Episode 60 of the Business & Life Conversations Podcast is something I am super excited to share with you because my guest is none other than James Schramko, my awesome business coach and owner of SuperFastBusiness. We will be talking about the important question of “can you make $100k a month?” and the green flags that you need to be looking out for in order to make this happen. He discusses his high-level diagnostic checklist which he personally uses with his own coaching clients to help see and bridge gaps between them and the success of achieving their business goals.
Important Links Mentioned in the Show:
SuperFastBusiness Podcast Episode 627 – Can You Make 100K Per Month? The Green Flags To Look For
Australian Business Collaborative Facebook Group
Finding Balance in Business Women’s Retreat
Angela Henderson Active Business Facebook Group
Angela Henderson Facebook Business Page
Prefer to read Can You Make 100K Per Month – The Green Flags to Look For? Here’s the transcript:
ANGELA: :
You’re listening to the Business and Life Conversations Podcast with Angela Henderson, Episode 60.
Hey there, you’re listening to the Business and Life Conversations Podcast. My name is Angela Henderson and on this show, we talk about improving your business, life or both. By having amazing and rich conversations with brilliant guests who will inspire you and who will give you tips and tricks to help you grow both in life and in business.
Well, hey there and welcome back to another amazing episode of the Business and Life Conversations Podcast. I am your host, Angela, from Angela Henderson Consulting, where I am a Business Consultant; working specifically with women in business to develop the foundational structure and strategy they need in order to grow sustainable and profitable businesses.
Today, I’m thrilled to have on the episode, James Schramko, who’s the owner of Superfast Business. James is not only my coach but also a person I’m proud to have as a friend. He’s one of a very, very, rare breed. And what I mean by this is that his way of doing business makes my heart burst with rainbows. And in James’s case, surfboards, as he loves to surf so much. He’s knowledgeable; like really, really, really, freaking knowledgeable. But even more than that, it’s his kindness that drew me to him. He treats people like people; not like a number like so many other big business owners are currently doing. He’s real.
Now, I know what you’re thinking, “That word real, Anj, gets thrown around like a tossed salad.” But I’m telling you, James is as real as he comes and his approach to helping businesses scale. I’m excited to have James on the podcast today because we’re going to be talking about ‘Can you make a $100K per month? And what are the green flags you need to be looking for in order for this to happen?’ In this episode, James is going to walk us through the ‘High-Level Diagnostic Checklist’ AKA ‘The Gap Analysis’ he uses with his own coaching clients to find out where the gaps are between them and the success that they are wanting for. But we’re also going to chat about surfing, fatherhood, and so much more goodness.
But, before we jump into the episode today, I just want to let you know that this particular episode is sponsored by my new on-demand Business Masterclass, The Ultimate 4-Step Framework for Creating a Sustainable and Profitable Business. In my 60-minute jam-packed Masterclass, you will learn my signature four-step framework for creating a sustainable and profitable business without sacrificing time with your kids, without the overwhelm or without wasting any more cash. You’re also going to learn in the 60-minute jam-packed webinar the four big business mistakes that everyone in business makes and why they’re keeping you from growing that sustainable and profitable business. And lastly, what is working for you and business now, and why most of what you’re being taught about growing a business is outdated and wrong.
I would love for you to sign up for my on-demand Masterclass and you can do that by heading to bit.ly/masterclasswithangelahenderson. And yes, get ready to rock and roll with some amazing learning. But, in the meantime, we will also have this link in the show notes.
Alright. Let’s jump into today’s amazing episode with James. Welcome to the show, James.
JAMES:
Great to be here, Angela. Thank you so much for inviting me. And I know you’ve been going for over a year now. So, congratulations.
ANGELA:
Yes, I know. Super exciting. A big push came from you about the podcast. So, yes. So we’ve just hit a year-mark a couple of weeks ago, which is always super fun; big learning curve. But, yes. It’s a great asset for your business. It’s a wonderful way to make connections with people. And again, yes, just to have a voice and make an impact on the world. So it’s fantastic.
JAMES:
What was the most surprising thing for you about having a podcast?
ANGELA:
I think the most surprising thing for me is just how you can; for example, like, what we’re going to talk about today. But, you think you’re helping people in one way, but actually, the comments and feedback that people get you actually helping people in many different ways. So for me, it’s just like there’s subtle reminders that everyone’s journey is; they’re in a different spot right now. And because of that, you never know what your story or what you think your agenda is with having a client on board that what clients actually take away from an episode can be different than what you thought that they would take away.
JAMES:
Yes. That sort of reminds me of the chocolate and the carrot. The customer often doesn’t even know what they need. They might want the chocolate but they really need the carrot. And part of the role of the coach or the business advisor is to help them get the right solution even if they don’t know how to ask for it.
ANGELA:
Totally. And I see that, too, also in my coaching clients, is that they think they need the strategy or they think they need XYZ. But really, it comes down to, is they actually already have the strategy. But when we unpack a lot of it, it worked; it’s about that mindset stuff also. So, yes, I do; I like the chocolate and carrot analogy. That’s a good one.
JAMES:
Cool.
ANGELA:
Now, you’re over in the Philippines at the moment. So thank you for making time while you’re over there. And you’re visiting your family and obviously introducing your new bundle of joy; beautiful baby Lucy to that family. How is it all going on Lucy’s big first trip?
JAMES:
It’s great. She did a number three on the airplane, which was fun. They have very small change tables on the airplane. So I didn’t realize how small they are because I never looked at them before.
ANGELA:
Yes.
JAMES:
But that’s serious business. Luckily, I anticipated such an event and I secured myself a little bit of a souvenir outfit. So she is like; she came off the plane in all like Sydney, Australia, koala, kangaroo outfit that she got mid-flight. But it was good, Anj, to adapt into the heat because it’s quite warm here. It’s approximately twice as hot as what we left in Sydney. I think she’s just happy to be hanging out with Mom and Dad wherever we are.
ANGELA:
Totally. Babies are chill. But yey; her first international flight. And how is the family? They’re just so excited to meet her? And just to love her up?
JAMES:
Very much. There’s a bit of a crowd here and people coming to visit and lots of smiles. And it’s been a long wait because we haven’t been here for about 10 months, which is actually the longest we’ve not been here in the last five or six years. So, we would normally come back a lot more frequently. And of course, it’s just hard to fly when you’re pregnant.
ANGELA:
Exactly right. A little bit of risk around that.
