Getting Your Mindset Right | Ep. 06

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Beyond Business podcast. My name is Charles Mackay. Today I had the absolute pleasure of interviewing Amy Engleman, who has recently just exited her second business. And it is a fascinating story. Amy and I first met in 2016 in Boston and we had a really, really interesting conversation over a couple of weeks actually. And ever since then I've been fascinating in watching and seeing how Amy's business has progressed and also her career. That business was founded off the back of her previous business, which is an agency that was focusing on one particular niche that got massively impacted in a big way back in the later 2000s and she had to not pivot, but change that, the way that business operated and was able to get out of it and then start up the business Beepo that she just exited from. I think it's fascinating that Amy was able to build that inbound business machine without, you know, they were doing those, a lot of those outbound tactics and it just wasn't working. So they just doubled down on building the inbound machine and how that probably has a big effect on the exit of a business as well. And another thing that is fascinating, she's hired over 60% of the team are actually women and have become leaders in their industry and leaders in their space in traditionally male dominated space. So I'm going to hand over to Amy and myself for what I hope you enjoy is a really good conversation. Amy, what a pleasure it is to have you on this conversation. So tell me, where are you sitting on this fine Monday morning?

Well, I'm very fortunate to be in a little coastal town in New South Wales, actually not too far from you, Kingscliffe. So sun is shining and yeah, no complaints, really.

Amazing, amazing. How long have you been at King's Cliff? 4. And how like, what was the trigger for you to move there?

Yeah, so we've been down here about four and a half years and part of the trigger was around, I guess, wanting to step back from being customer facing in our business, but also just wanting to test out a bit of a lifestyle change or see change while running our business remotely. So we did it for a year, you know, kept our house in Brisbane, said we'll see how it goes. And then before that year was out, we were like, no, no, no, we're staying like this is now our home.

Amazing. It's. That's fascinating. So when was that? Like 2, 2000 and wait, 2014 something around then?

Yeah, around 14, 15. And it was not long after kind of we kicked our, our business off, which was late 2013. And you know, one of the things that it did do is it stops you from doing all those little like coffee cap shops and. Yeah, just. Just things that people expect, I guess these days in business or prior to COVID 19 in business that they expect those sorts of bits and pieces and you add those all up in a month of all of those informal networking or coffee catch ups and yeah, it forced us to scale our business better, but it also gave us more time.

Yeah. Wow. Especially with a young family. Amazing. So let's rewind the gears a little bit. So from Brisbane originally, is that right?

Yeah, Brisbane and Gold coast most of my life. Yeah. Yeah.

Cool. So what got you into business? Where was your first business venture and what did it look like?

Yeah, so in my late 20s I was in corporate and I really felt like something wasn't quite rush in terms of where my career was headed. And my. Both my parents were very entrepreneurial. So I took a sideways step out of corporate into almost contracting in marketing services, which very quickly led to grow a business. So I started growing a marketing agency with the help of an amazing business coach who kind of gave me that little mindset push that I needed to go from a contractor into building a business. So that was fun. And that focused mostly on the telecommunications services. And interestingly, back then in 2008, I ran that business remotely. So I made the decision not to have offices, even though I was growing an agency, not to have people, you know, coming together every day to work on the client work, and found these amazing. I called them marketing mums, although not all of them were mums. They were women who'd been in marketing roles who wanted to return to work but didn't want to commute to the city. So, you know, the foundation for my staff and therefore the value that we could give to those clients was these amazing marketers that all work from home. So, yeah, it was quite unique. Now it sounds very regular and normal, of course, but back in 2008 it was a bit different.

Yeah. Wow, that's. That's fascinating. So how long did that business run for?

I ran that till 2015. And it was that business that took me to the Philippines and really opened my eyes to what was happening in, you know, out of Australia and happening globally with global resources and hiring people offshore. So. And it was really through an instance where my marketing agency was struggling. What I was finding is that we had a very quick decrease in revenue due to some circumstances outside of our control. So we had a 22% drop in revenue almost overnight. And I had to find a way to lower my costs and to almost kind of pivot the business and pivot the staff. And so that took me to the Philippines and then subsequently started another business at the same time. So I ran the marketing agency, put it under management and then exited that in 2015. And I started my Philippines business in 2013. So I had an overlap.

