Property Hub - Investment Insights & Inspiration - Get Invested: Petar Lackovic on entrepreneurship, sales and success

Episode Date: May 11, 2019

Petar Lackovic is often referred to as the ‘2 Billion Dollar Man’ – he is the Director of Sales & Entrepreneurship at The Entourage and has helped thousands of intrapreneurs and entrepreneurs achieve life changing results. And I know this because I am one of them. Petar’s ability to simply explain and quickly inculcate actionable habits that will transform your relationships is second to none. He is the pre-eminent master of all things sales in Australia. In this high energy, jam packed episode, Petar reveals the secrets to selling and how to reframe your thinking to transform your results in all aspects of your life. You’ll learn: What to do if you don’t like where you are What does it mean to be a replication person and what is the benefit of everything being ‘figureoutable’ What has burning the boats got to do with success and the importance of obstacles to your progress This is an inspirational conversation that you cant afford to miss, so please enjoy Petar Lackovic. Petar’s book recommendation: Principles by Ray Dalio Get Invested is the podcast dedicated to time poor professionals who want to work less and live more. Join Bushy Martin, one of Australia’s top 10 property specialists, as he and his influential guests share know-how on the ways investing in property can unlock the life you always dreamed about and secure your financial future. Remember to subscribe on your favourite podcast player, and if you're enjoying the show please leave us a review. Find out more about Get Invested here https://bushymartin.com.au/get-invested-podcast/  Want to connect with Bushy? Get in touch here https://bushymartin.com.au/contact/  This show is produced by Apiro Media - http://apiropodcasts.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's probably three things I've learned. One of the top three would probably be learning how to sell, how to help people get what they want and give people what they need to help them achieve what they want. And that's just what sales is. So I think there's a big need for people to learn how to negotiate, how to communicate more effectively. I think business is better, life is better when you do that. Welcome to the Get Invested podcast, where we share great conversations with experts from all walks of life to uncover their secret know-how on where they invest their time, their skills, and their money, and the benefits that this has created. You see, the truth is that everyone invests. Every minute of every day,

we're investing our time, our skills, our energy, and our money in something. Some of us are investing consciously, some unconsciously, sometimes for good, sometimes for bad, and sometimes for no impact. Get Invested will help you to start living by design, not by default. I'm going to help you to make it happen, not let it happen. You'll hear the top tips on how you can live with conscious intent so that you can live more, work less, and leave a living legacy by investing now. Listen to the show to discover the top tips on how to get started,

make the most of your investment journey, and ultimately to be living your dream, not someone else's. More episodes can be found on iTunes or at bushymartin.com.au forward slash getinvested. Thanks for listening, and now, let's get invested. hi freedom fighters how do you achieve anything in life when it comes to involving or relying on others how do we get others to do something by communicating negotiating influencing persuading convincing and committing them to your way of thinking

There's no rocket science here. Everything you do in human interactions revolves around your ability to communicate with and to influence others. And how do you achieve this? Through your selling and sales skills. Ouch, I hear you think. I've just heard a lot of you recall when I said that. Why? Because the words selling and sales are often seen and perceived as dirty words.

as if it's something offensive, low-life, manipulative and disgusting. And if this is what you think, then so shall it be and your results in all aspects of your life will reflect this. I'll go as far as saying that your selling skills, that is your ability to communicate, negotiate, influence and commit the thoughts and behaviour of others will determine your relationship success in absolutely every aspect of your life, whether it be with your partner, your kids, other family, friends, work colleagues, clients, customers, and the community at large.

So unless you're going to go solo and become like Tom Hanks on Castaway and get yourself lost on a remote island for the rest of your life, selling and sales skills will be absolutely fundamental and critical to your achievement, your happiness, and your overall fulfillment. Now, you're not alone here. When I used to think about salesmen years ago, I would think about a sleazy car salesman smelling like tobacco and pushing a beat-up used car on me that I didn't want or need. But when I thought about what sales meant to me in my everyday life, I realised that I needed to reframe my attitude towards sales and selling.

And it's actually quite a simple mindset shift. Sales is not about pushing something onto someone that they don't need. because, as you'll find out from today's guest, it's about how to help people get what they want and give people what they need to help them achieve what they want. It's as simple as that. Now, our guest, Peter Lakovic, is often referred to as the $2 billion man.

He's the current Director of Sales and Entrepreneurship at The Entourage and he's helped thousands of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs achieve life-changing results, and Sonia and I are amongst those. And I know that this is the case because we're one of them. His ability to simply explain and quickly inculcate actionable habits that will transform your relationships is absolutely second to none. I would go as far as saying that he's the preeminent master of all things sales here in Australia.

so in this really high energy jam-packed episode peter reveals the secrets to selling and how to reframe your thinking to transform your results in all aspects of your life you'll learn what to do if you don't like where you are what does it mean to be a replication person and what's the benefit of everything being figureoutable what has burning the boats got to do a success, and the importance of obstacles to your progress. Now, this is an absolutely inspirational conversation that you just can't afford to miss. So please enjoy Peter Lakovic. Hi, Freedom Fighters. Now, one of the joys of hosting a podcast is that I get to hang out with the very few people that I truly admire and respect, those who've made a big impact on

my business and my life personally. And today, guys, it's right up there. In my opinion, today's guest is the preeminent master for all things sales in Australia. We affectionately refer to him as Peter Excesovich because he's always over-delivering, but he goes by the name Peter Lakovich. So I can't wait to get invested. Pete, welcome aboard. Thanks, mate. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm looking forward to this session together. Likewise, mate.

It's been too long between drinks, but really looking to deep dive because I genuinely mean that you've had a massive impact on myself and Sonia and what we're doing in the business, and that's been a massive benefit to the team and the people that we work with. So having the opportunity to spend some time with you, mate, is sensational. No, that's very kind.

Thank you. I've enjoyed watching your journey and what you're doing, so when you asked me to be on this show, I jumped at it with both hands. Thanks, mate. Now, for those who don't know you, and most do, but for those who don't, can you give us a rundown on what you do and why, please, mate? Yeah, absolutely. It's been a journey, but I forgive you to read this digest version of where I am today.

so I'm a shareholder investor and I head up entrepreneur development for the Entourage and Entourage is Australia's largest training and education institution for entrepreneurs and innovators we work with kind of six-figure business owners who want to go to seven

and seven-figure business owners who want to go to eight and often some entrepreneurs within businesses who want to really upskill themselves so yeah my role right now is really helping drive our member success do some strategic exec stuff I work predominantly on forward

facing stuff, a lot of public speaking events and internally with our members helping them with the strategies necessary to really get the business from where it is to where they really want to be so that's kind of where I'm doing that now I'm actually doing that three days a week step back in December, move back to

my roots in Perth so I left here 21 years ago this year to move to the eastern states to kind of be a small fish in a big pond um being a bigger fish in a small pond in perth that was the goal for me so um set up some businesses and now have a really strong team and i've got a young family now and i want to really bring that back to perth to have a bit more family time so pull back to three days a week now um from perth here and on the side hustle because doing nothing two days a week it's a bit boring so

building up uh some very specific sales specific um programs for for people inside businesses and business owners at the same time so that's kind of me at the current state of play fantastic man i'll sort of come back to that sort of lifestyle transition a bit later but just so that we can get a sense of your journey so far mate can you wind us right back and take us through what you've invested your time money money and energy in and why uh to get to where you are now please buddy yeah definitely i don't have you probably see on facebook or instagram or any type of marketing there's the hard luck story of i was destitute um poor upbringing whatever and and then found the golden bullet and went out and created it and started a business i don't have a poor me story

hallelujah um i felt i've been quite fortunate um you know i come from european parents who came out here with a suitcase and couldn't speak English and wanted to provide the best for the family. So, mum and dad had a really amazing work ethic. So, I kind of grew up playing sport. Like, my dad used to coach a local soccer club and I used to go down there as a four and a half, five-year-old and kick around and started playing from there. So, all I've ever known from a youngster is to have a coach.

You know, I played soccer when I was from four and a half. Then we did swimming from when I was five and competition swimming at seven. Then we went into playing tennis and a little athletics. And I was playing five or six sports at once. And I've always had a coach, and that's all I've ever known. So my first business coach would have been parents, like, you know, working for a European family, so to speak, or from where I say a WOG family. Mum and Dad.

Dad used to drive cement trucks at day and taxis at night. You know, the only things you really didn't need a qualification for except for a license. Mum was working in an accountancy practice as a receptionist there. And, you know, my grandmother came out from former Yugoslavia two days before I was born. So she pretty much helped raise me while mum and dad worked. And then when I was eight, they bought a typical WOG business,

the local deli. They bought a delicatessen. So I worked in there from the age of eight. And there was no such thing as pocket money because, you know, when you work for a European family, it's like I put a roof over your head, I put food on the table, I put clothes on your back, you will work for me. today we call that child labor back then we we called it love um but i um there so i grew up

kind of working in mom and dad's business and it was the best induction i've probably ever had because through osmosis i learned a majority of who i am and what i've become today kind of shaped me from then you know the first thing was the work ethic um you know i didn't have a lot of weekends we always spent time in the deli you know i never had both parents at a at a school assembly or a sporting event because one was always working in the shop yeah um and it's kind of that's kind of shaped of the type of parent that i am today but i'll talk about a little bit later so i kind of grew up in in mom and dad's business and wasn't getting paid to the age of 15 i i thought i need to get some pocket money here so now we're talking you know mid 80s so cassette

tapes and i got my walk first walkman and wanted to start buying you know my own records and all that type of stuff so i've got a job at the local deli down the road where they could pay me money for doing what I was doing for free for mum and dad. So I did that a couple of days a week after school and that was kind of my first working job that was paid. And then I went into – I was the first person in my family to get into university in the history of the Lakovic heritage to get into university.