JAMES:
And then, there’s sort of that first phase of a couple of rounds of vaccinations and just getting big enough and strong enough for you to fly.
ANGELA:
And how would you think James; like obviously, we’ll talk a little bit about it in a minute about where you were in business and where you are now. But, I mean, obviously, life as a Dad now, I can only assume here; correct me if I’m wrong, but it’s probably very different to when you were in the midst of starting your business and everything like that. So are you enjoying it more now? Are you having better experiences? Like what is your thoughts about Dadhood now with where you at in business?
JAMES:
Really, the first time around with my oldest kid is what caused me to pursue a job in sales in the first place. It was such an entirely different scenario. I was basically in a situation where I had to double my income to provide for the family. And I was young and I figured sales was the way to do that. And that launched me into my sales career at a fairly early age. And I did well with that, but I was on so much pressure. You know that saying about you make diamonds from call under the pressure.
ANGELA:
Yes.
JAMES:
I was under pressure. So the diamond came out. The reason I had the career I had and the skills I’ve got, it’s because I got into parenthood early. And it forced me out of my comfort zone. I had literally no choice but to go out and to provide for family in Sydney, which is not easy because it was right up there with New York, London and Paris in terms of cost of living. And we also get taxed quite heavily. So I just had to. And I really put my head down and went for it for the next decade and a little bit extra. And so by the time I quit my job, which was about 11 years ago, my first kid was already 12. And the second one was 10 and the third one was 8 and the other one was 6. So I already was just working when those kids were at the young years of their life.
This time around though, I’ve been present every single day and I’ve now cut back to around a three-day workweek. So I do the bulk of my activities on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and that gives me the ability to do lots of nappy changes and cuddles and runs in park on there. In fact, Lucy often sits-in on coaching calls and team meetings and the occasional podcast. So she’s always around nearby and it’s just been such a different experience to have that level of bonding. I kind of missed out on that. So it is completely transformational.
ANGELA:
And I can see on your Instagram feed or whenever. There’s a level of; not that you’re not always happy, James, but you can definitely see that maybe she sparks a different new joy for you, James.
JAMES:
Well, I really think the first time around I was more or less in shock.
ANGELA:
Yes, it is. It is a bit like that. Yes.
JAMES:
Because I was young. And it was an onslaught. I had a massive financial burden and I had very little time. I really was working seven days a week. I occasionally had a day off, but it wasn’t really like a day off because the business was open seven days a week.
ANGELA:
Yes.
JAMES:
And if a customer came in on your day off and you weren’t able to take a phone call or quickly change and go back in, you’d lose the sale. And that could be anywhere from $250 to $1600 commission. And that meant a big difference. Now, I was definitely in it for the money to put food on the table. It was survival. So I really think I was just in survival mode. I was in a bit of shock and I didn’t get to fully appreciate it. I’m not saying I’ve got any regrets at all. I don’t want that to be misunderstood.
ANGELA:
Oh, yes. No, absolutely.
JAMES:
But I do think there is; to also put this in perspective, the internet was only just starting.
ANGELA:
It was, yes, very new.
JAMES:
Like in 1995 or 1996; around about this era. I remember I had a computer at that time; a PC. And it would take forever for the browser to load. I can’t remember it was like Mozilla or something. But we’re talking really early days. Because my cousin was an entrepreneur in the IT space. And he put me onto the World Wide Web and I was looking up car models and loch ness monsters and aliens and things. It was fascinating to get on to this internet with cable dialling like that “zzz zzz zzz.”
ANGELA:
Yes, the sound.
JAMES:
But then, I didn’t have a computer for years. I didn’t get another computer at home until 2005. So I kind of skipped 7 or 8 years of not having a computer. And now, I guess my point I’m getting to is I couldn’t really do the job that I do now, back then; there were way less options. Like back then, the script was more or less, “Go to University, get a job, get paid well. Have a mortgaged family and always be hot to the eyeballs on financing credit cards and things.” So it wasn’t until the change in the way you can do things for me unlocked a lot of that in it completely flipped the script.
ANGELA:
Flipped it for you. And I guess, we talked a little bit obviously, you’ve got a beautiful family, you’ve been doing this for a while now. But a lot of my listeners will be new to you, James. I mean, I talk about you often on my podcast, but again, they’re just on a different stage in business. And I want to let them know a little bit more about you before we kind of dig deeper even more. And I know, one of the first things I do with all my guests is I like to ask a little bit of a fun question.
So you always seem to travel but one of the things that I have found about you since getting to know you is that your love of surfing has definitely also equally won your heart over the last few years. So my question to you that I want to start off with a fun little fact is what is your all-time favourite surf spot in the world and why?
Tough question. This could be the number one podcast question you’ve ever had, James. Okay. This is a tough one for you, I think.
JAMES:
It’s actually tough because, in surf culture, you never reveal your favourite surf spot.
ANGELA:
Oh, gosh. Alright. So this is like a double-edged sword here, James.
JAMES:
It’s the number one rule. I won’t reveal the surf spot but I will say it’s in the Philippines.
ANGELA:
Okay.
JAMES:
It’s a reasonable drive to get to; a bit of travel. But when you get there, it’s not too crowded. It’s got a really good set up; very similar to what we experienced in the Maldives. But it’s accessible by land so it gives you quite a lot of options for accommodation and food. I would say; if you’re an Australian, listen to this. I would say it’s like Noosa; would have been in the ‘70s. So it’s still undiscovered and it’s still awesome. And it’s going to be epic in 20 or 30 years from now. But if you want to go mainstream and publicly available knowledge, I’d say I really enjoy the Maldives. The reason for that is it’s so clear, it’s very friendly. It’s manageable if you’re not that good, which I’m not. And it’s accessible like we just dive off the boat.
ANGELA:
Literally.
JAMES:
Yes. And it’s like, I really like that because of the whole experience wrapped around it; getting meals prepared for a week and just easy living. I like that so much.
ANGELA:
And now the thing now is James, you haven’t always surfed. And I know we’re not talking about business yet; we will get to that. But I think it’s important that the audience gets to know your personality also and who you are. You haven’t always surfed. This is something that just come about in the last few years. What sparked you to get into surfing?