Yeah, wow. Wow, that's. That's phenomenal. And doing two separate things at one time is. I can only imagine how busy you were. So with the marketing agency looking at it in, you know, 2008-2015, what was that business, you know, other than probably bringing on, you know, lots of marketing collateral for clients and all that sort of thing. But what was the core problem that you identified within that business that you ended up solving for your clients?

Yeah, so a lot of those clients in that particular niche wanted and needed great marketing help, but they were in that in between where they couldn't quite manage the budget for a full time marketing person. So we were that outsourced solution and we were able to help educate and then put in place campaigns that helped drive revenue and profit. And you know, luckily because we were working in a niche, we could see what was working and then we would apply that across.

Across.

So yeah, it was successful and it was, you know, it was relatively lean, so we didn't have to carry a lot of cost because we didn't have that overhead. Which means that, that smaller businesses could access quite senior help at a really kind of a value price point.

Yeah, that makes sense. And when as that business evolved in 2015, you were able to exit it, did the problem shift at all through that as that business grew?

Look, it didn't. The core thing that we were doing for those clients didn't necessarily change, but the way in which we were delivering that value did. So. So we were early days was more traditional sort of forms of marketing and advertising and then digital was really coming into play in that era. So there was a big switch in the way that we had to go about helping generate revenue and leads and help grow the business.

Yeah, yeah, interesting. So talking, we're sort of going to end up today talking about two businesses and your career journey in a nutshell, which is, it is fascinating as well. And we had the pleasure of meeting at Inbound, I think in 2016. Was it 2016? Is that four years ago? Like, wow. And it was a fascinating conversation we had around. You know, obviously with that business you were working then. It was you know, you were providing outsourced services to businesses in Australia and us. With my business, I've got outsourced people and partners that I work with and some of the challenges that go with that, people don't really understand it. They think that you just give a scope of work or a project to someone and it's just going to happen. And I'm sure you've got hundreds of stories around how that doesn't actually enable, doesn't happen in those ways. But going from the marketing agency into providing those outsourced services, what was the opportunity you saw? Like, you obviously offshored your marketing agency and sent that offshore to the Philippines. But what got you into actually starting this offshore services business? What was the main driver behind it?

Yeah, I guess, firstly, I had a preconceived idea of best talent. So I had this very insular view that the best talent was in Australia and the best marketers doing the best work was in Australia. So firstly, it was just a, like a complete shift of mindset, which I think then as entrepreneurs, creatively, you know, your mind is open to new opportunities. And I guess what I was seeing in terms of trends is the globalization of the workforce. So no longer could an Australian business just choose to have someone in Australia. They could choose somewhere in the world. So it was this concept of world's best talent. And, you know, I really love the fact that there were developing countries where maybe the employment, you know, levels were a lot lower, the education was still of a really high standard, really motivated, you know, motivated people that had good education and that we could really look to, I guess, spread a bit of that employment opportunity. So not necessarily shrinking staff levels in Australia, but opening up more varied workforce to include offshore, which, you know, happened to be a developing country. So, you know, when I went to the Philippines and I met the people, I felt very good about extending that employment opportunity into a developing country. Yeah.

And that was part of the drivers, I think. It's, you know, obviously with what's going on with COVID everyone's saying you need to localize everything and bring everything back to Australia. And I agree with that too. But I also disagree with so much outsourcing that has been done where it's just been for the price, like, oh, let's just ship it to that country or that country because it's cheaper. So can you tell us a little bit about a couple of the stories that you've seen and how that is like, the incorrect way to think of partnering with people? And I actually don't think it means internally in Australia or externally, anywhere around the world. Like, you partner with someone, there's got to be value in it. So what can you share about cost based partnerships?