I think as a parent, you only want for your children what you never had and what my parents never had was an education. So I think my dad thought if I get my son in uni, I've done my job. He's safe. Yeah. So, you know, I held that mantle, but then two years later, I was the first one in history to drop out of university. So I've got not the proudest moment from the proudest moment

to the not the proudest moment. Mate, jumping in there, I heard along the grapevine that one of the other really interesting stories, which is probably a really good example of your early sales prowess, is that you actually talked the uni into taking you on, on a performance basis. Can you share that story with us, please? You've done some good research, buddy.

um honestly i i don't even know if my parents know this story um i think i've shared it once or twice only um yeah so i i failed year 12 i didn't get into uni um so i went back and and repeated year 12 again um and failed the second time didn't get in the second time and i looked at the the results and i couldn't in my heart tell my dad that i didn't get into uni again And it was one of these things, right? Why was he going to uni? Because that's what you were supposed to do. You know, you're supposed to go to kindergarten, pre-primary,

primary school, high school, go to uni, get an integral job, and then work your way up from the bottom and supposedly retire on some sort of superannuation that's going to make you wealthy for the rest of your life. And I just didn't agree with that type of model. So, you know, I went to uni because I got in, and I didn't get in. And I thought my only other avenue was I've got to get in. So I made an appointment to see the dean at the university and sold myself into university.

He said a bar, if I hit these grades in the first semester, then he'll give me another six-month extension. And after year one, if I hit that, then he'll let me in. So, yeah, you're right. I did sell myself into university. And then I came back and said, Dad, I got in. I didn't tell him I negotiated my way in. I told him I passed and I got in. Because once you say you're in, the score is irrelevant.

Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, so that's how I got into there. I just found that I wasn't in love with it. I wasn't doing what I was passionate about. I was attending because I was supposed to go. I was, you know, spending more time playing sport than I was doing classes and studying, you know. I was scraping by just to do enough to get in.

And then it just wasn't me. So I dropped out and I got a job working in a gym. I went for an interview for a girlfriend at the time. Okay. Well, tell me about that conversation with Dad, mate, because that would have been an interesting one, I reckon, when you came home and said, Dad, it's not for me, I'm out of here.

How did that go? I don't know if this is going to really connect with me or not, but I didn't tell them. I pretended to go to uni. Love it. Until I got a job and was starting to become successful. So I got a job in sales in a health club. I went for a job for a girlfriend at the time

and they offered me the job. I went to find out some information for her, and they offered me the job. So I say I took it. And then after two and a half weeks, they made me the sales manager. And after two weeks later, so four weeks after starting, I was managing a health club. Meteoric. And once I become a manager, I thought this is good enough to tell mum

and dad I've dropped out of uni to manage a business. Yes, yes. And it wasn't until then that that's when I said I'm going to do. Gotcha. And I didn't defer. I dropped out. Yeah. For me, it was burning the boats.

I'm either going to commit or I'm not. If I had a fallback, then I don't think I would have played hard. And it's kind of one of the philosophies I think anywhere in my life where I've had success, I've played hard. Any times where I've had a failure in my life or a stumbling block, it's when I haven't played all in. I haven't committed. I haven't gone all out.

I've had the safety net. And when you have a safety net, you play with a safety net. When you don't have a safety net, then you play full out and you just make it happen. yeah um so i yeah very quickly i raised the ranks and um we we had three health clubs we grew to a chain of five and i became an area manager then they want to give me a piece of the business making general manager and we quickly grew once i had invested interest in the business i quickly grew up to a chain of 15 health clubs wow um you know the time it took us to get to four it took

me half the time to get it to 15 from four they need to get to four because once we had the systems and the structures and the processes it was easily to replicate success you know my theory in life is if anyone can do something once you just got to reverse engineer how and do it again there's a formula to everything in life nothing's a fluke, nothing's a coincidence you just got to, everything's figureoutable so that's

what I did and became successful in that area and then in 1998 I had a bit of a fallout with the other business owners, they were doing some dodgy things that I didn't agree with philosophy wise and vision wise and integrity wise so I packed up and moved to Melbourne to start my own consultancy business and coach

other people how to run successful fitness and health and wellness clubs. Okay. And that's kind of how that journey started. Okay. We'll park it there very quickly because I'm really interested for you to share with us obviously a very meteoric rise with that first job, three weeks to be managing

and then taking on a very serious role. What was it that you feel stood out for you and what were they picking up when they say, we really need to give this guy plenty of rope. Can you share that with us? Yeah, if I look back, and I have looked back at this, what I love to look at is I'm a replication person. I pride myself on being able to create a process and a system

for almost anything when it comes to business. So for me, it's like, why was I successful? How do I replicate that? And predominantly around sales, negotiations, marketing, leadership is kind of my sweet spot that I obsess about. and for me it all came down to um i think my parents like i i when i worked for that business i didn't know anything else but to run the business like it's my business i never had an employee mentality and i've never had an employee mentality even when i got my first full-time job

at 15th lakewood delhi the first weekend i was there i restructured the whole freezer that were the cool room where the drinks were behind the fridge that you see in a shop right because functionally it just wasn't working it was hard you had to lift crates up and i'd set it up like my dad had set up in our shop and when the owner came in he was like holy crap like this is so much more functional it's more efficient it's easier there's so much more room out here it looks better and visually it was more appealing and sales went up and like so i always did things like it was my business so in this in this job i remember very the one day which you changed where it became apparent to me why I was different is that I was always challenging status quo and I was always

challenging what was done I never accepted what we did I always thought what can we do to make it better where I think people have an acceptance mentality like this is why it's always been done this is why it always happens so I remember we had a meeting every Tuesday would have a meeting with all the managers the area managers and the sales director and the owners and I noticed in the club that I was managing there was a cleaner and he's a maintenance guy more than a cleaner And he'd come in, then he'd go out, and I wouldn't see him for an hour, and he'd come back, and I noticed the things I wanted him to fix in the equipment wasn't done effectively, efficiently in the timeframes.

So I was like, what does this guy do? Where is he? What clubs is he going to? There was no record-keeping. There was no structure. I was in the meeting. I said, they're maintenance guys. Everyone else had an issue with him, and they all looked at me,

and I went, what? Because there's no logbook. He comes in, he comes, he goes. He's never here. There's things aren't done. Things are always broken, like members are complaining. It's affecting the conversion rates. It's affecting retention.

it's affecting everything like yeah and and everyone's like oh um and anyway they created a log book at the end of that meeting to register when he logs in when he logs out after the meeting my area manager said what are you doing and i went what do you mean he goes in these meetings you come sean the sales director he talks the other owner talks we set the targets and then we leave like you're pretty much do you know who the maintenance guy is i went no he goes it's Sean's brother well I don't know who he is I just know he's not doing a bloody good job and it's affecting the my my P&L statements and and the business yeah so anyway I think the fact that I spoke out and ran the business like it was mine and made decisions like it was mine it didn't

matter who was there I think that caught the eye of the business owner so when it became the sales manager left who's going to be in sales well I was number one sales so I went in that the manager left which which club had the best sales who was the best leader peeps and we'll put people in that didn't matter they didn't have experience or anything like that it was it was just i think through i i wasn't accepting the state i wasn't expecting the state of um play whether it be marketing sales or customer service or anything so i think the key thing for me was kind of trusting my instinct trusting my intuition doing what i thought was best and not getting stuck and pigeonholed in this is how we do things so become part of the production line yeah yeah yeah no that

I'm always questioning and telling her, how can we be doing things better? It's a rarity. Yeah, and just trusting yourself. And that just, that led me to where I was. I mean, when I decided to leave, I literally cold called a health facility in Melbourne over the phone and sold myself over the phone to get a consulting gig. And once I got that gig, then I packed up and I left. You know, I literally just slept on, and this is kind of taking, sometimes you've got to take one step back to take two steps forward and let ego out of the way. But, you know, I told Mum and Dad I'm looking at moving

and I had a property at the time which Mum and Dad co-signed for. I was young in my 20s and I was earning good money but I had nothing to show for it. My mates loved me because I'd pay for all the drinks on the weekends because I had a good job that was paying well and they were either at uni, still struggling through three, four or five years of uni or part-time work. And, you know, I was running a chain of health clubs

but I had nothing to show for it. So Dad made me buy a property and he co-signed for it and I said I need to reduce my payment so I can move to Melbourne. him he goes no and i think it was just him wanting not wanting me to fail you know he wanted to protect so when he said no i said well i'll do it anyway so i literally slept on a couch of a friend of mine who was one of my employees at the gym he moved over six months earlier with his with his partner at the time and i slept on his couch while i set up my consulting and coaching business yeah love it love it the uh was it the the old vision and values exercise that came adrift and the reason

why you decided it was time for you to move on? Was that the recognition, do you think? My growth had stopped. I had a barrier. Like, my alignment with their values and my values were not the same. Yeah. And I was making decisions because of money, and I never made decisions because of money

because that I was successful with money. Yeah. And I think if I even look back in my time in investing in properties and all sorts of stuff, and I've done it for money and a financial return and not for a love and a passion and really got invested in it, you know, I either made money or I've lost money.