JAMES:
I had a podcast with Ezra Firestone called thinkactget.com. It was really good. Ezra was and still is a student of mine. From the early days of his online e-commerce through to where he is now, like mega super successful decking millions of revenue. Him and I thought it would be good to do a Hawaii Retreat. So that was the first prototype of what is now The Maldives Mastermind. It was Ezra, plus me, and we had three students pay $2,000 each to come and live with us in a house on the north shore of Oahu. So Ezra and I attended. We did the workshop. We helped these three people with their business. We ate meals, we did some supping and so forth. And then after it was finished, Ezra grabbed this foam board out of the garage and the hippie come in who was living there, supposed and stay in there as well. It’s first time I’ve ever lived in a hippie commune. And he said, “Let’s go for surf.” And he drove down to the north shore to a beach pretty much next to pipeline. And that’s like a world-famous…
ANGELA:
Very famous…
JAMES:
…Dangerous but epic waves on the planet. And he just took his shirt off and just ran out and paddled out. I thought maybe that’s the last I’ll ever see him. And he was into it; but it was a little bit rough and he came back and he said, “Let’s go around to Chun’s Reef and you can try.” Carrie, his wife, the secret ingredient to Ezra’s destiny, we went out to Chun’s Reef and then he just instructed us, he said, “Okay. So, when you fall off, just fall flat like a pancake. Like, put your arms and legs out. Don’t reach for the bottom.” And I said, “Why?” And he goes, “Because it’s a razor-sharp reef.” I’m like, “Okay, so this is where you’re taking us to learn to surf?” And we all paddled out on this one foamy; two of us in the water, one on the board. And then we took turns to catch waves. And by catch, I mean, the wave kind of picked us up and threw us a few feet ‘til we fell off. I remember standing up for just a microsecond and it was kind of exhilarating. And this is about seven years ago just for context; six years ago.
And when I got home from Sydney, one of Ezra’s clients, Mark; really nice guy, had a surfboard store online. And he came around on my place in Manly and he loaned me a 9’2” surfboard. I tucked in into my elevator, it just fit like literally a centimetre to spare. And I took it up to my 13th level apartment. And just basically every day, I would just put it into the lift, go down to the beach and practised. I’ve got beaten around. I think I broke my ribs. I’ve got seven stitches on my forehead. Because Manly’s pretty busy. It’s got a lot of backpackers and learners. I got run over from people. Lots of ding repairs in the end. It’s a very tough learning curve. It’s so hard because the playing field gets messed up overnight and you start from scratch again. It’s always different. And I just stuck with it until it became something that I was determined to get the hang of. So I’m getting there, but you never really master in surfing. I would say I’m an intermediate at this point.
ANGELA:
But again, it’s interesting though that the parallelism is there between what we’re going to talk about how you started this. And again, you got beaten around, you had to test things, the playing field was always moving. It’s similar to business, I guess, right? Is that, you never knew…
JAMES:
It’s the perfect metaphor; it needed to come along for me because firstly, I couldn’t do that when I was working seven days a week. When I was working seven days a week, I would look at a tradesman driving along in a utility with a motorbike on the back; like a dirt bike. And I’d think, “How come a plumber can go and dirt bike and I’m driving around in my fancy suit and car?” I just thought, “What am I doing wrong? How did I get up so badly?” And I couldn’t do it before. So that’s one thing is creating the time. And like you said, it is a love of mine. It’s firmly in my life. It’s something I do every day. And I build my business around facilitating that.
Secondly, it’s such a metaphor; everything is difficult before it’s easy. And it was going to be no different. And I applied my business mind; my approach to the surf process and I was able to get improvements. And it was funny in the local surf store, which unfortunately had to close down because he wasn’t very business-aggressive, I guess, or assertive. He was just drifting along in business. But he’s really a nice guy and had fantastic boards. But when he closed the store, I went and helped him out to clear the showroom. That was like putting on my old salesman hood and I went into the surf shop. And every one that walked in the door, I just helped them find the right board and they bought it and they left. And we cleared the whole place. And this guy who runs the store, he’s looked at me, said, “I cannot believe you didn’t know how to surf a few years ago. Like, it’s unbelievable.”
I know everything about it, doesn’t mean I’m good at it. But I do know a lot about it and I even keep spreadsheets to track the different boards and dimensions and waves ridden and top performance. And now I’ve started making my own versions with the help of a very talented local shaper. We had modelled it on software. We get it laser-cut and then it’s handmade with really modern materials like Kevlar and carbon and another one I can’t even pronounce. It’s such a; you know how you like the sparkles and stickers…
ANGELA:
And the glitter…
JAMES:
That stuff for me…
ANGELA:
That’s the surfboard…
JAMES:
That’s my creative side. So that’s again, another metaphor; it’s how I’ve unlocked the creative version of me because I would have never put myself in the creative box.
ANGELA:
Yes. Totally.
JAMES:
I would glue it up on my name tag. I’m the first person to spray paint a surfboard.
ANGELA:
Yes. But again, maybe that’s, you need a surfboard with some glitter, I’m just saying. You probably will never get me on a surfboard but I’m saying…
JAMES:
Well, for one, maybe because it’s too similar to a fish and I think it’s asking for trouble.
ANGELA:
Oh, gosh. Actually, I never thought of that. That’s why…
JAMES:
That’s why…
ANGELA:
So that’s why when we are on The Maldives in a few weeks, I will not bring any glitter then when we’re going back to the water.
JAMES:
If you want to look like a fish…
ANGELA:
Just don’t do it near any of the surfers. Okay. Cool. Gotcha. Speaking of The Maldives, you and I, it was funny because I was just speaking with Stevie Dillon on her podcast early this morning and we were talking about how she had met me a couple of years ago and that’s actually the same place you and I met. It’s actually less than two years we’ve known each other but it feels much longer, James because I’ve had the opportunity to get to know you at different events. I also am in your membership group and we also hung out at The Maldives last year at your Mastermind. We’re all about to go back to The Maldives again for your Mastermind. And I guess, one of my questions that I want to ask you is in a world where there’s a lot of disconnect, a lot of things getting over automated, and you and I both are very into H2H marketing, how important do you think it is in this time and need for businesses to do things like Masterminds and go to events in order to help them grow that sustainable and profitable business?
JAMES:
Well, I wouldn’t be surfing if I didn’t go to Hawaii and do that event with Ezra. I can really pin almost every fundamental pivot point in my business; so growth curve or leverage. Even what I do now, with Silver Circle, in particular; a huge amount of value I bring to my clients is my connections. And I performed by travelling and I will go to the events. I’m not saying, be an event junkie. I’ve seen those people and frankly, they sadden me a bit; the people who just constantly go to events in 10 days because they’re lonely and because they want to hang out with other people but they’re not really getting the gist of the true value of it.