Yeah, I think there's a real view that offshore equals cheap and that people are going to save money and that's the reason why they do it. Of course, yes, there's cost savings, but I think for businesses, like any partnership, you still have to invest time in training staff and bringing them up to speed. So I think where organisations are winning at the moment that do have that global footprint and variety of teams is when you look at things like business continuity and the environment that we're in now, they can start to have staff and move work around in various countries and to various people and sometimes even various time zones to help keep things ticking over. So, you know, I've seen plenty of businesses that have gone down that road of, oh, hang on, I think it's cheap. And then where they're actually looking at it ends up being, well, who's the best person to send this work to? For various reasons, for productivity, efficiency. And for them it's kind of like the light bulb moment. It's like, okay, this may or may not be cheaper depending on where the staff member is and how much time is invested in training and development, but I'm actually putting the right work in the right place. So that's, I think, where businesses really get it. Like, hang on, I can get someone in the Philippines who loves to do this particular job day in, day out, particularly around compliance. Like I think about a client I worked with in NDIS who's just got a huge amount of compliance and checking. And now that work was not about sending it somewhere cheaper, it was that the Australian staff just got jack of it, they leave their job. And so for them it was that staff retention issue in Australia that drove them to go, hang on, we've got to find an alternative. And so, yeah, it's more about finding the right person and linking that to the right task, wherever they might be. And sure, added bonus, if there's bottom line savings, there's efficiency, you can reinvest that cash. Most people reinvest it back into their business anyway, which helps grow employment in all cases. But yeah, cost is sometimes the factor to attract a business, but good businesses actually find that it's way, way more than that.

Yeah, it is fascinating and I couldn't agree with you more on when you start problem solving and putting the right person in the right seat with the right skill Set and remove the barrier to location and it's only going to escalate at the minute with COVID Like people are going to go, you know what, I don't need someone in Melbourne, I don't need someone in Perth, I don't need someone in Tasmania. It doesn't really matter. There's the technology out there to be able to enable people to do the work. It's just letting go of that limiting belief, I think.

Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, I think it's going to be super exciting coming out of COVID and seeing how that changes. And hopefully what it does for people who are in, you know, various roles in Australia is it actually helps them work on the things that they love.

Yeah, totally agree. And you know, as a client goes through this transformation too, you know, I don't like the word digital transformation, but people are actually doing it now and going, you know what? It works. As opposed to seven or eight years ago when, you know, the big tech companies were saying it works, but it didn't work. This actually works now. But instead of culling your workforce because you don't want them doing those mundane tasks anymore, you look at enabling them and training them and upskilling them into the new ways of working and then you don't lose all that ip. I think that's the way that if you've got a really big workforce where you're looking to digitally transform, it's like, well, don't get rid of your talent. You need to think of other ways to leverage that talent. And one thing I think about, and you see this in politics a lot with the coal industry, it's like, why don't they spend 10 years educating coal on solar or, you know, green energy? Because they've all got the skill, you just need to retrain them and then jobs won't actually decrease, they'll go up.

Yeah, that's right, 100%.

Yeah. So with the offshoring business, the problem that you were solving, you know, is obviously you can able, you know, finding the right talent, sitting the right seat and doing that work and then enable a business to hopefully grow a bit more efficiently. What were some of the problems that you saw as that business grow and where clients that actually work this out were doing and starting to pull the levers on you guys for.

Yeah, so the successful ones were really treating, you know, partnering with us to treat their offshore team just like they would part of their business. So finding really innovative ways to do their, you know, morning huddle, for example, you know, and including their Offshore staff in that, finding really cool ways to have quarterly events and include their staff, you know, in those sorts of things, Spending time face to face. Some businesses even invested in bringing those staff out to Australia for training, changing their job scope, so moving, moving them like any role, you want to grow in a role and take on more, you know, more tasks that are challenging and interesting. So upskilling the staff and taking them to more senior positions was absolutely, you know, evident throughout the journey, you know, focusing on the scalability of their business. So having some junior staff that then became pioneers that could created systems and processes and, you know, set those standards. As the company grew and look for us as a, as a service provider, we found over the years that we had to really pivot to offer more to our clients and really understand the industries that we were strong in. So when we first started the business, we could pretty much service anyone. We had good quality staff, you know, really good premium product, lots of service touch points to make sure that the customer got it right. But the landscape became more competitive. So as a business we had to pivot to say, okay, how do we add more value? And one of the ways we did that is to pick some industry niches that we thought we could do great work and actually pre train and give our staff that industry knowledge and do that in advance of actually partnering with a particular client. And lots of that was done in software. So of course cloud software became absolutely crucial to what those staff were doing. So we would then find industry, find the common software tools that those industries were using and we would pre train those staff to get them to a much higher level of output and understanding. And that was one of our kind of, that was our strategic pivot. We stopped that all in sundry approach. So our customer acquisition started and our content development started to focus on these particular industries and as a result, our cost per lead went down, our cost per acquisition went down. We were able to close opportunities quicker and it made a significant difference to the, you know, to the bottom line. Yeah, so that was one of the insights for us as we scaled one of the challenges we had as the landscape became more competitive.

