Episode 70: Winning at Business and Life with Scotty Schindler

This is Professor Pete Alexander with the Winning at Business and Life podcast, where business leaders share their insights. It is 6 questions in 7 minutes because successful business leaders are busy and rarely have more time to spare. So let's get to it. Question number 1: In a few sentences, please tell me who you are and what you do.

Hey, thanks for that. Scotty Schindler from Australia. What I do now is completely different to what I've done for the last 30 years. I did go on a startup journey where I started a company in IT, online, with now what's called SaaS and cloud products, but it was a real estate software product. So I went on an entrepreneurial journey from the year 2000 and I successfully exited a couple of years ago and retired early. So what I do right now is I just enjoy myself and let the universe take me wherever it takes me.

Oh, I love that. Scotty, it's so great to have you on the show. Question number 2: What's the best thing about working in your industry?

Well, you know, depends on which— if I go back to the last 18 years with the real estate industry, I mean, I come from a sales background. So, I spent 10 years selling insurance and learning the art of building teams and getting results and high stress, if you want to call it, and management. And then I went into dealing with real estate agents who come from the same sort of environment where they're into sales and they're into high stress and long hours. But they're all high achievers. To be successful at real estate, you've got to be a high achiever. So, my ability to be able to relate to people in the real estate industry was quite high. So, if you go back to that, I know it was a software company or a technology company, but really all companies are people companies. Without people, there's no clients. The clients are people. So, my ability to have fun with those people, like their award nights and to have training sessions with them and be like for like was one of the best things about working in the real estate industry for me. So, I learned how to write software, but I actually related to those people and it was a bit like selling lollies to kids, to tell you the truth. Because I could have a conversation with them. It was really good. So, that was one of the best things about being in that industry. But if I go to what I'm doing now with— I've been now asked to do a lot of speaking and mentoring. You know, it's that when you talk to someone and they get that aha moment and you just see them going, "Oh, wow, I can do that." Or, "Wow, that makes sense." And you watch that moment and that to me is one of the most satisfying things out of everything. I know it worked for me, but when you see someone have that moment and better still when they write back to you. And say, "It worked." And that is like an adrenaline rush, like surfing. I compete with surfing and chase good waves. It's just like getting a good wave. It's just like, "Yes!" I love it.

What a great way to describe that. Fantastic. Question number 3: I have a book with all the answers for business. What chapter do you think most companies should read?

You're talking about me having my own book with all the secrets for business?

No, just I have a book and which chapter would you pick in that book?

So, look, I like everything to do with business full stop. So picking one chapter is sort of tough, but I like everything to do with business. I like everything about the opportunity it brings. I like everything about the flexibility it brings. I have a saying where, if you're worth it and you can prove it, you'll get paid it. And as far as business goes, if you go into your own business, you have all the opportunity in the world to prove who you are and why you should get paid whatever it is you're charging. You have to prove it though, there's no doubt about it. So picking a single thing in business or a single chapter or a single philosophy is probably not, in my words, not practical because there's a bunch of things you need to know and a bunch of things you need to focus on. And you can have, for want of a better word or way of describing, you have 10 different things in motion at once through staff, through products, through clients. You can have 10 different things going at once and you need to do that. You need to have multiple opportunities running at a time because not all of them are going to work. Not all of them are going to come through. So if one drops off, it's okay. You've just dropped one egg out of a dozen eggs and you just move on, right? So that one didn't work, but I've still got these other things and you keep going and going and going and going and going. So there's no one secret to business. There's no one chapter. There's no one technique. You know, some things will work for you when, you know, something doesn't work today and in 3 years' time you have a go at it again and now it works. You know, the reason for that could be timing, it could be you, it could be the market, it could It could be anything. There's no one secret. You just got to have a go at lots and lots of things and continue to pile on more good things that work this year, next year another good thing, the year after another good thing, and all of a sudden, 3, 4, 5 years later, you've got a great business. It doesn't happen overnight. And if people want to read a chapter or watch a video or do a course or go listen to Tony Robbins in one session and expect to have a great business overnight, Well, it's not going to happen. It takes time and it takes years and years and years of repetition, success, and failure to be able to have that stuff be— what do you want to call it— instinctual, where you just know what to do next. Okay, I know what to do now, or I've got the confidence to make a decision and go forward, and that takes time. So that one thing is, you know, whether you're learning sales, you're learning business development, leadership, Everything about business, and you've got to have all of them going at once. There's no one chapter, there's no one answer, there's no magic wand or magic carpet. You do have to try to persist with as many things as possible. And you know what? The reality is it's not all going to work. So if you're relying on one, yeah, you've got to just pick what you think is right right now, work with your strengths and just keep working with your strengths and don't worry about the things that drop off. Just keep working with what you know is working for you that you can make even better. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Couldn't agree with you more. I really love that insight. Question number 4: Other than the generic work harder, have a great attitude, and care for customers, what advice or insight would you like to give to other business leaders?