ANGELA:
And the investment really.
JAMES:
Well, sometimes, there’s great content and that’s terrific. And the people investment is, that’s the intangible; it’s much harder to put a value on. But if you would have to do someone’s profit and loss account or look at their balance sheet, you don’t really see the intangibles like relationship value. But relationship capital, I think that’s what Jay Abraham calls it, is a tremendously powerful asset. And that’s what I’ve been building up; is building up more relationship; my relationships that I can build to the point where I’ve become part owner in several people’s businesses where we’ve built such a strong relationship that we’d go into that sort of stage where we’re working together in a portfolio.
And that comes back to the life in-person thing; there’s no replacement. And the person I was speaking to this morning who comes from a direct response background, he said, right now, for example, in business to business; direct response mail or using post and sending things is fertile ground. It’s basically ignored. Everyone’s trying to do everything online. If you want to leave lights offline in your market; and I know you do this spectacularly well; things you send out. Thank you for the love of the babies…
ANGELA:
Yes. You’re welcome.
JAMES:
The milestones so definitely being well documented. That is where you step it up. You go deeper and further into relationships if you can meet people face to face.
And the same goes for your team. And that’s often ignored. Tomorrow I’m going to be hanging out with my team here in the Philippines and this is why I’ve been coming back here so many times. I don’t know, maybe 20 times. I’ve built up the relationship I have with my team, which is coming up to 10 years is pretty world-class. I’ll put my team against anyone’s team that we have such a strong relationship and it’s because of that care and respect and the understanding that you develop face to face.
ANGELA:
And I couldn’t agree, like again, that’s what I spoke about at your event that face to face, that human to human stuff is what’s going to be, is the differential, I think, in businesses sticking around for a lot longer in the upcoming years. And those businesses that will start to just get lost in the world of the internet, really.
JAMES:
I think the old will become new. I was seeing it with food; like people now want organic food that’s not modified, steroids and pesticides and all sorts of stuff. And food serves as the back end; you could actually have stuff delivered to your door; like you can have stuff come to your door. In the old days, they used to drop milk and bread to your front door. And then, there’s this phase where you had to go out to the shop to get it. Personal service is not going out of fashion, be rare and special.
ANGELA:
And like you said with the mail, you do a lot of great snail mail stuff, too. Also, I know when I was flying to The Maldives to the event; we had about like five-hour layover in Singapore. I just closed cart on my coaching program. I’d picked up, I’d Skype, I just use Skype credit. I called all of my people, there is 10, granted. It wasn’t a lot, like hundreds of people. I called every one of those people, then granted, majority, eight of those people didn’t pick up their phone. I did leave a message. But the two people that picked up their phone was kind of like, “Oh my gosh. Angela.” One was like, “I thought you’re on the way to The Maldives? What are you doing calling me?” And the other one was like, “Angela? Angela who?” I almost had to try to convince her that it was actually me calling her because people don’t pick up the phone anymore to chat with people. People rarely send things in the mail anymore. I do think, again, I like that saying, I think the old is going to become the new again.
JAMES:
When people call Superfast Business and they go, “Hello, is this Superfast Business?” And I say, “Yes?” And they say, “Is it James?” “Yes.” Anyway, I also send a personal video to everyone in my membership especially when they’re joining. And occasionally for other reasons. But it’s a nice thing to do. It’s not that hard and it separates you out from people who aren’t prepared to do it.
ANGELA:
100%. Now for those people, James, like I know you; there’s a lot of people who actually, you’re known really well around Australia; internationally. You have appeared on hundreds of podcasts. You’re on stages everywhere. But not all of my listeners are going to know who James Schramko is. So I would love for you to just briefly; I know you talked a little bit about how, when you had your first child, you had to get into sales at the car dealership. But I would love for you just to share a little bit about your journey; about where you’ve been and where you are so that the listeners have a little bit more of an understanding about who James Schramko is.
JAMES:
Sure.
ANGELA:
On a business perspective. Again, we know you love surfing, you love travelling, you’ve got a beautiful baby girl named Lucy and four other kids, and an amazing wife, Trace. But tell us a little bit about the business side, I should say.
JAMES:
Well, business-wise, I guess I had some ventures when I was a bit younger. I didn’t quite have success with academia. So I got a glandular fever the first time I tried to do my accounting course and then I took the rest of the year off. And I had a long [Inaudible 28:10] I worked in a timber yard, I did all sorts of odd jobs; labouring jobs. And I also worked in accountancy office on Fridays. Mostly, so I could mess up their filing system but I had an eclectic range of business things. I did a couple of years of study as an accounting course. Maybe because my parents thought that would be a good foundational course, which it was.
And then I went to debt collection. So my first full-time job was in the city as a debt collector. I’m doing telephone debt collection to call people up. Pretty much like sales but a bit harder because they already have the goods or services and everything. “Okay, we serviced your car. The dealer wants to get paid,” or “You need to pay out for the hairdressing salon appointment you made,” or whatever. So that was pretty interesting.
And after a few months, then I switched to the same role but in a bigger company, General Motors, GMC Finance and I did debt collection for another nine months. And my first year was telephone debt collection. And then I went into the field. I actually went and did repossession. So I repossessed cars and I went to car dealerships and check their finance plans; make sure they had all the cars that we’re actually financing. So repossession and full plan audits; lots of driving around for that up to 500 kilometres a day. And then after that, I came back into the office and did credit contract renewals and stuff. And it was a little bit plain and boring.
And then I went to the exciting field of technology. And as an Administrator; so I was like a Regional Administrator. I was doing stock control, financial type things seconded to a sales unit for a company that was new to Australia at the time, called Vodafone. And I was really intrigued with this aspect, there are fascinating people, they did not much that work, they get paid ridiculously low compared to me. And when they went there, I ended up making most of the sales anyway. But I was on a flat wage. And it was from that role where I transitioned into my sales role and that started with BMW. And I just needed to make the money as we talked about before. And within 12 months, so I was the number one BMW salespersons in Australia. And I’ve kept that rolling for the next year.