Yeah, and over in the Philippines. So majority of your team, if not was all the team in the Philippines at that point?

Yeah, we ended up with about 12 in Australia and about 50 internal staff in the Philippines. And company size all up was about 420.

Yeah, yeah. It's fascinating the scale of how quickly that can grow. What were some of the eye opening points for you? And also the most satisfying Components of that business that you didn't think were going to come.

So probably eye opening other than culture, which is, you know, fairly straightforward forward and you know, you would expect. The one that I didn't expect was process. Just how astute we needed to be around process and qa. So not, not making assumptions about how well a process would be, would be rolled out or stuck to or complied to over long periods of time. So that support that surprised me. It's just a different, different way of thinking in a different way to ensure that staff are all on the same page and undertaking the tasks and activities at the same volume. Efficiency, proficiency that's required. So that I think that made me a better entrepreneur because I had to get super, super focused on the process.

Yeah.

And I love the saying I looked around all sorts of corners. So I learned to just look around every corner, you know, as you scaled and to never assume that once I put a process in place that it was, it was, you know, done. Tick the box, I'm on to the next one. So, yeah, probably gave my team the, the chits and frustrated them.

Yeah.

But you know, that was really. Yeah, like I said, it made me a better operator, but that was one I didn't see coming. Is just a requirement to really nail that process.

Yeah. Is it true too that in the Philippines, like I think whereas in Australia we can be a slightly different as a culture where the process is there but we'll just cut it out. We don't need to do that. She'll be right mentality as opposed to. To in the Philippines, it's literally, if it's documented in there, I'll do it. And if that process is wrong, well, I'll do it anyway. I won't put my hand up and say this is incorrect.

Yeah, I think that's the majority. And it really comes down to not that that person doesn't have the ability, it's that in Australia, I think problem solving, we're really good problem solvers. So, you know, if we've got instruction A and C, we'll pretty much work out what B is and we'll just go do it. There are some cultural norms that mean like spelling out A, B and C, you know, directly and really well means that there's confidence to keep going and do it at that level. To then sometimes ask for help and say, oh, I kind of get A and C, but I'm not really sure about B. That sometimes can be a cultural barrier. It's not that that person isn't smart or they, you know, they can't work it out, but they may not feel confident checking in and raising that because it, you know, it might be seen to be inconveniencing me because you're asking me to re explain it. So understanding those sorts of things can really help with making sure that, you know, those sorts of instances almost never occur. But, you know, coming back to that question about the most rewarding sort of experience that I had over there, one of my first employees in the first Philippines was a woman named Mitch. She came in to do data reconciliation. Like, I'm talking about the simplest job of like cross checking data. And she had people management experience before for a Philippines company. And she's just a standout performer. And over the course of, you know, five and a half years, she basically became, you know, the most senior person in that business. She was responsible for over 200 people. And she was the sort of person who would always think ahead, who would be able to see where those difficulties may lie, jump in, retrain, readjust, coach, and, you know, incredibly senior and incredibly trusted person in the senior leadership team over the years. So I think it's like anything when it comes to managing people in the Philippines. You need to be aware of those cultural norms and how they might get in the way of how you assume something will go. But there's talent there that you can really take from the absolute ground level right up to senior management.

Yeah, that is amazing to hear that, the amount of fostering and also on the flip side, how she's just embraced that and gone. You know what, I want to get on this journey and go with you because I think that's a really rewarding thing for any business owner that you can create a place in an environment where people are going to succeed. It's not just the boss, you know, the boss that's going to be the successful one. It's like everyone can be successful in a business these days as long as there's a framework in place. So that's, that's awesome. So flipping into the business, that business, the offshoring one, and from you had a start and a pretty clear end date. I think it's especially today we're going into this and I've talked about this previously on a few podcasts that you're the custodian of a business, you come in and you should leave it in a better place. I think a lot of CEOs, much bigger companies would have, they'll have a window where they know they're in and they're out and they'll try and get as much as they possibly can out of that business without necessarily setting it up for success down the track. So having built, started and built and then exited a business and you, you know, by the sounds of it, have left it in a better place, what would be something that you would share with someone that wants to exit a business? I'm not saying that that's always the best thing. It really depends on the individual goals of that person. But so that it sets up for success, what are the things that you have to do as a leader to make sure that that business will keep going and not just be acquired or, you know, shut down as soon as you're out the door?