Like I bought a property because I wanted to have something that would be good to have as an asset and that one, you know, I sold it and made over double what I made in a very short period of time. Then another investment opportunity I did nearly killed me because I didn't treat it the same way. So I think for me the decision to move was because it wasn't aligned with my values.

I knew what I was worth. I knew what I wanted to do and I wasn't achieving and I thought, I've got to change. you've got to do something different. And there was an opportunity, so I'm the type of person that said, let's do it. And I just did, and I packed up and I left and slept on the couch for a couple of months while I set myself up and just proved to myself

that I could do it. And I think for me, I need to prove that I can, not being told that I can't. Yes, yeah, I love it. So take us further on the journey there, mate. So into Melbourne on the couch, going hard. Yes, so into Melbourne. Yeah, on my second day there, I met someone who would become

my business partner another large influence in my life um he was running consultancy business he started two years before i started mine and he was actually um uh he was a client a health club that i was helping manage and drive we're using his consultancy services he was having a monthly workshop and they send their staff for sales training all that kind of stuff so i thought i'd go check it out and see what they were being taught and we connected we've had the same methodologies when it comes to sales and business and marketing we had the same ideals he was a couple of years more advanced when it comes to the the psychology of of sales and the neurolinguistics and the behavior sciences so i learned a lot from there so we connected very

quickly and three and a half four months later um he said we'll come to sydney work with me and i did um so i left melbourne and started working with him in sydney in 1998 um and then you know a year and a half later i became a shareholder in that business and got some equity into that business it was literally him and me running the show and we grew pretty much um australia then australasia and the world's largest coaching consultancy industry for the health and wellness industry where we have consultants go into businesses coaching consultant and teach business owners in the fitness industry who are very fitness savvy but not business savvy how to grow the business more effectively right and that's what we did um that's what i did up until that

stage and in 2000 that was from 98 to 2005 and then we launched australia's first we co-founded of Australia's first national sales academy. It's like somewhere to go to get a sales education. Yeah. And that was really, really powerful. So we did that in 2005 until 2012. And then I found, again, I was stifled in my growth. He was, you know, 10 years older than me.

I've got a spring chicken now. I'm 47 turning 48. But back then, things just weren't working as fast as I thought it could be. So I was going to move out and do my own thing. and I'd met Jack DeLosa, who's the founder of the Entourage. I met him in 2005 when he was 18 and he actually worked with me. He worked for me at the National Sales Academy. He's one of these people that is a rapid learner,

probably the most rapid learner I've ever met in my whole life and he wanted to master sales. So he worked with us for 12 months there before he went off and started setting up his own businesses and he did that very successfully. And we kept contacts and I did some coaching and consulting for him as he was growing his businesses. He hit his first kind of seven-figure profit business

at a very young age with MBA education, teaching people how to buy businesses, sell businesses, capital raising, all that type of stuff. And then he started the entourage in 2010. And we were sitting with me, my wife and Jack on our lounge on Christmas Eve in 2012. And he kind of said, what do you think the vision is for the entourage? And I gave him my opinion.

It was almost word for word aligned with his. And he said, well, let's do this together. Why don't you come on board and drive it as a CEO? and I was general manager and shareholder of the other business that I had. And he said, let's do this together. So I became a shareholder on the entourage, started as the early CEO and we grew from three or four people very quickly that year

to about 15 to 18. Then we grew to 50 and it's kind of the last seven years or so, it's been a rapid growth to where we are today, you know, leading the way in helping people grow amazing businesses. So that's kind of the Reader's Digest version of the second half of when I left birth and moved to the Eastern States. Yeah, no, awesome, mate. And I guess from personal experience here, when we started our most recent business, KnowHow, we were fortunate enough. I've got to say, I reluctantly came along to a session that you ran in Adelaide.

I've always been a little bit suspect on some of these exercises. but it was you that I really warmed to Pete and you just had this way of making it feel like you were talking to me directly there was hundreds of people in the room but I just resonated with everything that you said and we loved our journey with the entourage the community that you created

just the positivity and the can do let's get it done and shoot for the moon and go big and go hard is just an awesome, awesome culture that you've created both in the business and everyone that associates with you, mate. So I love how you've done that. And I guess what I'm... Thank you.

Yeah, I think it's fair to say that having listened to what you've just said, clearly impatient and very ambitious because you obviously get to a plateau and then go, right what's next what's next where to from here what's the next step let's let's jump high and jump hard uh yeah i just i just have a philosophy that if you don't like where you are be the best at it yeah like if you're if you're a garbo or if you're a window cleaner or if you're an accountant or you work at a bank or if you're a general manager or you're a um a cmo a cfo cti a cto or CIO and you want to get to CEO, whatever level you want to get to,

the only way to get to where you want to be is be the best at where you are because someone will headhunt you, will find you. You'll create your next path. Like one thing I'm probably most proud of is I've never gone for a job interview, I've never had a resume. My next step has always just happened. You know, in the beginning when I went for the interview, it was to find information for my girlfriend at the time

and they just gave me a job. I think you only get obstacles in life when you're moving forward. So if you're finding challenging times, it's because you're moving forward. If you're standing still, nothing's going to hit you. You're not going to walk into anything. So you're sitting in this comfort bubble. So I think when I've always walked forward and challenged at its core and challenged where I was and challenged what I was doing

and the way things were done, then you stand out and you create the solution quicker. And if you fail, then guess what? By failing, you find out the right answer quicker so you get to the answer quicker. So for me, it's like if you don't like where you are, be the best at it because that's the best way to get out of it. And I think that's kind of one of the key philosophies.

I think if I look back and look at when I've had a big leap in success in my life, that's kind of been one of the contributing factors. Love that. Love that. Now, mate, just looking at the sort of recent maneuvers, because you've sort of risen very quickly through the ranks from local to national to global and right up to the CEO ranks. And most people would allow their egos to get in the way and would struggle to move away from that but i sense in a little bit i've heard seen and and brief chat we had before we

hit the record button that our family and lifestyle decisions have crept in and you've managed to make an unusual transition from ceo of of a leading business to take a role that still has a very pivotal and critical influence on the business but and i'm guessing that's to allow you to head back to the home routes in perth and scale down the time and put some energy into family friends and other passions talk us through the thinking on that and and and how you negotiated that because not many people will be able to pull it off mate yeah it's interesting and i think I think it all comes down to alignment and being just true to your own values but to do that you need to know what your values are and most people existing life either living through the lens of

other people's values or society's values or the expectations of others and they don't live through the lens of their own what they really want to be in life and often we wake up and go you know what's what I've done the last 20 years and I'm doing something that is expected of me what other people want me to do not what's my true passion so for me you know i've never had ego with a job title you know even in the national sales campaign we never had job titles on business cards i think i wanted everybody in my business to be able to help you and a job title wasn't necessary yeah um so for me you know being the cdr was just me being the leader of a movement that's going to empower people to have the best version of their life possible and you know

someone had to be the driver of that vision and the executor of that and you know be responsible for targets and a P&L, so to speak, whether that came with a C at the front of my name was kind of irrelevant. You know, we want to empower everyone to be able to make decisions in the business, and I think one person drives a business. I think the team run a business. So I, you know, when my son came along, we had some really fast growth and we did some amazing, amazing things in a very short period of time.

Like we're a fast growth company, and I love that. Like, you know, you can tell my wife, I was working 18, 20 hours a day for the first couple of years. not out of necessity but out of want and desire and passion it never it never felt like work like people say how do you distinguish work from everyday life and i think well what i do is my life so it's not work it's just existing through life yeah and um when you find that then it's you know every now and my wife and i she's in business she's one of australia's leading sales and marketing experts um you'll ever find and um you know when we talk shop it's like it's not always

that turning off because we just love talking about shop you know there are times we we don't but it's it's it's not a curse for us to do that so i think for me it was like my son braxton was born um and being a fast growth business i knew the best thing for the business was to have someone that could still commit to those long hours that the passion we have and family is my number one value um you know so for me it's like i didn't want to be um not be able to take my son to school to pick him up. I didn't want to not be there for a school assembly or be there for a sporting event because I was in business. And, you know, I didn't want to be some of the things my parents were. And that taught me a lot. So for me, it was, you know, we built a very strong executive team.