And then, I’ve switched to Mercedes Benz because I realized I can have Sundays off. And I could increase my income if I switched in. So I went in there; I did a year of working in Mercedes Benz I was the number one salesperson in Australia. And I got promoted to Sales Manager. And my sales team were now winning the competitions. I’ve got 3 of the top 5 people.
ANGELA:
That’s cool.
JAMES:
And then, I got headhunted by Mercedes Benz to go out and fix up a dealership that they were struggling with a bit. And they want me to take it on. It was a big challenge. So I went in as the General Sales Manager. And I spent four years rebuilding that. I started with these, like demoralized, weak, sales team of six people who were punching out like 27 cars a month. And within a few years, we got it up to the point where we exceeded a hundred cars a month. We’ve gone from last to first for customer satisfaction.
ANGELA:
That’s awesome.
JAMES:
We had 21 salespeople and a bunch of them were the leaders in the country; it was a massive turnaround. And then the last role was they approached me to; in fact, a little bit of a side story, the two owners of that business had a massive falling out and a legal battle and I got sort of stuck in the middle of that. And one of the owners was particularly nasty and rude at the time. And it became clear to me; I really needed to move somewhere else.
So I actually got picked up by BMW down the road. And I’ve phoned up Mercedes head office and said, “I’m just terribly sorry but it’s become untenable where I am. I’m going to have to go back to BMW. I don’t want to. I really like the brand.” And they said, “Don’t go. We’ll find you a job; like we’ll pay your wage. Just turn up to head office until we find you something. Don’t leave the brand.” And then, they found another dealership. And they said, “You must hire this guy.” And they took me on as a General Manager. And that was my last job for that four years. And it’s the same thing, it was losing money when I started and we did a big turnaround. And years later after I left; I left 11 years ago, they actually sold that business to a bigger group and did quite a lot of the sales. So it was a good turnaround.
And that was, at the same time I was doing that last job, is when I started learning my online marketing and building my websites. Then I got to affiliate marketing, making information products and then started providing services. It took about two and a half years until I could get out of that job because I had to match my income. And my wage was pretty good at the time. I was earning around $300 grand a year. And it took me two and a half years to get my online business up to that point. And then, from there, I never looked back. I’ve never had less than six figures a month for ten years straight.
ANGELA:
Which is, hello? Fantastic.
JAMES:
It’s great. Like, I’m loving it. And I enjoy it. But it’s kind of; everything I had to go through in there was really, really tough. I can tell you, it was a really difficult industry. It’s a competitive industry. It’s been around for over a hundred years. It’s a harsh, tough, commoditized industry. So I’ve got good skills in that tough environment. When I came online, it’s like, “Wow.” There’s so many people online who haven’t got a clue what they’re doing. And that makes a great place for me to be a coach because I can really help people fill in the gaps.
ANGELA:
And that’s where now, again, obviously, you’ve had, like you did the SEO, you did the app. But that’s now really, where you’ve positioned yourself is with Superfast Business. And you’ve really got those two kind of programs; correct if I’m wrong here, James. You’ve got your one, which is, most businesses between the $100,000k to $500,000k as your membership. And then you’ve got your Silver Circle for those that are making $500K or more. And then obviously, you’ve got your complimentary, The Maldives Mastermind and your live events that you do now, pretty much every year. Am I pretty accurate on that?
JAMES:
Pretty accurate. I would say, for Superfast Business, it’s ideal for someone making between $10,000 to $500,000 a year.
ANGELA:
Okay. Yes.
JAMES:
And basically, I exclude startups. I don’t love working with startups. If you don’t have something that’s already selling, it’s just too much difficulty for not enough reward. It’s not rewarding for either of us. That’s a good example of setting a filter of who you shouldn’t work with. I don’t do startups. And I don’t purport to be an expert in venture capital and all that. I’m not looking for $500 million dollar businesses either. My sweet spot; ideally, my sweet spot customer is making $100 or $200 grand a year and they’d really like to make a million dollars a year or 2 million.
Silver Circle members, the average member there makes 3 million dollars a year; that’s the average. But that’s slowly phasing out into my own portfolio of partnerships. So some of those members now are partners. So there’s two ways they can play with that. They either pay a coaching fee or they give me a percentage of their business revenue. And I help them. And that’s a long term partnership. It’s kind of like an investment portfolio. Outside of that, there’s still a couple of other streams, which we don’t need to get into too much but I have a couple of portfolio items outside of that current assets that I’ve built up for the long haul.
ANGELA:
Yes. And so through this though, I guess, we’ve got here. But again, I think it’s really important for people to get to know you, James, for who you are and what you stand for and what you like. But what we’re going to talk about today though is can you make $100K per month and what the green flags are to look at? And I guess that’s where we’re going to get into the nitty-gritty of learning here today is that through all the people that you’ve helped over the years of coaching with Superfast Business and your Silver Circle Members. From what I understand is that you’re starting to see some common threads along the way; some trends along the way, you could also say. And because of that, you’ve created this really thorough diagnostic checklist or diagnostic assessment depending on what you want to call it. That you can kind of can look at the business now or have businesses look at their own businesses to kind of go, “These are the green flags. Yes, you’re on the right track.” Or, “Hey, actually these are red flags.” So are you able to, I guess, can you start to share with us a little bit about what this diagnostic checklist? Where did it come from? Is that stem from what you’ve been learning? And two; what are kind of, can you walk us through what that checklist is?
JAMES:
Suppose the genesis of that was when I became a Sales Manager, they just hired a sales cadet who was clueless. Like he knew nothing. And I’m not sure how or why they hired him. But he was like a blank canvass. And I said, “Okay, buddy. We really need to get a handle on what you know and what you don’t know.” So I had to investigate. I’d already learned a sales methodology called spin selling. Spin selling; it actually sounds really hard even though it’s not all. It’s a solution sales technique for high ticket items. And the earth stands a situation and that the whole emphasis is on investigating the current scenario. You can’t fix up unless you know what you’re working with. If you want to get to Brisbane, you need to know where you’re starting from because the journey will be different if you’re in Perth or if you’re in Sydney, right?
ANGELA:
Yes.
JAMES:
So you need to know the starting; that even the classic sales thing of bridge-building. You’re on this bank here; you want to get to that bank. You need to build. You got to know which bank you’re on. So it was just common sense to investigate and diagnose exactly what I’m dealing with. And then, I could create a solution for him. And that solution was actually forming like the ultimate checklist of what someone would need to know to be a number one salesperson. I knew what it was inherently because I was. But I also needed to distil that into a system.