Yeah, well, there's all the usual, you know, things that you would expect great people, you know, building full scale, so having those processes so you can step out of the business one day and it still runs because you don't want to get stuck in it forever once you decide you want to leave. Great, great technology, of course that underpins that, but, you know, they're the things that you'd expect any good business that needs to exit have. But for us, our strength of our business came down to our ability to have a marketing and sales engine that attracted people to come to our business that were interested in our products and services. So different buyers look for different things and different exits have got all sorts of strategic value. But being a marketer by trade, I think what we ended up doing, you know, at Beepo, which was highly successful, is we built this sales and marketing engine that someone could pick up and actually apply to other businesses. So, you know, yes, it was there. You could prove that it runs without the founder, you could prove that it's a system, you can prove that it has value, you can prove exactly the inputs and outputs. If you spend X ray, you'll get why. Yeah, so I think that was like at the core, from a commercial point of view about, you know, what was of value. I think on a more personal and professional level, the thing that I am really, really proud of in the business is that in the Philippines there's not a strong history of female leadership in corporations. It's still an environment where, you know, there is. It's not that women leaders are not welcomed, it's just that it's, it's not as frequent. You know, there's still a very, very small minority of senior women in corporate and government positions. And so I don't know whether it's because I was a female founder that I ended up with a female majority senior leadership team and a female majority business. But we had 60, we had 60% of all of the whole business were women. We had a majority female board, we had a majority female managers down through the management team. And it's not because we had any policy or any sort of gender specific goals or it's just the way it fell. And I don't know whether, yeah. Whether it was just being a female founder and the values and the ethics that I brought to that organisation was a fit and I attracted a certain type of people that came to the business that felt that they would have good career opportunities because it was a female founder. But I think that's one of the things that I'm most proud of. And the women that I worked with in some of those positions were very, they were kind of groundbreaking in the Philippines. Philippines, Unmarried, about to hit 40. You know, in a country where if you're not married off by 25, there's something wrong with you. And by choice, they're career women. And so that's something I'm super proud of, you know, their people, their relationships, that I'll have some of those, you know, ladies for the rest of my life. Yeah, well, yeah, and that's probably what I'm most proud of from a. From a more kind of personal standpoint.

Yeah, that's. The two points you brought up are fascinating and it's been an interesting thing I've talked about quite a while around building a sales and marketing machine that is not people reliant and also potentially advertising reliant. Like there's no single source of break failure in there. And once you build that machine, what that does to the evaluation of a business, it's really hard to put a number on it. And it doesn't take three months to build, it takes five to build. But it's awesome to hear that that was one of the main drivers around it that you built this machine that was. It's going to last and it is set up for success. So anyone that acquires and hopefully sees the value in that and replicates it across other units is going to grow the business organically and it's going to compound too. What did that, you know, the first year versus second and third year from your marketing internally look like? Did it start to compound over time?

Yeah, it took time, absolutely. And look, I'm the first to admit that it was pretty average the first couple of years of business. We were actually doing majority disruptive marketing. We were doing cold calling, we were Doing cold reach out. Sure. We had great, great referral network. And our best clients, of course, came from referrals and word of mouth. But it was probably two years into business that we said, no, that's it. We're just stopping this outbound. We don't believe it's sustainable and fully invested in the inbound methodology. So we then got our software and our people in line and fully committed to taking on HubSpot as a software tool. But more importantly, software aside, it's the methodology that sat behind us that as marketers we like, went, okay, great, now we've actually got something to work to. It puts everyone on the same page. It doesn't create an environment that myself as the founder, is pushing down a view of how we do things. It's just like, here's the methodology. Doesn't it make sense, everyone? Yeah, great. Now let's get on the bus. You know, and anytime someone gets, you know, tries to get off the bus or go down this path, we go, no, hang on. Let's go back to the methodology. This is what we're doing. Get back on. Get back on our bus, because we're not going back to that way. So, yeah, and then it, it ended up for us because we had that transparency of data around, you know, what our costs were. And I, I love data. Like a marketer, I've kind of enjoyed, you know, probably my product marketing days just as much as I have my. My comms marketing days. So, you know, we look through that data, we get a really good feel of how we're performing. So our cost per lead and our cost per acquisition became our two most important numbers for our marketing team. And then our conversions was obviously a shared metric between marketing and sales. And pretty much every conversation I had with our marketing team was about those three metrics. And sure, there was all this other stuff that happened underneath that, but yeah, we were able to reduce our cost per lead and our cost per acquisition, increase our conversion, but at the same time launch into new niches where we didn't have an established brand presence. So which I think is unusual. You could probably comment further more than me because you probably see a lot more data than what I do. But that's the crux, getting that right to create value for the business. That's where I saw the. Yeah, that's where it all kind of derived from.