We had a very strong board. And I knew the business to get to, you know, I'd never run a hundred million dollar company. We got the business to a mid eight figure business. And for me to step up to be that, I would really have to stretch and challenge and grow again. and I think if you don't consistently grow, you go backwards. And, you know, my commitment to wanting to be with family as opposed to the great CEO we needed was kind of, there was a misalignment there. So I think you set things up for things to happen the right way.

So we jack-stepped into the CEO role. We headhunted, we found, you know, Tim Morris, who's the GM of Uber when they first launched in Melbourne. You know, one of the most successful launches of product-to-market fit in Australia would be Uber, I think, in the last five, six years. yeah so he's come on board as our gm and running a ship in that capacity he's got very strong strength strengths when it comes to operations and you know i'm very good at sales marketing culture leadership he's very good at operation structure he's the integrator as opposed to the

visionary yeah um so you know we set up a structure in a way where the business is going to be really successful and i could spend time with with family and things like that and so i stepped into a role which i knew was something that i could add massive value to the organization when it came to sales, marketing, management, leadership, to the stage now where, you know, I could sit down with my wife and say, what do we want our family to look like in the future and how does that fit? And, you know, Jack and I being best mates as well as, you know,

business partners, and it was a bit of a no-brainer. It was like I said, you know, we're looking back to Perth. Yeah. You know, and then we just created a structure of how does that look and how does that role fit? And I think whenever you're adding value, there's always a way to make something happen. Yeah. And that's the key thing, right, is how can you add value?

How can you make yourself more valuable? And I think investing in oneself is the best investment you can ever have because the more you invest in yourself, the more valuable you are, then your life will work out perfectly. And when you stop investing with yourself, that's when you hit roadblocks. So it's just kind of – it's happened, again, very organically. I think there's a skill set and value that I can add to the business. So it wasn't a matter of I'm leaving. It's a matter of I'm just going to be based from Sydney, Perth, instead of Sydney.

What does that look like? Yeah. And that looks like, for me, three days a week because I don't want to travel once or twice a week if I'm doing it full time. And we have the structure in the organisation. We have an amazing team that, you know, the business can run very well with me doing this three days a week. Nate, has that always been part of the vision then

to effectively create a business that ultimately doesn't need you and therefore you sort of progressively replace yourself and have input in those areas where you add the most value and where you're getting the most enjoyment and fulfilment from? Was that a deliberate thing or was it just something that happened? I think it's been subconscious. I think everything in life is deliberate, whether it's through your conscious or your subconscious.

You set yourself up for everything. Everything you have in your life, you deserve. You are, and, you know, I'm not going to get too detailed about illnesses and things like that, but it's more the fact, you know, to look at where you are in life, it's like you reap what you sow. So I think for me, subconsciously, it was to be able to create something in the capacity that it gave me. I think I have a skill set.

I can be anywhere in the world and be comfortable financially because I've invested the time over the years to be great at something. and when you are well you can you know i say to my son because he you know he the other day he said he wants to buy the fastest car in the world and he wants to have a million dollars before he's 21 and he's only five but he's like i said well you know what type he said what do you want to do he goes i want to have a business like you i want to you know help people and change lives and i said well what business idea so he was asking well how do you come up the business idea i said well you find out what problems people have and then you find out a way to fix it and then that's

business so become great at helping fix other people's problems so that's what he's thinking about now how can you do that and i think that's if you can educate yourself and having an asset that can fix the problem for other people then um subconsciously i think i've built the ability to be able to do what i've done it hasn't been conscious because i've loved the reason i joined the entourage because i love what we stand for i love what we do i love the difference that we make in my inbox i'll get a thank you and my facebook private message i'll i'll get look at a result that I've achieved, you've changed my life, I could get that at least once a week, or a card in the mail, or a gift in the mail, or something like that, and it's very humbling,

so I think subconsciously, the answer would be yes, it hasn't been a conscious thing, because I love what I do, and I never felt the need to do it, but subconsciously, I think yes. Yeah, okay, okay, and the sort of leveraging from there, clearly, I mean, you've mentioned your wife in glowing terms, and having seen her in action, you two are an absolute dynamic duo when it comes to... I am a very lucky husband, trust me. Mate, I think you're both made for each other, mate, both just inspiring in the way you love

and approach life, and so how important has the support of Nettie been in your success to date, do you think? oh I I've married a freak and I mean that in the best best way when we first met you know I was traveling six times a week um you know we were together and um she's been nothing but a pillar of support of never whinged or complained in the amount of traveling that I've done um knew that's that's what I do um supported everything when wanting to to move on and join the entourage had her support and everything like she's she's been amazing like she and she's a freak of nature like she had braxton four weeks later she was on stage presenting like and she said she wouldn't

do it again um but she she is a unique individual that understands um you know she we had a very similar upbringing and i think hers has been a bit more isolated than mine um she's been a lot more independent and an earlier age than i have she comes from the blue mountains and kind of set up you know working from the age of 12 and 13 and um you know just she has this do whatever it takes attitude i've never met anyone with so much tenacity to get up and go yeah um then then my wife so she just understanding that life is about becoming the best version of yourself not through existing and i've never met anyone who educates themselves as much about something that they're passionate about as her um you know i learned a lot from her in so many aspects um so i think

there's no way we would be able to do or be what we have without the partnership um that we support each other and the partnerships have with me so i think you need you need something in your corner whether it be a partner or a business partner or a colleague or a mentor or you can't go through this world alone it just doesn't happen look at any of the greats in the world they've always had someone in their corner whether it be business people sports people um ceos like they've always had someone along their side and I just implore anyone to find that person obsess about everyone's meetable everyone has breakfast lunch or dinner or has to go to the airport so either shouting lunch shouting breakfast shouting dinner be the river driver but there's always a way to find

someone yeah absolutely agree man I'd you know in my own case a very similar you've met Sonia uh we we yin and yang uh totally put the two together and at one plus one equals five it's uh it's just been uh the chemistry is just brilliant and we we'd live eat and breathe together we're in the business together uh we're pretty much 24 7 mate and and love it and it's a bit like you mentioned before this this whole concept of work-life balance makes me laugh pete because the only people who need work-life balance are the ones who hate their work if if uh there is no balance if you don't need balance if you're loving what you're doing what do you think absolutely and i don't think you know it's work-life purpose as opposed to work-life balance

if you align with what you do then it should be what you you want to do like i love talking sales i love building sales processes they're going to companies and re-transform their whole sales process whether it's for one-on-one or for a team and help creating ip for businesses like i just i love saying that you know it's funny when i usually get introduced on stage it's the two billion dollar man you know i'm creating the two billion dollars worth of sales either for my clients or my businesses that i've run because the stuff and i love getting the success stories whether it be you know mazda doing their whole sales process and they launched the mazda 2 mazda 3 and the first four driver cx7 hitting a 36 month targeting 18 months or when channel 9 lost the

rights to host the olympics um and channel seven and channel 10 did a joint bid and they didn't have the eyeballs there was a um a drought through regional australia economic time in 2008 wasn't that great um and win television which is a regional leg of channel nine like they were just struggling it was like so but went around for 12 months and traveled and taught them and they broke sales records during the time when they didn't have the the rights the olympics where you know when you have eyeballs you can charge more for advertising yeah um so just those wins are just so empowering. So I think when you make that difference, everything shifts.

Yeah, totally agree. Now, I'm going to dig into that in a minute, but before we do, mate, I just want to come back to that lifestyle question because it's something that I ask of everyone that we do work with because it becomes pretty much the magnet and the compass. But describe your dream lifestyle, if you could, mate, and put some real shape around it. your perfect day, your perfect week, your perfect month and year,

who are you with, what are you doing, where are you doing it? Can you just paint a picture for us? That's a really good question because I haven't done this exercise for a while and my wife and I have invested in hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of personal development programs, educational personal development. And when you talk about what's your perfect day, it's been a while since we've done that. And I think for me, my perfect day would be waking up with my wife,

our son probably jumping in our bed, which is what he does regularly now anyway. And it would be doing some sort of activity. I've grown up playing activity and doing sport and having a few injuries now from those. It's kind of held that back a little bit in rehab mode. but it would be getting up and doing some sort of activity, doing some sort of sporting activity. You know, right now I love taking my son to school. I love picking him up from school.

I love being, you know, part of that. And you can see how much it means to them more than anything, being there and taking him to school and playing with him at school for 10 or 15 minutes and going a bit earlier and picking him up after school and playing with him a bit there. um and then for me it would be um you know it's hard to be specific but empowering others in some way shape or form whether it be through sales processes sales protocols negotiation skills leadership but just knowing that whatever i'm doing at this time i'm spending some time creating

i love creating stuff you know i spent a whole day yesterday creating a whole new sales process for a client who flew over from eastern states to perth to spend a day with me here to build that and then getting an email this morning saying how excited he was about implementing and actioning it, like just getting involved in that capacity, knowing that we're building something for the future, then spending time on the family stuff. What are we doing?