So I created a two-part system. One was theoretical and the second part was practical. And I would say this, almost zero dealerships in Australia who are doing much in their practical training. There might be probably almost zero for theory as well. It’s not hard to find a bad salesperson. But I did the theory checklist and the practical checklist. So in order to get him to a successful point, I knew he needed to not just know this stuff but he needed to be able to do this stuff.
So that was the formation of that first checklist. There were other things; I was reading materials about selling but I tend to take notes and I used to strain and distil ideas down and find what the patterns were and the key points. I used to script for my telephone sales. Even now, I have a script for telephone sales that has bullet points that I must visit. So I’ve checkpoints. Because I know that using roadmaps and frameworks and pathways gets you a repeatable success.
It’s like a chef following a recipe. If you can follow the recipe and use the exact measurements, you should be able to replicate the results over and over again. Now if you wanted to create a successful bread, you’d want to know what’s in the kitchen because if we’re missing ingredients, then we need to go and order them or get them from the supermarket. So that’s where the diagnostic comes in; it’s like what do we got here? It’s like putting x-ray vision on a business.
ANGELA:
And for you, like obviously, sometimes, again, when I have my own coaching clients, they don’t see the benefits right off the bat, right? But for you, as a coach, to create this diagnostic assessment to help, obviously, not only you but for the person that you’re going to be helping. What do you think the core benefits are when you start to dive deep with this diagnostic checklist?
JAMES:
Well, the benefit for me is that I know I’m not going to miss a huge opportunity because it’s covered. And I cannot stress or sweat or worry too much about leaning on my memory cells for it. And to that effect, I’m actually really good out of my memory. I can blitz it in those mastermind days. I love those things because it is in my head. Like it’s deeply there. I’ve done so many calls and spent so many hours on this. I know my own material. It still has to have the checklist.
The benefit for the customer is they start to get an awareness. A big step towards making a change is you need to become aware of your situation. And like the average person walking around in society, they are literally in a trance, right? They are glued to their phone. They’re doing social media. They watch Netflix at night. They go to their job. And they eat whatever food. They do this drifting along through life but haven’t given it much conscious thought. They’re not aware of it. If someone said, “Hey, you know that packet that you’ve scramming in now, if you look at the listed ingredients, four of those things are really toxic and false information and that’s why you get a sore back and all that stuff.” And they’re like, “Oh, really?” Only when they become aware of it can they modify their behaviour and make changes.
So one of the last questions I asked is having gone through this diagnostic, what have you learned? And the answer to that that I get, I usually copy and paste that answer back to the top of the thing because that usually defines the thing. Usually, they say something like, “I’ve realized how I thought I knew what I was doing but I’ve got so many areas that I can improve. And I’m very excited about what can happen now that I’m aware of this.” That’s a positive way I look at it. One of them is, “That explains why I’m having so many challenges and I’m really glad I’m in the right place to get it sorted.” So that’s again, that’s a nice phrase to frame that. There is always an epiphany.
It would be extremely rare that I get someone say, “I knew all of these.” I actually haven’t had it yet. I don’t have anyone go through the diagnostic and say, “Nothing new here.” There’s always something; some revelation, because we’re literally turning over all the stones.
ANGELA:
But also though, I think that’s probably a good sign, though, James, because people are all ready and willing to learn, too. If you had someone going, “Oh, I’ve learnt everything and there’s nothing on here that’s going to help me,” they’re probably aren’t going to even potentially be your ideal client because they’re not going to be learnable; they’re not going to be teachable. Most people always have something to learn.
JAMES:
You’ve got no business making sales kind of through the situation.
ANGELA:
Exactly right.
JAMES:
The training technique or the teaching label for this is a gap analysis. The purpose of this is literally to throw a spotlight onto the situation, internalize the gap so that you can now build the solution. I also kind of like this in the car dealership. When you have a car that comes in that has particular trouble, it’s not always an easy and obvious solution. It’s not always, “Oh, okay. Well, it’s this.” Sometimes they have to do a diagnostic to figure out the complaint. Because it rattles, there’s a squeak when I go around right-hand corners at 24 miles an hour, the technician has to start eliminating its possibilities. Like they might remove the door trim. Or they might lubricate the rubbers on the door and see if that eliminates the squeak. If it’s still not eliminated, then they have to go; they might change the suspension on the back left corner. They might have someone right around in the car with them with a stethoscope listening for the squeak. It’s a process of elimination. So in order to eliminate or to make changes, we just need to know what we’re working with. So that’s how the diagnostic came about.
ANGELA:
And with the diagnostic assessment or the gap analysis, are you using this before a client comes on board with you? So almost like a pre-qualifier? Or are you doing this more like okay; they’ll sign, and now you’re going to get into the nitty-gritty?
JAMES:
Generally, it’s after they’re a client. So in Silver Circle, for example, they would see that they might be a good fit. We would have a conversation. I’ll check the things I check for to make sure that I believe I could really add value. And should we go ahead, they pay. And then, we go through the diagnostic. I used to do it over the phone but now I send it to them in written form. And they send the answer back. And I have my own process now for how I deal with the answers. There’s definitely a proprietary way that I have that I deal with the answers. It’s not quite as simple as it looks. Because it’s one thing to get the synopsis of the scenario. But the next part, and I believe the true value of what I bring to the table is how I organize the responses and then knowing what to do once you know the answers. That’s a big part.
And to answer your question, the second way; if people go to superfastbusiness.com, Episode 627, they can get a pretty decent business gap analysis diagnostic and go through it themselves. And I created also a training inside Superfast Business, which runs for over an hour. Stepping through the system and then giving some answers as to how to deal with the answers and which ones are more important than others. And so they can be some free work done before becoming a customer. Like you could literally get a result for free starting with that episode.
ANGELA:
Yes. And with that though, I guess, can you walk us through some of the, I mean, I don’t expect you to do an entire gap analysis. But can you give us a few examples because I know you had a similar podcast episode you talked about? Can you walk the listeners out there that they’re like, “Okay. This is great. I probably have some gaps in my business, James. What are some of these key questions that you ask in your diagnostic checklist? And why these questions are important to know for the green flags?” Because some people don’t know what they don’t know. So they don’t even know potentially what green flag they should or red flag they should be not having in their business. So can you walk us through some of those key questions that you ask in that diagnostic checklist?