Yeah, I think there's two really interesting points to it. And asking me on the data, I see there's two components. You've got to get it. If the business owner or the leadership team doesn't get it, they're going to always default back to the old way because that's what got them to where they are. And they'll go back and do that tactic and they'll keep doing it, and you're never going to punch through that ceiling doing that. And then, you know, having a methodology, like, even the inbound methodology, it's still there. The tactics have changed, but the methodology at the core is still there. And, you know, it just makes so much sense, especially going forward into what you know the world's going to start doing. If you expect to be able to disrupt and call people, you're just gonna. You're gonna die. So those two things, you gotta believe in it and then not go back to the old way and then have a methodology and just go with it. And you're not gonna get to where you weren't you thought you were gonna get to. But it'll probably compound over time. And that's the piece that's interesting. The hockey stick does happen, but you've just gotta suck it up and get into it and, you know, fail, fail fast learn and keep going.

Yeah. And I remember the days when we first started inbound. We were like, two leads today. Yes. Or like one lead. Awesome. And the sales, like the BDMs would be like, oh, wow, we got an inbound lead. And you know, then we get to the point where we're lead scoring and you're getting, you know, you're getting that volume. You can start concentrating on quality. And. And then you hear things from sales like, oh, yeah, I had a look at the history of that customer on our website, and I think it's a really strong lead or it's not a strong lead. You think, you know what guys do you remember when you didn't even have leads being handed to you from marketing? Like, stop assessing whether the lead's good or not.

Just run with it 100%. 100%. And so flipping into that personal component that you were most proud of, I think that is truly fascinating. For me personally, I get a lot of satisfaction out helping people. That. That's what I do. Like, at the end of the day, I just help people. And if you can help people in different ways, different aspect, different cultures, you'll learn so much. So that's amazing. And full credit to you to being that leader of potentially that country. And also in Australia, I don't think there's enough female leaders that look like there's plenty of female leaders. Don't get me wrong, but there's not enough. There should be more. And they do get stamped down. But I know that that's been a big shift and it's evolving over time. But personally, I love working with people that think differently. And if you're in an organization where it's all of the same people, what do you think gonna get? You're gonna get exactly the same answer. So. And it's really interesting. I had a conversation with a client not that long ago where he didn't. At the time, he didn't realize, but everyone in their whole team, their leadership team in sales were all the same personality. They liked the three or four things. They're all identical. And when you flip that and go, you know what? I want completely different people to look at things in completely different ways, then you can't actually hire people in the same spot with the same thing. What you need is something unique, which is generally values, which value base will bring the right people into the business. So is that something that you had established very early on with Veepo, that it was like, all right, we know our values, we know who we stand for, and we know what type of client we're going to work with?

Yeah, absolutely. And it's funny how some things that are important to you as a founder start to flow down in your values, because as the founder, you get to kind of design the value and influence them as the way that you like them. But some of them, for us, there was all the usual stuff around diversity and teamwork, but one of the ones that I loved was around sophistication. So that was one of our values. And so when it came to do something like have a look at, I don't know, the office furniture or something like that, and we look at it and, you know, our finance manager would say, well, here's the budget option, and here's the other option. And I'd say, well, Mary Lou, what do you. What do you think is more sophisticated? She'd say, oh, definitely this one. You know, And I go, okay, great money on that one, because it looks better. Yeah. But, yeah, no, it was very important. We did hire to those values as well. So our recruitment team got really good at starting to find those people who align to those values, but then also putting some things in place for all of our managers to start to talk about those values and actually create behaviours and then get to an environment where the values aren't just things that you put on the wall, but it's how we act. And Talk and work every day. So, you know, looking to reward and recognise alignment to those values but also get to a point where when someone was working outside of those values that you hope that others actually go, you know what, that's not the bigger way. And you know, that's the kind of, that's one of the pinnacles in terms of when you're trying to scale those values to actually look at the day to day behaviors and say, well hang on guys, are we as a team, are we working to this? It's not just words on a wall. Is this how we operate, how we think, how we treat each other? Yeah. So and always work in progress, right? In any sort of business. But yeah, it was important to us. I think the thing that I learned over time is spending the time in recruitment to have a value based approach.