How is it contributing to our next step and where we're going? Being able to, looking outside right now and overlooking the pool and the outdoor entertainment area and being able to work out from there or just having flexibility. I think for me life is about choice, being able to do what I want when i want to not because i have to do it but because i want to do it yeah um and being maybe destination free um you know being where we are but not being tied anywhere because you have the ability to do what we do anywhere so i think choice so it's not a clear-cut perfect day but

for me it would be something like that yeah that's awesome mate well i think you've painted a really good picture there and it sounds a lot like your your lifestyle is fairly close to that now mate you're sort of ticking uh quite a few of those boxes from what i'm hearing yeah but it's getting there it's getting there the next big chapter for me is the balance of you know building something sales specific that we want to grow to be global just the net and i and what that looks like you know um alongside the entourage um you know i do a lot of work with the entourage i think i always will but i've got a passion to build something that is very sales specific that can go global because I know something – there's probably three things I've learned.

One of the top three would probably be learning how to sell, how to help people get what they want and give people what they need to help them achieve what they want, and that's just what sales is. So I think there's a big need for people to learn how to negotiate, how to communicate more effectively. I think business is better. Life is better when you do that. So that's kind of the next big thing for me, I think.

Yeah, and when you say big thing, I want to have this conversation because we live in an amazing world where you can have a big business without having to have this monstrous machine that chews its head off and then you become a slave to it. Is part of your thinking, because that's very much how we've modelled our business, we've got a national reach, but we're not into creating a big machine for the sake of a big machine because you then do have to feed that machine

and you're then very much exposed to any disruptive influences. But if you can keep it tight but still have that influence, have that impact and have that reach, is that what you're thinking when you talk about global sales or are you talking about a pretty big corporate monster? Yeah, it's good to say. I mean, often as we grow, and we're a very fast-growth business. Like, you know, we went from four people very quickly within,

oh i would say two and a half years to a team of 90 yeah um it was it was very rapid um and i think in hindsight we threw and you know i'm probably the the lead problem in this as well was we threw people at a problem um so we just kept getting more people um and yeah we run a business right now with you know probably 50 just less than 50 people half amount of people we had before more efficiently more productively more effectively we've got better net promoter scores we've got better results from our members and our clients um we've got a great tight-knit culture we get more done um with less people by being smarter and more effective so i think when i talk about um you know global for me it's about the global impact yeah and i don't think you need

to have a big beast to have a global impact i think every individual can have a really massive impact whether you're an entrepreneur working in an organization or an entrepreneur running your business what you do can affect so many and you know we had a gentleman who works for pwc he joined our program um he's been promoted up 10 times because he uses what he learned in the entourage in his role now within pwc um and he's grown tenfold um in that organization and the impact that he's had and the leader he's now become and filters down to the people underneath him of course so yeah for me global means the reach and the difference we can make as opposed to the size of the organization when it comes to to people resources and things like that i think

when you reach a lot of people the finances take care of itself yeah i totally agree and sort of leveraging off that thing because you've painted an awesome picture of uh you know what your ideal lifestyle looks like in in its many facets and i guess as a as a lifetime student myself of people who are successful and however they decided to find that peak. I've noticed that there's a difference between those who just invest in work, career and focus on income versus those who achieve the sort of choice, flexibility and freedom that you're talking about by not only investing in business but also investing in growth assets that give them that opportunity to replace their need to work so that they then can do other things.

Apart from the business, and I mean, the business has been a massive part of your story today, but are there other growth assets that you either have or will be investing in to assist you achieve that long-term sustainable lifestyle? Yeah, good question. And I think investment is a really powerful word, and I think it must sometimes get misconstrued because I think the investment, as I said earlier, in oneself is probably the best investment because from there that's when financial investments come from.

So I have dabbled in property because I have a belief in property and things like that. And when you do it for the right reasons or wrong reasons, it works very, very well. A property failure of mine really came from handing the ball over to somebody else and saying, run with it. Here's the cash, here's the money, here's the process, and then just not managing it effectively and properly

and not dotting your I's, not crossing the T's. So, you know, I've dabbled in shares. I've invested in property. I will go back to property. I've done shares because I've had people who have been confidants that are very well skilled in shares and trust their skill sets and assets. But I won't dabble in, you know, obviously a lot of opportunities across my table on a regular basis.

and probably predominantly for me because of my skill set business is probably my biggest investment when it comes to that type of growth yeah um but i i do you know now annette and i we're sitting here in perth and looking at what what properties and where do we want to be and why and what does that look like and um so there will be an investment in that way shape or form and i think my network will kind of dictate i don't have a clear investment plan i think my network will drive and stimulate what that looks like based on the expertise that I come across yeah so yeah so I think I think my network and the contacts that I have I'm very organic I think the reason I've got to where I have achieved when I've ever had success is I've organically

intuitively let myself be led there through the skill sets I've achieved or through the skill sets of those around me um so for me it's it will be apparent in what I do and I've invested in a couple of other businesses as well um so i think for me it's going to be continuing to invest in myself being aligned with networks and creating more networks and partnerships um and investing in that to lead me down the path of what do i need to do next but you know my belief is what are you best at invest in that so i'm not i'm not a warren buffett you know i'm not a property mogul um but if i find someone who i feel i trust and connect with i'm happy to be led down that path um but what i can control is is business and that's what i know quite well so

that will always be the mainstay in the foundation moving forward surrounding by the other facets as they grow yeah no awesome i don't and you mentioned that that uh property may be part of that mix why is that and what's in your head uh i mean i've obviously got a a big interest in that particular area but i'm just interested in your thoughts on on why that would be part of the mix and what that might look like as you currently see it? Yeah, I just think, you know, and not being an expert in property. So it's more the fact that I've had an early win and a success. I've seen, you know, my father's had properties and he sold them.

And, you know, he knows now he should never have sold the properties that he had. He didn't sell them to invest in others. He sold them because he got given a stupid price for it, which now would be worth a more stupid price, so to speak. So, you know, you learn from the mistakes of yourself and others as well. So I think, you know, it's just an asset that we live in a really lucky country. You know, I think we live in one of the best countries in the world. And I think by having the ability to have some of that in your portfolio is just going to enhance your future wealth for all the historical reasons and all the future reasons.

and, you know, there's plenty of land in Australia but also great land in great areas is what people are fighting for now and they're wanting more of it. So if you can get a piece of it now, I think people are always going to want it in some way, shape or form. And I think just for those very bare basic reasons, I think it just makes common sense more than anything. Yeah, no, you're absolutely right, mate.

Totally agree. It's an emotionally driven asset that someone's... And people have got to live in it, so there's always going to be a demand if you're smart about how you do it. A hundred percent, totally. And I've had success in the early days. It's just, it's worked for me. So you do it right, it just works.

It doesn't matter if you've got a strange health, people can guide you through how to do it right. And again, it's just all about strange health for people who know the things that you don't know. You need to have them in your life. It's just, it's not an option anymore. It must be a necessity. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

mate well said uh mate now i'd really like to sort of drill into uh your life's passion so far mate because clearly uh both from what you've achieved and our own personal experience your your ability to uh demystify and de-villainize sales which is often perceived as a dirty evil word in a lot of people's heads even today which continues to stagger me you've you've got this ability to break down the mindset barriers that a lot of us have I'd love to just share some of the key learnings that you've picked up both personally and with some of those major organizations that you've achieved and kick some big goals for in terms of what are the mistakes that a lot of people make what are the key learnings you take away from it and what are the some of the things

that you think uh if someone is going to be successful both from a personal point of view but also in a corporate sense uh how do they need to approach the whole sales exercise yeah for sure it is i mean if you say sales people it's a four-letter word let's be honest if i took a pen and paper and walked out rundle street more or pitch street or um you know any street throughout australia and i asked 100 people excuse me what do you think of sales people i mean the most common answer is going to be what pushy sleazy slimy say anything do anything just to make the sale like it's it's going to be some sort of negative connotation right um it's interesting when i first started formally in sales in the health and fitness industry um i remember

very very quickly that i hated it i absolutely hated it i was given an a4 folder with old leads in it my manager at the time showed me around the health club you know this is the gym this is the pool this is robux room this is your office here's the crèche here's the price list here's a whole lot of old leads that i haven't been able to close the last six months call them call the leads with ed next to it and um and see if you can book an appointment and sell the membership and it was that was it that was my induction it was you know i don't know if anyone out there has been in a swim sink or swim induction but that was that was kind of me yeah and i looked at this sheet i was like call them and say what like and i'm thinking hang on the gun the manager couldn't close these

people now they're six months cold and i have to try re-engage them and cold call them and i'm a rookie yeah and i was like and i was just and i remember succinctly we had the old rotary phones you know when you and you dial the you know the number and i'll get that last digit felt like it was in slow motion it's like and then you get that two second click before it rings and i in my head i was going please don't answer like it's stupid i'm calling someone hoping for them to not answer or hoping to get their voicemail and then like it rang seriously the first phone call it rang once and i could feel the beads of sweat dripping down from my ear from the phone in my ear my palms were sweaty and i was just like it rang once it went bing bing and i hung up

and on my call sheet i wrote no answer and i rang again and it rang once and i hung up and i wrote no and i thought this is ridiculous and then the next time i thought i let it ring twice and i hung up again i thought i can't do this like this is just and i just walked around the gym floor and started speaking to some members and and asked them if they knew anyone that wanted to come in for a free workout, and then I invited someone to invite their partner. Sorry, mate. Are you there? It's dropped out again.