JAMES:
Sure. And they’re kind of broken into categories to make a bit easier, like a filing cabinet. And I also agree with you, like everyone has stuff they don’t know. There’s a tool called the Johari Window, which I recommend you look up. And it’s got the four quadrants of awareness; the stuff that Angela and James knows, the stuff that Angela knows that James doesn’t know, the stuff that James knows that Angela doesn’t know. That’s where the real value in our coaching is; the stuff that I know that you don’t know.
ANGELA:
Yes.
JAMES:
I’ve known there’s unknown. Like, do aliens exist, for example. Is there a God? These things are unknown. So there is always unknown stuff but the true value for a coach is the stuff that they know that their client doesn’t know. And the gap analysis will give them; that is the tool to reveal to the person what they don’t know. Then the coach can step in and be the hero there. Solve it.
So some of the things that I’m looking for. I’m definitely looking for the personal side of things because I believe it’s strongly linked to business success. Everything from fitness to fun; it’s a common one where I see people fall short. If you’re not having fun anymore or eating poorly or you’re not healthy, your business will suffer at some point. Or it’s even worse, I’ve seen people who grind themselves to the bone. They’re on 8-figure a year; marketer on revenue. But their relationships have died, their bodies giving up and life is just not going to be that useful for them in ten years from now. They’re going to be a burnout shell like a wreck.
I also ask people to score their effective hourly rate. So we have a look at what are the tasks that billing actually worth to them per hour because that’s a really good tool for us to use to make decisions in the future. We would need like a business structure category like things like ownership of the business and their business setup and trademarks and where they’re buying or selling. Because these things impact the type of changes you want to make. It’s much harder to sell a business called Angela Henderson Consulting. But it is easy to sell a business like Apple.
ANGELA:
Yes. Correct.
JAMES:
So you’re going to make different decisions depending on your model. And I’m not saying one’s right or wrong. There’s a huge argument for having a personal brand these days especially. I look at the working environment. I’ve often found people are set up in an environment that just makes no sense for their business model and they can change it. Like some people are trying to work from home but they really need to be in an office. And other people have an office and there’s no need.
ANGELA:
Yes.
JAMES:
We look at team, especially the people side of it is critical. I can tell you straight out of the gate, if you have no team, it’s most unlikely you’re going to pull $100 grand a month. Typically, you’re going to need five or six people in your sphere for that sort of volume, depending on your business model, of course.
What are the product’s servicing and pricing? It’s a massive one like are you recurring? One times? Do you bundle things? Which things sell the most? Which things sell the least? There’s quick wins available here. It turns out some people spend a lot of time and energy on products that are not going to fly.
ANGELA:
Yes, again, a mutual friend of ours, Dan Norris, talks about, get a product or test it; test it, fail fast and move on. Right? But there are still so many people that will think that their product is the best product and their putting tens and thousands of dollars in ads, websites, SEOs, etc. But their product absolutely sucks ass, really. Like it sucks. But I really like Dan, and I can’t remember what book it was that he talks about; not his latest one, the one before that. But it was basically like; fail fast, move on. But again, it comes in, if you don’t have a good product, everything else is a ripple effect.
JAMES:
Well, I think the answer to his most recent book is that he doesn’t have a clue, is what he’s saying. “Don’t listen to me. I don’t know.”
ANGELA:
Dan is very honest about everything. And I think he also, I mean, he does talk about coaches.
JAMES:
If it didn’t work, I’m the worst business coach to have. Half of what it says is actually rubbish and half of it is brilliant. It’s just a matter of knowing which half. And I love Dan Norris. Like he’s found a couple of winners and he’s tried a lot of failures. I have a very strong success rate with the business models I’ve chosen.
ANGELA:
Yes.
JAMES:
I’m a man from a different background. So it’s a classic example of having experienced and a big data set to choose from. I’ve got a winning edge because I’ve got thousands of used cases to draw from. So I have at least an idea what’s more likely to succeed or not. There’s some costs, absolutely gets people hard were because they’ve put time and energy made it into something they have to see it through. When it’s really, if you’re walking further away from the watering hole in the desert, that’s not going to get you a drink any quicker.
ANGELA:
Yes. I totally agree. And yes, some of those people will just keep pushing the rock up and it’s unfortunately, their product isn’t very good. So, yes. Alright, cool. So product, pricing, packaging, all of that.
JAMES:
We look at the sales messaging. What’s actually bringing the leads in and what people buy from? Does this guarantees or this [inaudible 52:42] and kind of demonstration; proof. That’s often missing from people’s; like not a single person on the homepage or on sales page on the shopping cart page saying that the product actually works. That would be a good thing online to build trust.
A definitive system because people can get way out of control with this with what systems they’re using if they have any systems. If they’ve got the toolsets they’re using if they’re looking at financial reporting. How they handle processes? What they’re doing for publishing their content and stuff. Systems can be incredible with this stuff. I have obviously a strong background in systems having built big teams.
The people side of it, there’s a lot of people; there’s the competitive people, there’s your own people, and then your own values as well. Especially with team, that really is the major break as you grow your business. Team is what’s going to be required and again, that’s one where people are weak at, typically, because they haven’t had experience leading people.
Then, I’ve got cash flow. Like, are they getting money in advanced or a lease or part payments. What sort of failure rate do they have with payments? Are they having to do refunds? How much do they pay their merchants? How do they collect money? What currency is it in? And do they do double transfer? So here’s a classic one for Australian marketers. They use an Australian credit card to buy American tools. And then, they collect money in American currency and then convert it back to Australian to pay their credit cards. So they’re paying two shitty foreign transaction fees on there.
ANGELA:
Yes.
JAMES:
So like one dollar could actually cost them two dollars if they’ve got it set up wrong. An easy way would be to collect money in US dollars and then pay it out in US dollars and have zero transaction fee. For the average business who’s doing a couple hundred thousand dollars a year, there’s tens of thousands to be saved in just putting the money in the right account.
And there’s other stuff around the products and their marketing and what channels they’re using and surveys and segmenting and how tune they’re on at season. That’s pretty much it.
ANGELA:
Pretty much. I think again, that’s a pretty good overview about the green flags that you’re looking for. For those listeners, though, James, out there that are like, “Okay, James. This is great. I’ve got a lot to take. But I’ve got a crack load that I need to do.” What would be, if you said about it, the entire checklist, James, what is the one thing or even the top three green flags that businesses really should start working on and focusing on first?