Yeah, well, look, I'm a big fan of working harder, believe it or not. A lot of people think I've had a pretty good balance in life, and the reality is I have. But it's because I went the extra mile. It's because I did the extra things. It wasn't because it just turned up. I did the things necessary. A lot of people do say I was lucky, but I thought I worked till I was 70. I just did it in half the time. That's all. So I just worked really long hours and I worked through the night, but I did balance stuff out. So other than work harder, I think working harder is actually important part of— like I said, if you want to get into business, it's the benefit of being in business because you can work harder and get paid what you're worth. But at the same time, you've got to try and work smarter. So the biggest advice I get for people— one of my trademarks is time duplication. So if I wanted to give one thing to do with just in that sense of working harder rather than smarter— to work smarter, it's about duplication. It's the one thing that every successful business person understands is time duplication. It's the one thing they all know, understand, and use. And that could be time duplication through themselves, like through leadership. You know, Scotty can succeed, but what about 10 Scottys? What about 20 Scottys in the team? Now all of a sudden we've got a great team and a great company. So they duplicate themselves through their team. Product. You know, you don't want to have to be doing the same product all the time. You need product that can duplicate as well. A buzzword for that now is scale. So you've got to have product that can scale and duplicate. In other words, you know, you don't need 100 Scotties if you can get 20 Scotties and the product keeps duplicating. Okay? So then there's also time duplication in wealth. So you've worked really hard for your money once. Well, put it somewhere that's going to keep working for you. So you get paid twice, 3 times, 5 times out of the same effort. So time duplication through wealth creation, that's investment properties or shares, those sorts of things. And just like everything else, not all of it works. But if you continue to invest, if you go back 10 or 20 years ago and have a look at all the investments you've made and how you've duplicated your wealth, well, let's look at the next 10 years. What are you going to do to duplicate your wealth so you don't have to be working the following 10 years? And if I had to give a secret to the reason why I got to retire early, was actually because of that wealth creation and duplication. I worked really hard for it once, so I put it away so it would work hard for me twice, 3 times, 5 times, and it still continues to work hard for me. And I'm not— but it's the one thing, it's the one thing every successful business person understands. There's a heap of things I could share, but time duplication is a secret sauce, and the more you can do that with yourself, your products and your money, the far better lifestyle you'll be able to create because less things are going to be dependent on you.

I couldn't— oh my gosh, that is so insightful. I mean, I absolutely agree 100%. Thank you for that. Question number 5: What other business leader like yourself would you like to acknowledge and invite to be on my podcast?

Look, there's so many of them. You know, like, I run through— I get invited on lots of podcasts and I get asked the same question all the time. And I suppose probably better is, yeah, I'll send you a message with a few names on it that you might be interested in. You can pick some out of the hat. But look, there's so many good podcasts out there and I love listening to them and being a part of them. And, you know, everyone's got to decide what's the right podcast for them. The business ones, yeah, I just love them. So I'll send you a list of names.

Perfect. Appreciate that. And our last question, question number 6: Please tell me about your first job.