Sorry, buddy. You there, mate? Hello? I'm not sure what's going on here. That's weird. Can you hear me, Pete? Yeah, but if I speak to more people, I'll get more money. Sorry, Pete.

I had a drop. You there, Pete? Can you hear me? Hello? Yeah, mate, I am. I can hear these beeps coming in the background. I don't know where the beeps are from. I'm not sure what happened there, mate.

Yeah, another dropout exercise there, unfortunately, mate. I'm going to get you to go back to when – I'm sorry to do this. This has never happened before, actually. No, that's all right. We'll go back to when you were walking around. You sort of made the calls and then you walked out into the gym and who can I call and take it from there if we can. Sorry, mate.

Too easy. No worries. So I had enough of that. So I walked down to the gym floor and I just started speaking to members and chatting and I invited someone to bring their partner down for a free workout and then I just chatted to them and they came in and after 45 minutes they said, yeah, I want to join the gym and I went, sure, no worries

and I thought that was pretty easy and what I realised, if I just speak to people, they would give me money. I remember my first, the phone would ring in my desk and the receptionist at the front desk said, oh, you have a walk-in here who wants to know about memberships and I went, oh, cool, what's their name? They said, oh, I didn't get their name. I went, no, you did, you said it was like walk or W something. I mean, you have a walk-in inquiry.

Like, I didn't even know what a walk-in inquiry was. I thought that was their name. And they said, no, no, you've got someone who's walked in who wants to know about prices. Can you come down to reception? I went, sure. And I remember we chatted, and we just talked about her and life. And then at the end, she's like, listen, we've been here.

I've got to go. How much is it to join? I said, oh, it's this much. I went, okay, no worries, and gave me a credit card. And I realized very quickly that I had to start replicating what I was doing. So I literally got a notebook out, like an A4 notepad, and I drew a line down the middle, and I debriefed every single presentation I did. I wrote down what worked and what didn't. And whatever worked, I did again.

What didn't work, I stopped doing. And I did it after every presentation. And so I started creating a system and a process for doing stuff. And very quickly, that Friday after my first week, I sold 26 memberships in a day, which was a record for the company at that time. and I was commission only so there was no base wage this job was a commission only job I got paid 20 bucks a sale

so if I didn't sell I didn't eat and on average you'd sell maybe three to four memberships a day at the most so you'd be making 60, 80 bucks a day

at the very, very most and that day I sold 26 memberships I made $520 worth of commission in one day and that was like a full

and I honestly got I sold a year's worth of personal training they didn't have a year's package They had a 30-session pack for $1,500, but I literally said to someone, you need to train three days a week with a trainer. And I said, okay, so that's 52 sessions, 52 weeks in a year,

that's 156 sessions. So I just made up a pack for 5K, and I sold it, and they paid for it. And I got paid 10% commissions on personal training. So rather than getting $150 for a $1,500 30-pack, I got a $500 bonus for that. nice um so i made over a thousand dollars commission in one day and that's when i thought hang on this is like two weeks worth of work for a normal job in one day yeah i need to systemize this baby and make sure i know how to do it very very well and then that's what i did and when i

became a manager i ended up i was a very poor manager bushy i was i was horrible and when i say i was horrible because i used to do everything like if we were behind in sales target i would take the leads i would make the sale and i'll give it to my sales people as commission because i knew i could make the sale i would clean the pool i'd fix the microphone and on the aerobics microphone i'd pick up the weights i did everything right i was very poor i wasn't enabling my team to be better i just think if i did it i'd do it right yeah um until i went to city for a holiday to visit a mate of mine and while i was away the sales figures dropped they plummeted and you know what i was happy because it meant i was needed and that's what ego kicked in right and

i i visualized going back to perth going to the health club with the red carpet it's like the knight in shining armor on his white horse rides in to save the day and you know pete's back thank god he's back and i went to the club early in the morning at seven o'clock and i i had a meeting with the team at eight and i had croissants and juice i had a morning breakfast meeting set up and And I had a strategy in place for marketing, a sales training session for my team. And the sales director rang me at 7.30 in the morning. He goes, hey, Pete, how was your holiday? I went, good.

He goes, figures were bad. Why are you away? I said, it's okay, Sean. Don't worry about it. I'm back. I've got a plan. He goes, well, I'm around the corner. I'll pop into the gym and we'll have a chat.

I said, no worries. He came into the gym and we chatted. He goes, so what happened while you were away? I said, Sean, don't worry about it. I've got a meeting coming up in about 20 minutes' time at 8 o'clock. I've got a marketing plan set up. we're going to smash target this week don't he goes that's cool but what happened last week i said don't worry about it i'm back he goes i know you're back but what happened i said it doesn't

matter i'm going to fix it he goes no you don't get it he goes i can't approve any more leave for you and i can't promote you and that was the first kick in the guts i've ever had and i went he goes i can't promote you because if i promote you now i'm also going to run this club like you did because it's relying on you to have success i can't approve any more leaves and you go and leave i lose money yeah and that's when i realized i had to get all those books that i'd created for a system that i knew how to do i hadn't trained my team how to do it so i systemized the whole sales process and what i realized very quickly is i was very good for a reason and then i started studying human psychology human brain neuro linguistics behavior styles and i figured the

better i can understand a human being the better salesperson i can be the better marketer i can be the better customer service person I can be, the better. Sorry, mate, you there? Yes, Tim. Sorry, mate, it's bloody well dropped out again. You there, buddy? Hello, Pete. Sorry, Pete.

I'm not sure what's going on here. It keeps dropping out, mate. You there? Hello? How's that? Can you hear me now? Now we're back again. Bloody frustrating.

No, am I back? Sorry, mate. I don't know. No, I'm not sure what's going on there, mate, but we'll go back to, it started to go fuzzy just after the manager came back and said, I can't promote you, I can't approve leave, so we might just rerun over that if we can. Sorry, buddy.

Yep, no, too easy. So I learnt very quick, I got the biggest kick in the guts I've ever had because I had to realise that this is not the way to run a business. So I got all those exercise books that I had that I'd written down what worked, that I had it in my head for me, but I hadn't imparted that knowledge to anyone else. So I completely systemized what I did. And I realized then I started studying things

like human psychology, the human brain, how people make decisions, behavioral styles, because I figured the better I understand a human being, the better I could be as a salesperson. The better I understand a human being, the better marketer I could be, the better I could be at customer service, the better brother, son, husband, father I could be.

I think the better human being I can be, the better I can understand people. So that's kind of what I've obsessed about for the last 26 years is learning to understand how people make decisions in life. And I've created a sales process that goes with the flow of the brain because I think pushy sales is when you swim against the current. Like you swim against the current, you're going to drown. So if you swim with it and across it, you'll swim through the current.

So I figured out how you make one of the biggest buying decisions a human being will ever make is to buy their own home, The average Australian, right? It could be half a million dollars, it could be a million dollars, whatever it is. The wiring in your brain to make that decision is the same wiring you make when you wake up to decide what am I going to wear today. Like the smallest decisions in our mind are usually made the same

as our biggest decisions in our mind. So I sat there and thought if I can understand how the human brain makes a decision and build a sales process around that, it won't feel like sales. So that's what I ended up doing. and over time i've now created a model where it's very simplistic and it's very easy and the literal philosophy is you start with how are you positioned in that conversation you need to have massive awareness of how is your consumer perceiving who you are if it's in a negotiation

what's their standpoint so what's the perception here and what i'm fighting for is to create some sort of emotional connection with them as early as i can um and then i've realized that every head body has a level of buyer's resistance everybody yeah unless you walk into a business say a sunglass shop and you say hi here's my credit card i want a pair of these oakleys ray bands versace's pradas whatever they are that's no buyer's resistance otherwise let me ask this question you ever been to a retail shop before absolutely you walk into the retail shop what's the first thing they say to you? Can I?

Oh, I cut them off, mate. I'm one of those people who say that. Can I help you? Yeah, I'll say, I'll come and see you when I'm ready, but I'm okay. Thanks for your attention. So I'm one of those, I'm probably a nightmare buyer, actually, Pete, because I don't want them on the face. Yeah, if I say, can I help you?

Most people go, no thanks, I'm just looking, or I'm just browsing, or someone like you would be very forceful and say, you know, can I? And you'll even cut me off and go, hey, if I need anything, I know where to find you, right? But why when someone says, can I help you, do we say, no thanks, I'm just looking and just browsing, right? Because you have a level of buyer's resistance. You don't want to be sold to.

You don't want to be pushed into anything. So this is the problem, right? So with buyer's resistance, the opposite of that is buyer's acceptance. And we think, and this is where sales has gone massively wrong and why it's been perceived as pushy and salesy. And, you know, when you look at a car salesman, you think, you know, second-hand car salesman, you don't want that approach. Because what they're doing is going against the flow of the brain.