JAMES:
That’s definitely your offer. Let’s have a look at what you are actually selling. It’s pretty typical people undercharge. And they do things; crazy stuff like sell by the hour. Also, on time; these things, it’s going to be really hard for you to make a good living off that. So have a look at how could you make your prices higher and offer more value. How could you go recurring instead of one time? And you might find that you actually start to have money coming to the business. How could hire someone else to do the work instead of you, so you’re not selling your time by the hour? You’d still sell hourly rates but not your hours. So that really lead yourself to team.
Team is another huge part. So if you are so busy and if you’re overloaded; offer one hour podcast and you’ve got so many things on your plate, you can’t move, you definitely sound like you’re doing too many of the wrongs tasks. So at least every task you’re doing and start deleting them or giving them to someone else to do. That’s a quick win. And if you can build up your team, it gives you power. The reason I can work three days a week is because I’ve got a team of six people helping me. They do all the stuff that I’m not wanting to do or shouldn’t do or even can’t do at some place. That’s an advantage, if you can’t do something, then it’s not going to happen.
ANGELA:
And again, that allows you to be able to focus on your zone of genius, which if you can focus on your zone of genius, you can help more people. Then again, this is only going to help with the bank account.
JAMES:
Right. As long as your zone of genius pays well.
ANGELA:
Yes.
JAMES:
If your zone of genius is sparkles on the paper, like that’s good for a kid, that’s a nice hobby; you just have to make sure that in some way, that’s something super valuable because that’s an easy job to get someone else to do. In fact, I did the sparkles on your spark account.
ANGELA:
I know. It was very lovely.
JAMES:
Like it was my first attempt. If we sampled the whole audience of 150 people, I think 142 of them would do a better job than me. It’s something I would highly do because it brings high emotional value, the fact that I did it personally.
ANGELA:
And again, I also look at it James, that’s also preparing you for what’s to come with Luc. You’re going to have to get the sparkles and glitter out. So again, long term solution there.
JAMES:
Don’t worry, we still got sparkles all over the place. I’m going to be very cautious next time.
ANGELA:
Yes. Well, I send you gifts. You never know what confetti will be in there, James. I know you talked about the theoretical and the practical, James, about this checklist. And I just want to know, where do you feel or where are you looking at when you’re looking at this gap analysis around business owner’s mindset? Because I do believe mindset is also a very powerful tool about how whether or not people will be successful or not successful. So where does that come in in the checklist?
JAMES:
They may be even doing a checklist. The fact that someone is interested enough to do it is a good indicator. How they process it. And if they’re honest with their responses and if they seek taking the practical side, then that’s a very good indicator. Those are the beauties of my self-training system because I didn’t structure it out with time slots and over-organized it. I would sit there and use sales scale in front of me, “Here’s your checklist. Once you’ve put a tick in every box, you’ll be able to sell. And when you sell, you’ll be able to earn commission. And how fast you do that, is up to you.”
So one of the things on the checklist would be to go and interview the service manager and find out how service works. Now, I would not set up an appointment for them. I would not tell them the name of the service manager. Now, what does this salesperson have to do? They’re going to go and find out who’s the sales manager and then they have to find the sales manager and make an appointment. And you know what have to do in the role of selling, you have to actually investigate. You look stuff up, you have to make appointments.
The customer is not going to walk in and just hand you the money. You have to work for it. And so in doing the training process they actually got to work and they got the benefit of the results. So just by working through the diagnostic is a bit of homework. And by actually implementing the steps is where you get the payoff. So I think, mindset wise, it is a little bit self-selecting there.
But it really takes up the first chunk of my diagnostic; I want to know why they’re even in the business. And I’ve often spoken to someone and like they hate their business. They started it for one reason in particular and now they’re not happy with it. And they just have to do a complete reset. In fact, with my first call I had today is with a well-known super guru who shall remain nameless. But he basically doesn’t like the business he’s in and how it’s all turned out. And we need to start from scratch. And I’m one of the few people he would actually trust to talk to about that. And because I’ve seen lots of scenarios now, I could give him examples of basically playbooks that he could move to, and I think we found something perfect. In about 30 minutes, we found the right next stage.
But that’s definitely a case of an increased awareness of being unhappy with what you’ve got. So I do think people have unfortunately followed people who have different values or they followed business models or systems that may not even work and they need a reset. So being open-minded to new information would be a great start. And also understanding that no matter what happened in the past up until this minute, that does not have to be carried forward. And you can have a completely different outcome if you’re prepared to face the discomfort, take responsibility and to make the changes that need to happen.
ANGELA:
Yes. You’re speaking my language. I’m all about; when you hire a business coach, at the end of the day, your coach can guide you. But you’re still 100% responsible of an outcome. And I see a lot of people, they blame social media because they’re not making money because Facebook isn’t putting their stuff in the front of audiences. But at the end of the day, people have choices to make, they’ve got actions to take, they’ve got decisions to make. But you, as a successful business owner; I do think it comes down to so much of your own responsibility and willingness to just learn and take action and keep going.
JAMES:
Well, I tell those people to buy a mirror. That’s really the person looking back at them in the mirror is the only person responsible for what’s happening in their life.
ANGELA:
And they resent the minute they wake up. So now, James, well listen, super-powerful episode. And it is always fun to connect. I’m counting down the weeks until we’re actually face to face in The Maldives hanging out, which will be super fun. But the listeners that want to connect with you, learn more about you, where can they find you, James?
JAMES:
Well, based on this topic, I’d check out Episode 627 at superfastbusiness.com and the whole thing is there, transcribed and everything.
ANGELA:
Alright. Fantastic. I’ll make sure we also have that in the show notes. If they’re interested in the services that you offer, your membership, for example, where can they find out? Is that also at superfastbusiness.com?
JAMES:
Superfastbusiness.com
ANGELA:
Alright. Fantastic. And just before we sign off, as a reminder, my team and I will be putting together the whole transcription for this episode at angelahenderson.com.au. And of course, I cover all sorts of related business and life topics in my amazing Facebook Community of over 5,500 members. So I look forward to having you join me over there. For the rest of you, have a fabulous day and I look forward to you listening next week on another amazing episode of Business and Life Conversations Podcast. Have an awesome day. And thanks again, James.
JAMES:
Thanks, Angela.
ANGELA:
Thanks for listening to the Business and Life Conversations Podcast with Angela Henderson, James Schramko. www.angelahenderson.com.au