Yeah, yeah, I couldn't agree with you more. And I, you know, for our business we actually find when there's a balancing act, there's always any relationship, there's a balancing act and if there's a break or the balance becomes too high, there's generally a value disconnect. Generally goes back to our values as well. So flipping into from you getting started to getting out of that was all, you know, exiting that business was that you're compared to the journey that you played out. Like how bumpy up and down was it? As opposed to what, as opposed to what you'd set out to do?

Yeah, I think when I was starry eyed in the Philippines for the first time, I was like, wow, this is incredible. You know, Australian businesses are going to love, you know, expanding their teams into the Philippines and you know, everything's inexpensive so it's going to be a really, you know, easy cash flow ride. And of course that's never, never the way any business grows. It's not easy and you always spend twice as much as takes, takes twice as long as well than what's on your business plan. But look, I think for us growing the business got to a point from a family point of view that it felt like it needed a different approach to scale it and take it to that next level. So particularly needed some extra support for expanding globally. And as the CEO, I after six years, I'd had two kids during that time. So my son was just a year when I started that business and then I had my second son. So you know, the international travel and the kind of pressure's not really the right word but probably the expectation that I had for myself in growing, I got to that point Where I was like, you know what? I think its time. So I didn't really know where that time was. I mean, obviously, generally you have to have your IP belly well developed and you have to have something of value. So, yeah, I think. I think there was plenty of ups and downs and plenty of roller coasters and probably three big cycles in terms of the growth and like a pairback and then another step up and then a pair back and then. And then another step up. So some of those were learnings, like pivot, doing that industry pivot. Some things are things outside of our control. So, like an earthquake that kind of brought us back a bit on our growth and, you know, added to our cost base before we could jump up again. So, you know, there's always factors that come into play. And I would say it's almost like every two years there would be that one step back before there was those three steps forward.

Yeah.

But I think that's business in general. I mean, I found that over the journey, it's a roller coaster. So, yeah, I'm not sure whether I think I probably intended to be in the business longer, you know, maybe seeing it through to 10 years, but I just felt personally that it was. It was time for me to maybe just stepped back on those expectations for myself. And then that improved our family life and probably gives the business the greatest opportunity to grow, to give it to someone who could take it to that next level.

Next level, yeah, totally. I think there's a point too, where any business will get to a ceiling, depending on the founder, how much time they can put into that growth. And there's, I reckon, like, not been there, but when you start juggling family and life, if it was me in that position, I couldn't put my family below the business. My family's going to be number one. So that would be really challenging. And then how do you. If you're going to make that decision, then how do you get the people around you to do those supporting roles? Sometimes it means someone else needs to buy it or take it over, which makes total sense. You've sort of already pretty much answered this question, but around what you're trying to do, trying to do to make everything better in a business scenario. So obviously being a leader within the Philippines and then back in Australia from a female leader, but was that your intention or was that something that just came up and you were like, wow, this is something that I'm really passionate about and going forward, is that something that you're going to keep going? You know, to be working on.

Yeah, it's not something that I did intentionally around, you know, the hiring strategy in the Philippines. It just, it just kind of played out that way. But looking back on my career and even in my marketing agency, I think the way that I set that business up was very female supportive just because of the flexibility and the remote working and you know, that will stay with me. And it's not now it's just parents in general. Right. So it's working parents. How can you create great employment opportunities for working parents?

Yeah.

You know, for now, for the short term, I have a very probably insular and maybe selfish view of how I'm building the business to kind of build around my lifestyle. You know, the lifestyle that I want for our family is kind of kind of at the top and then things underneath that four where I can add value for clients. We've got a much, much smaller employee base so we're going to have a smaller number of people around us. Probably more, you know, freelancers, some consultants, mix of part time, you know, but all remote. So you know, again, managing, managing those, the business around what kind of works for us. So yeah, it's pretty. To be brutally honest, it's very selfish at this stage because it's all about just, you know, at the core doing what's right for our family and our lifestyle. There is some other work that I do informally like I mentor some other people. I'm taking on some advisor roles so looking at not board position for the advisors, so other entrepreneurs who are growing and exiting their business and going on advisory boards which I'm really looking forward to. That's awesome. Yeah. And it's kind of keeping it small and small and low key in a way.