So the opposite to buyer's resistance is buyer's acceptance. And what we are trained and taught to do is try to win people over, right? So we're trying to gain buyer's acceptance. But really, it's like having your foot on the foot brake, your hand on the handbrake, the car's in park, and then you put your foot on the accelerator. Now, it's going to make a lot of noise, and the revs are going to redline,

and eventually the engine will blow. Now, we blow a lot of sails because we're too busy trying to win people over where the first thing you need to do is lower buyer's resistance. I'm going to take my foot off the foot brake, hand off the hand brake, put the car in drive and only then do I have permission to gain buyer's acceptance. So I'm fighting for how am I positioned in the marketplace to create an emotional connection with them and what do I need to do to lower their resistance levels before I try to win them over. Once I've lower the resistance i have this word called permission to gain buyers acceptance so it's

creating this flow in the sales process yeah and now in the in the digital world now we've got to do this in the online marketplace as well through websites and landing pages and things like that if you're going for an interview if you're negotiating it's like how am i positioned in this negotiation and what do i need to do what are the resistance barriers what are the levels there What do I need to reduce those first before I have permission to talk about how I can help them? So if I succinctly do that, what we need to do right now is don't try to present your solution too early.

It's the biggest mistake we make in negotiations and sales is we try to position ourselves way, way too early. Yeah. Right? We need to make sure that our product, our service, our point of difference the idea the concept that we're trying to get across right we don't lead with it it's interesting right you know flying six days a week you sit on an airplane and the most common question is you know are you flying for work or business work oh sorry for work or

personal work what do you do for work you know that's the common conversation is to have an airplane yeah and um you hear people's little five second commercials is what i call them you In America, they call me Elevator Pitch. And I used to get so much business from just flying because I created a way to engage people where they wanted me. So if I want to give you as a learning for those that are listening right now, the goal for you is to create what I call a buying mindset in your consumer, not a selling mindset in you or your team.

You want your team to want what you have, not for me to have to sell to you what I have. So when someone said to me, Pete, what do you do? i would create something that forces them to want to know more so it might be something like yeah i i helped morning being business owners maximize your income potential and show them how to make more money and those common answer there is how do you do that yeah and then i would say well and i wouldn't talk about me i'd say but the best way to explain that bushy is like what do you do and i'd say oh um you know i i'm in finance i said okay great and i'd say do you have too

many customers bashing down your door and they go no no i said is 90 of your business referral base where you can control the amount of leads at a high quality no they're not and i said is your average dollar per sale is it maximized or could you sell more to current clients that you have because you know when you increase your average dollar per sale it goes straight to your bottom line in profit they go no it's not i said well that's what i do i help people maximize um the average dollar per sale shorten their sales cycles um and kind of reputable sales process get more leads that can be referral based and they go my boss needs to speak to you i need to speak to you have you got a business card because i didn't make it about me

i made it about them yeah i wasn't presenting who i was i was finding out from them what did they have what positioning point did they have and i said what i do is i fix that stuff and they go wow that's empowerful like if you're in an organization right now that has a sales team whether it's negotiation or sales it's like your biggest problem right now is probably you have a team of sales people not all of them are firing at the same time does every one of your sales people firing at the same time are they all smashing budgets by 120 150 percent the answer is going to be no and you have a replicable sales process that you can manage to make sure you've got you know a good replicable sales process has three things if you want a checklist you know

your sales process is good if it has these three does these three things your conversion rates are high no matter who takes the lead or the inquiry it's not key person dependent yeah two the time it takes to make a sale is shortened if it's two to three months you can get it down to two to three days yeah right it's not a long pipeline to sale and three you consistently increase the average dollar per sale if you can say your sales process is consistently increasing average dollar per sale the sales cycle is shorter and your conversion rate is consistently high no matter who takes inquiry you've got a really good robust sales process and most people don't have that so i asked questions around that and said that's what i do i build this for businesses i build this for

people um and they go wow we need that because i'm talking about a gap that they have not a solution of who i am and what i do and how i do it yeah yeah it's about about their needs their emotional wants you've spelled out you've smacked them in the face with what their problems are by putting it into a question so you haven't told them you've actually put a question mark on the end of it and they've gone shit this guy's right on my page here and wow he's he's got the solutions they're going to make happen for us yeah if you ask people if you ask people um you know where are you at with this they'll tell you where their gaps are and where their problems are you know the biggest problem we have if we ever get an incoming inquiry or a lead we go through the

whole rigmarole of you know what's an icebreaker and if i'm calling say we booked an appointment and I'm speaking to you, and, hey, Bushy, how are you? How was your weekend? You know I don't really care. I don't know you. I've never met you before. It's just an icebreaker. It's fake rapport.

So if I've got a session booked with you, I would say, great, hey, it's 2 o'clock. Are you ready to go to that session? And they go, yep. Often not building fake rapport is actually building rapport because rapport is a feeling of mutual commonality. When you have something in common with someone. So when you don't build rapport with me, it's actually building rapport

because in my head I'm going, I like this guy. There's no BS. He's straight to the point. There's none of this stuff that I know he's doing. Yeah, yeah. So then the second line is very succinct. It's like, hey, before we start, what made you reach out? Why did you reach out for this session, for this call?

And they'll openly tell you. So it's position yourself, lower their buyer's resistance, uncover their buying motivators. You need to get them to uncover their buying motivators. Then and only then do you provide a solution to that problem. When you provide a solution to that problem, you can then talk about the investment, the dollars and cents, and money won't make a difference. I pride myself on being the most expensive because I get the best results. And it's all about ROI.

If I said to you, give me $10,000 because in six months I'll give you a million dollars, would you find $10,000? If I said, give me a million dollars and I'll make you $10 million, would you find a million dollars? Whether it be 10 people with $100,000, right, or five people with $200,000 each, whatever it is, would you go out and try to find it? Of course you would. Because it's not about the investment, it's the ROI, it's the return on investment. In fact, if you look at the word ROI, what's the last word? Investment. Because investment is the last thing somebody worries about, right?

If I'm going to get a return, you know, Mazda comes to me and they say, we're going to hit the sales target in 36 months. We don't want to be pushy, sleazy, slimy salespeople because we're selling a Mazda 2, a Mazda 3, smaller cars, first car buyers, mum, dad buying for their children, CX-7, their first four-wheel drive for mums. We want to be positioned differently as car salespeople. And I said, yeah, you're going to hit that target way earlier.

I mean, they hit their 36-month target in 18 months because they had a way that sold to their audience that was different to everybody else. they weren't seen as sales people channel nine we stopped sending proposals and they smashed sales targets it's just changing the philosophy so your price is insignificant if you are fixing a problem and then you know you don't overcome objections you eliminate them you want to find out what is the biggest challenge bring it up let me give you this one golden nugget right if you bring up the objection the reason why somebody doesn't buy it's a conversation if they bring it up it's an

objection it's only an objection if your customer brings it up so avidly say what stopped you from starting sooner i want to know when they say it it's now a conversation that we can work through but if i wait to the end and ask for the business and then they say oh objection now it's me trying to overcome it it becomes a tug of war that's old school selling so we eliminate objection before to come up when you present the solution and the investment you just ask them to get started then you want to relieve you want to repeat that process with a new customer so you want to get repeat and referral business and that's the sales process it's position yourself in an emotional manner lower buyers resistance spend the focus on that uncover buying motivators then present

your solution price will be insignificant you've eliminated objections on the front end in your buying strategies and your solution strategies you just ask people to get started you don't know this you know i had this book 100 ways to close the sale and overcome objections learn the first 10 by tomorrow like closing is old school it's antiquated overcoming objections is old school it's antiquated you shouldn't need to do that you shouldn't be getting them yeah so that's kind of the philosophy that i have around sales it's gone and i've got to say i mean we picked the eyes out of uh the time we spent with you at the entourage and little things like your your famous five w's and a nature approach, for example, completely – we just implemented that

and it transformed – and we termed that a strategy conversation. It's not a strategy because it's a strategy. We green-brained it so that all it is – and it breaks down those barriers. That language – the other thing that I think you're really good at, Pete, is changing the thinking and the languages. So words like cold call, like icebreaker, like closing, like objection, they're all very negative terms. So that's not going to inspire your team if that's the language you're using.

And the very 80s and 90s, old school selling, Jordan Belfort type, pushy, say anything, do anything just to make the sale. It's just, yeah, it's gone. The consumer is far more savvy now. We live in the technology age. What the salesperson used to be and who they need to be now are two different people. Before, the salesperson used to come with all the information and knowledgeable. Now, your clients come to you.

They've Googled you. They've Googled your competitors. They've looked at reviews. They almost know more about you and what you do or your products and services than you do. So the people are buying differently. You need to sell differently. You and your team need to be up to date with the best ways of how your consumer buys today. And that's the problem.