All right. First job. I'll spend a bit of time on this one with you. So I had a few jobs, right? And it was amazing how those things came to play, not when I was a teenager, but when they came to play when I was 30 and 40 years old. So, as an example, it wasn't my first job, but let me give you an example. I worked in McDonald's. So, that's where you get introduced to systems. They have a system for everything. You name it, from how they serve people to how they cook to how they deliver to how they teach, how they share their stores and grow their stores and how they franchise to their universities. They have systems for everything. Everything. And I was a part of that system for a while as a kid. So, what I learned back then was systems, and McDonald's has such the best system. Whether you eat the food or not, it's not important. Everyone's been to McDonald's in their life, right? And more than once. You couldn't fill up your hands, right? Everyone's been to McDonald's so many times because of their systems and the way they market, the way they do everything is just absolutely brilliant. So, I started off at McDonald's. As one of my first jobs, and it was amazing how that came into play later on, understanding systems. Other jobs, like I used to walk around and go and ask people for work because I come from a pretty poor background, so I go door knocking and ask people if I could do some work. So I worked at corner shops cleaning their fat vents and mowing their lawn out the back and things like that, just for some money. I can't remember, back then it was probably like $5 or $10 at best. I got given a job doing letterbox drops. So, it was 1 cent a pamphlet for every letterbox I dropped off these pamphlets in. So, if I did 200, it was $2, right? But it was $2.

Yeah, exactly.

But the ability to door knock and do the discipline and get paid for it was something that I ended up doing in my 20s when I sold insurance. I had to go physically business to business and have a presentation, a conversation, try and leave with some money. So, when you talk about your first jobs, I mean, these were some of my first jobs and they came to play later on as I was already experienced in it. I was just now having a career in it and it was amazing how some of these things pivoted. So, that was— So, I can talk about that sort of stuff all day but if you go back to my first real career, I wanted to get into real estate. So, I wanted to become a real estate salesperson. Because there was a guy here at school who was a couple of years older than me. He drove a brand new Holden Commodore. Okay, so it was— I'm not sure what you call it over there, a Chevy or just a normal car, but to me it was like a rich person's car. And I wanted to get into real estate sales because he was in real estate and drove this brand new car. And that was my motive, was I really wanted to get into it. So I went door knocking and no one would give me a job, but I got a job selling insurance. So my first career was 10 years of business-to-business selling insurance, and that was one of the best foundations of anything. So when a lot of people say to me they want to get into software or they want to get into business and what should I do, and I always go, you've got to learn sales. You've got to learn how to have a constructive conversation that gets you a result, just like I did as a little kid mowing people's lawns, doing letterbox drops. You know, just like I did that, you know, people got to learn to have those conversations that actually get results. So regardless of whether you're a chef and want to open up a restaurant, or whether you're a mechanic and want to open up your own business, or a carpenter that wants to start a building company, those conversations that get results, for want of a better word, sales, is critical to every business's success. So I was lucky I had some of those foundation layers as a kid, and that was through necessity. You know, not opportunity, it was just through necessity. I then learnt to do that because I wanted some money. I wanted to be able to buy a new surfboard and simple things like that, that most of the other kids got given off their parents.

That's great. And I think I couldn't agree with you more because with me too, the jobs that I had that I had to have some sales, that I've— I continue to use that to this day. So it's crazy how the discipline and the communication that I learned from those really have served me well. Throughout my life.

100%, and we talk about sales. So one thing I've noticed in the last few years that I'm now outside of my own company looking back is I watch a lot of people's techniques. You know, you get people try to approach you about stuff, and one of the things is true that if you can solve a problem, well, people will buy your product, right? So if you're solving a problem, people want to buy it. But what most people do is they talk about the problems all day in their sales pitch or their presentation. Because they're told to solve a problem when really that's not the case. What salespeople do is they, they provide a solution. They talk about the benefits and the rewards and the solutions. A lot of people are taught to pitch on problems, and that is not a skill set. That's just leading down the path of not really getting a result. I understand the principle 100%. If someone doesn't have a problem, they're going to pay for something, but you always go forward with your solution.

Very, very true. So Scotty, thank you so much for being on the show. How could people find you?

Yeah, look, I've got— I've set up my own website, so scottyschindler.com. I've got a bunch of followers on LinkedIn, which is my only social media platform. Although I do have Facebook for friends, and I started Instagram years ago as everyone else has, but my main platform for business, which is the market I like to be in, like-minded people, it's definitely LinkedIn. So Scotty Schindler, just look it up on LinkedIn, is where I put a lot of content, a lot of free content, share a lot of ideas.

Perfect. This is Professor Pete Alexander with the Winning at Business and Life podcast. For more insights and ideas, please go to LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, or iTunes and search for the Winning at Business and Life podcast. Thanks for listening.