I like it. I like it. So if you were to sitting on those advisory boards now and starting to give people advice now, it's a big question. This is a big question. You know, what's the one tip you would give someone? But if you're really looking to grow a business or grow your career, like where, where does the fundamental source come from that you've got to get lined up before you're actually going to move forward? What do you think that one thing would be?

I think it's mindset. So you know, it's not, it's not a practical tip and that, you know, you've got to have the cash or the potential plan or the marketing engine. I think it starts with mindset and it's been my personal journey moving out of employment and into business. But every Step of the way, it's been a mindset challenge. So before I even grew a business that was, you know, a couple of mil, I went to a. I went to this amazing session with a guy called Mark Moses. He was talking about mindset in this way. He said, out of zero. So if you're thinking about how that business is 100 million, like, open your mind to that. And sure, it's not necessarily about hitting that number. Don't get me wrong. It's not about the pressure or the expectation. It's about opening your mind to see yourself, to be able to do that and starting to visualize and picture and think and strategize. So, you know, I think mindset is the number one one thing. I think anytime I've struggled with motivation, not knowing where I was fitting in a business or in my career journey, I've always sought out, you know, that. That piece around getting my mind fit and focused on what that next step is. And, you know, pivotal in my early business phase, to actually help me unlock my entrepreneurial spirit, was working with a coach on mindset and just to help me give me that push and ask the right questions. So that's what. That's my main. My main piece of advice is around that. And then the rest will flow like. And there's lots of other external advice and external resources and coaching and education and all that sort of stuff, but you've got to get your mindset, you know, ready. And. Yeah, that's step one.

Yeah. I love it. And I couldn't agree more. I think the piece that we're in, that really interesting phase is so many coaches out there now is like, who do you listen to, who don't you listen to? But at the end of the day, you take your bits and act on it. That's where you're going to actually move forward. Not just look and read and watch. You've got to act as well because it's your journey. Yeah. So you can't expect anyone else to do it for you. A coach is going to whip you, but they won't go and do the hard work. So, yeah, I think that is a really, really powerful tip. Looking into the future, what does the future for Amy look like and your family? Tell us a little bit about your current daily routine. I do see that you've been out boat a bit, doing a bit of rowing. Is that something you did back when you were at school?

Yeah, sport I've done on and off school was the kind of most time I spent on the Water. Luckily I live near the Tweed river which is just gorgeous. So just getting back into spending time rowing which is amazing. I've kicked off my niche agency, which is Flipside Group, which is just working with a small group of clients on their growth, which is fantastic. Advisory positions and yeah, just enjoying the lifestyle. I mean we've been challenged at the moment with homeschooling and bit of a change to the regular schedule. So just been adjusting around that. But yeah, really I'm in that fortunate position where it's kind of life and work by design. So really thinking carefully about, you know, where I spend my time, who I spend my time with in including in business and yeah, having like minded people that work together. I really love now that I can kind of apply my passion and my energy to other businesses without necessarily being the founder entrepreneur that is looking to grow a massive company again. I love that I can work with others to kind of take a piece of the challenge and, and so it's kind of, I'm living through them, I'm living the entrepreneurial life through them without having to, you know, to take on, take on, you know, risk and major, major challenge. So I really love that. And I'm, yeah, some of the people I'm working with I've known for a few years as well, which is great. Yeah, I feel very comfortable in that and yeah, that's, that's not planning too far into the future. Keeping things pretty fluid. Yeah, yeah. And just, just looking after health as well. Like I said, training and yeah, relaxing.

I love it. I love it. Awesome. Oh, Amy, it's been an absolute pleasure having you on today. I think your experience and your journey you've been through in business is amazing. And now for you to be at that place where you can give back and help others is awesome. So I'll be looking out to see where you are in the next few years because I'm sure that entrepreneurial bug won't hide for too long.

But yeah, I don't know. Thank you so much for having me as a guest. Looking forward to listening to more of the episodes and learning more with you as well.

Cool. Thanks Amy. I appreciate it.