off and not let that burden or that responsibility affect you as a person?

To be completely honest, it's difficult. And, you know, when you're working in business with your husband as well, and you are both, you know, driving so hard and forward for the same cause, it's, you know, it is difficult to turn off that tap. And, you know, you sit down at the dinner table and you're talking about, you know, what's coming up and what's happening. And so, yeah, very difficult. Very grateful for my two dogs who keep me busy because they're very active, so they need walking every day. And my three hours in the morning, hate to say it, I'm a 5am girl. And, you know, those three hours between 5 and 8 in the morning is my time. And it's, you know, I get up, I enjoy my coffee, then as soon as the dog's awake and ready to go, let's go for a walk. And I'll try to get some exercise in that as well. And one of the things I say to Pete, if I haven't done my exercise in the morning, it's not gonna happen for the day. Because I know that as soon as I get on my computer, it's right. You're there until 6 o', clock, until it's time to feed the dogs. So the dogs just keep me in sync. It's like, time to walk and now it's time to eat again.

No, but it's great. You have a system and. Yeah, and get a dog, guys. Get a dog. For sure.

Get a dog.

No, totally. And the exercise thing in the morning is huge. I learned this from Kevin Hart in his book, you can't make this up. He subscribes to the same idea of like, get your exercise done in the morning, because if anything else happens at the rest of the day, it's a total failure. At least you have that win. At least you got the exercise in. And from there on in, you know, the day is a good day, which I love this mentality. You mentioned working with your husband. Peter, you know that Nicole and I, husband and wife, been working with each other for over 12 years now. We have our own system. I want to learn about your system. How do you guys work together? Because I get this all the time. I don't know about you, you tell me if you do, but I get told all the time. How do you work with your wife? How do you Guys not eat, you know, kill each other and all that kind of stuff. And my response is like, how do I not. Like, how do I not share this part of my life with her as well? I want to learn more of your experience with working with Peter and what systems do you guys have in place so you guys are productive, but also put your relationship first.

Yeah, look, we are very yin and yang in terms of how we operate. So I am very systems process driven, whereas he's the guy that's like, what do you mean? I've got to use Google Drive. So a little bit of frustration there, but we balance each other out.

I'll help you with that. When I talk to him, I'll nudge him the right way. Yeah, great.

Perfect. Thank you. But no. Look, communication has been such a big thing for us and you know, it's being able to sit down and have hard conversations. You might not always agree with things on a work front, but it's being able to have those hard conversations and then. And not forget about them, but being able to walk away from them at the end of the day, I guess have that circuit breaker to be able to just walk away from that conversation if you need to. Probably up until this year and you know, possibly even Covid we were going on regular breaks, regular holidays, and just having those kind of again, circuit breakers those weekends away just to pack up the dogs, go away and not have to think or talk about hands. We run another business outside of Hans as well. And you know, so just being able to step outside of all of that and just have some time together is really important. And then, you know, with the work that we do with Hans, we don't travel to Thailand a lot together, but when we do, we absolutely love that and make the most of it. So, you know, we're really fortunate to share the business blueprint ride together. Probably the first ride that we've done together in five years. And even just, you know, a leg on the bike with him and just having a chat and talking about life and business and where we're heading. I think it's important to, you know, carve out those moments.

There's a metaphor there for sure where we're heading on the journey of life, on the bike riding of life. Yeah, yeah, totally. I think one of the biggest challenges, but also one of the biggest blessings of being in a partnership of marriage as well as a partnership of life or business, is we're both in tuned with what we're trying to do in life. You know, work is such A big part of your life, especially if you're an entrepreneur, you're trying to accomplish something big, you're trying to do something great. You know, people don't become entrepreneurs so they can have a mediocre life. They're trying to accomplish significant things. So to have a partner to help you along the way and support you, and vice versa, you support them, makes it so much easier. And one of the things I say about entrepreneurship is that you want to create the framework and the circumstances to make things easier on you as much as possible. So if you feel like I, and this is my personal opinion, if you feel like getting your significant other involved will help you achieve your goals and make it easier on you and vice versa, then why not? I think that this is something that should be celebrated more rather than seen as like a odd thing. But I do agree with you. There's gotta be some rules and some. Some procedures and I would say even just an understanding of how to deal with conflict, because you're going to have conflict in business and disagreements.

It's boundaries. It's having, you know, having really good boundaries. And we set up meetings in our diaries, so.

Oh, yeah, 100%. Yeah.

It's like we are having a meeting today on this, and if you don't do that, you just very quickly get sidetracked and distracted.

Yeah. One of the things that Nicole and I do is like, say, for example, we have five projects we're working on for the rest of the year. We're gonna work on them together, but each of us has to be responsible to see it through the finish line. So I will take project number one. You take two. Three. Because sometimes when you're working with somebody else, you're like, well, should I drive this forward or am I stepping on somebody's toes? Well, if they're assigned to it, then I don't need to worry about it. I could just worry about my projects, and I'll help when I need to help with the other ones, which is really helpful because, you know, if you think it's sensitive to do with a coworker, think about somebody that you're sharing a bed with, you know, so it's definitely a great little tactic in there. Before we wrap up, Claire, what's something you're excited about when it comes to the future? You just mentioned earlier that you guys did your five year planning. What is something you guys are really excited about when it comes to the future of hands?

Yeah, look so excited about just the growth of, I guess, the education programs that we're looking at. So back at the end of 2019, we had mapped out a plan to create a hospitality learning centre, a digital training center, an agricultural school, and then there was also a bakery thrown in there as well. And it was this huge plan to provide our kids with vocational training opportunities outside of the standard university degrees. And obviously all of that got put to a halt in 2020. And so we're really excited that we're now part of pulling that back out. So that strategy has been dusted off and we're starting to make some really great traction on that. So later this year. We're currently working with an architect to open up a welcome center and a, like a museum that will actually be at Ban Tha Nam Chai, which is the home that you wrote into. And the purpose of that center will be. There's a couple of reasons for it. So A, it will stop any visitors to the home from being able to go into. Into the home, if that makes sense. So if you've got, you know, visitors from the hotels who want to go and meet the kids and go to an orphanage for the day, you know, they turn up and they go into the home. And so what we're trying to do is create something that removes that so they can go into this welcome center, they can learn about the home, they can learn about the kids and about hands and they're not actually having to enter where the kids are playing, you know, where they might be eating lunch, etc. So that we're really excited about and hopefully we'll get that, that up and running by an opening on the 20th anniversary, so 26th of December this year. And then beyond that, we'll continue plugging away at the hospitality center and the digital center and all those big grand plans that we've got.

That is great. I love hearing about initiatives, challenges of other businesses. I would never imagine that this is a problem that you have to face, like people going to the home as a tourist attraction. It's just so interesting to hear that, you know, because everybody thinks aggressive green on the other side. Oh, you don't want to deal with my problems. Every business has got problems. Every business has got challenges. Every business has got things to overcome. So thanks for sharing that and sharing what's in store. Thank you so much for your time, Claire, thanks so much for sharing your insights. I will be sharing with everybody how they can help Hands across the Water through our page and our initiative here at the 100 LMBA to support this amazing cause and this amazing initiative that you guys are doing giving these children a future of choice and not chance, which is fantastic. So thanks so much, Claire.

Thank you, Omar. It's been really great chatting such an.

Insightful chat with Claire. I love her ability to kind of simplify the complicated. You know, events are a lot of work. I know. I run events all the time. I ran an annual event called OSCON for many years. And it's a lot of logistics. It's a lot of things to keep in mind because you want to make sure that everybody's having a great time, they're getting their money's worth, and they come back, right? They come back the next year and they tell their friends, they tell their other colleagues. So I love all the insights she shared. If you loved this podcast, if you found this episode insightful, helpful in any way, the best way to say thank you is just to hit subscribe. Whether you subscribe on YouTube or on any podcast app, Spotify, Apple, a castbox, overcaster on every single one of them. Okay? By subscribing, you tell the algorithm, hey, this show's all right. If you also want to support us, support our sponsors. Our sponsors are sponsoring the show to help us grow and continue to deliver great business lessons and bring on great guests like Claire. Thanks so much for listening to the $100 NBA show. We'll check you in the next episode. Until then, keep moving forward. Hey, Fidelity. How can I remember to invest every month?

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