The consumer is up here. our sales process down here and there's a gap yeah so this is what our assessment i love doing with with with business owners or individuals within a business is teaching how to do that in effective integral way as i said to create a buying mindset in the consumer not a selling mindset and you and your team and then it's like you know bees to honey um yeah it's easy people just buy from you like it's it's it is ridiculously easy what the funniest thing you know i know we're getting close to the end of this now but the funny thing for me is the fact when people do it and they go pete i just did this strategy it worked and they're surprised because i i think when my

someone said what are you probably best at and if i'm going to toot my own horn it's it's making things simple for people i think what i'm really good at is imparting a system that we go that's what comment that's really simple but if it's simple you'll use it if you use it it'll work If it works, we both win. And it just needs to be simple. I don't need to sound smart. I need you to have the win. So, yeah, it's the simplicity behind it.

When you understand the human brain, it is simple. You could just go, wow, I didn't feel like I was selling, and people are going, when can I buy? How can I start? When can I start? And that's the best gift I think I can give anybody. Mate, I can tell you firsthand and for everyone listening just how impactful uh everything that you're talking about and the intricacies of what you bring to the table when

people work with you has it's transformational in relation to uh not only business but life mate because all of those uh approaches are quite transferable to anything that you're wanting to influence or or change in your life mate so my absolute gold now uh i am going to jump into the ambush round because i am uh mindful of uh your generous time mate so i'm just going to jump through five quick questions that the audience loves to hear from everyone we talk to and to kick the first one off there what's your favorite quote and why my favorite quote is my quote right um if you're not training somebody else is and when you meet they'll win yeah i i just believe that you know muhammad ali once said and i'm looking here at a poster

of muhammad ali and michael jordan um and he once said training should be the hardest thing you ever do because if training is hard game day is easy he goes fighting in the ring isn't the hardest thing to do it's the training it's it's the blood sweat and tears if you look at a rock band you know a couple years ago there was this show on from the makers i think on the belly did this show on in excess and you see in excess you know playing at wembley stadium in front of 80 000 people and what you don't see is the seven years before that playing to two dogs and three drunks in a pub in kalgoorlie in in western australia not allowed to pay the originals having to play covers trying to find their sound yeah um you know you don't see the blood the sweat the tears you

only see the end result you know you think that you know they're they're 15 year they're a 15 year one hit wonder you know they've been doing all that crafting that time so for me it's like the more you train the better you get the more you train the luckier you get you know i had this adage on the golf course good players make their own luck it's fine the better the players always seem to get lucky at the right time and i think it's because they're putting the blood the sweat the tears they've done the research they know what to do so that that's my favorite quote it's when you're not training someone else is when you meet that one to just train harder everything's learnable everything's gold absolute gold mate and sort of semi-linked to that uh what would be

the top book that you'd recommend people read and why um that's a toughie you know i went through a stage where i read a book a week for a whole year because i wanted to immerse myself in education and you know we've got a looking bookshelf here right now one of the most recent ones um and i'm still just about to finish it but it'd be my ray dalio called principles yeah um he talks about the principles that govern his life and his business and i think principles it's like scripting like i don't believe in sales scripts i have principles in sales and and models and frameworks to allow your own personality shine otherwise we turn into robots um it's the same thing with life there's certain principles that guide you to success so i'd implore everybody to

either download it and listen to it or ray dalio principles uh must read in the next 30 days yeah It's a cracker, mate. I've got it myself, and it is an awesome read. Yep, awesome. Now, this one's a bit left field, mate, but it's something that most Aussies feel like they pay too much of. So what's the top legal thing that you've done to minimise how much tax you pay?

I've an interesting philosophy with this. I think if you're paying a lot of tax, you're doing pretty well for yourself. So first thing is, like, don't get down on yourself and don't hate the man. It is what it is. you know, going to Monte Carlo and live somewhere else if you want to earn less tax and be strategic that way. But, you know, I leave that to the power.

You know, I think if you're going to have shares, you need to have an accountant that has shares because they'll know the tax breaks. If you need property, you need to be around people who understand property. Yeah. So you need to surround yourself by the people who know how to do the things that you have your interest in.

Yes. If they don't, then they won't be able to maximise it for you. Yeah. So number one is experts. You've got to be around experts. Yeah. Yeah, it's the old elite team sport analogy that ties into a lot of the other things that you've said earlier, mate, 100% agree.

100%. Mate, back on the investment front, what's both the worst and the best piece of investment advice that you've ever received? The worst one, I don't know if it's advice. advice, you can put it under this adage, you know, it's like, trust me. You know what I mean? Because the biggest failure that I had was when I put that trust into someone else without doing my own personal due diligence. My ignorance was my biggest downfall. And in saying so, you know, the best bit of advice, I think, when it comes to investments is invest

in yourself yeah because when you invest in yourself you don't make mistakes when you invest in yourself you you'll be educated enough to make the right decision at the right time but you just have to invest like you have to invest in yourself if you're not getting better one percent today better than we were yesterday then you just wasted a day of your life you just have to be it's you know and maybe it's from my fitness background like if i wasn't running 100 meters further if it wasn't bench pressing one kilogram more we're doing one more repetition um you know when i played green i played for australia and if i wasn't catching one more pass or throwing one more pass as the quarterback or when i was playing soccer if it wasn't just

trying to be that one bit better than i was then i'm going backwards so i think your biggest investment has to be in you like you just it's that nothing else will contribute to the success in your life more than anything else yeah gold mate absolute gold and talking about the sort of the investment success arena in more general terms, what's a personal habit that contributes to your version of success, mate? Good question because there are so many. I think the first – if I combine everything, and I'm doing a bit of reflection right now actually

because three or four things popped into my head. I think move forward at all costs. Yeah. I think you have to be taking one step forward at all costs. There is no plateau in business or in life anymore. You're either going forward or you're going backwards because other people are catching up, your competitors are catching up.

So by default, if you're plateauing, you're going backwards. So I think you need to be taking one step forward in some area of your life, Whether it be financial, personal relationships, family relationships, you know, sales, marketing, health, wellness, like you need to be, the habit is just doing one thing that is going to take me forward every, because it's a habit, right? Success is a habit. Decision making is a habit. Happiness is a skill. It's a habit.

So I think the biggest thing would be is take one step forward every single day, no matter what. yeah love it mate absolutely love it brilliant now just sort of closing off and let's take

the example of your son Braxton and you've covered off a little bit on this already but if he's about to leave school in a few

years time and he's about to confront the big wide world what would you advise him to invest his time money and skills

in to create his version of freedom mate I think the time to leave school is too late um i think it's got to start way way but you know we've annette and i've been doing that now

um it's it's funny my wife would walk back into school and um she'd have this um you know sometimes it's it's the sometimes conversation because sometimes in life and she'd just educate him 24 7 and i think the the biggest gift we can give him is very similar like we put on this planet to be the best version of ourselves so it is always about do what you love and do what you're passionate about like i don't know as a 15 16 year old how you're supposed to know what you want to be when you grow up the rest of your life you're supposed to put down on a bit of paper this is what i want to do at university and then get a score that can get you into university to study something and you're supposed to make that decision at 16 years of age like there's people

now that are 30 40 they still don't know what they want to do so i think for him it's it's like explore as much as you can expose yourself to as much as you can um but challenge everything like don't accept what is and i think it's the acceptance of our environment that leads to holding us back so i just want him to be curious i want him to to question to challenge and i want him just to have high self-esteem because i think we have high self-esteem you trust yourself to go and do things that other people anything that grating life has been done by by people doing things that no one else thought could happen yeah whether it's an Elon Musk or whether it's a Branson or whether it's an Oprah Winfrey like they've done things that people thought wasn't

possible and I would love for him to have that ability to say that anything is possible and if it's to be it's up to him you know my wife one of my wife's favorite saying if it's to be it's up to me no one else will control it no one else's fault no one else is going to put you up there except for you. So have the courage to have a crack and just know that you're in total control. It will work out. It will work out.

When you invest in yourself, it will work out. 100% totally agree, mate. Pieces of gold there. Mate, bringing it to a conclusion then, you shared an enormous amount of gold with us, mate, and very appreciative of you doing so. For those who want to get in touch with you, to take it further, particularly around what you're doing in the sales arena

so that they can both improve their personal and professional success in whatever aspect that might be? How do they go about doing that, mate? Mate, listen, I guess there's two parts to this if you want to contact me. If you want to – if you're a business owner or you want to invest in yourself, the entourage is the place to go, okay? and just reach out to me at Peter, P-E-T-A-R-L, Peter Earl at the-entourage.com.au.

Yep. If you're an entrepreneur in a business and you want to get the assets and the skills of knowing what does it take to run a successful business or you're working in a business and you're thinking, you know what, I want to go and do my own thing, you need to reach out to Entourage and I'd love to chat to you about what we can do

to help you in that capacity yeah if you are heading up a business if you're a c-suite if you're in the business right now if you do anything to do with negotiation skills presentation skills or anything like that then um you can reach out to me on the same email address and just tell me what you want to talk about and i can either help decide is your entourage best or do you just need me to go into your business and reconstruct the sales process help you with a presentation one one one one to many um just go to that email address that's probably the best one right now and say hey i work in a business um we have a sales team can you chat to you about what you can do for us in that capacity but if you want to go and start a business just let me know and

i can filter you either way pretty mate absolutely awesome mate uh look i know you've got to go and catch a plane uh been awesome chatting to you mate i feel like we've only scratched the surface and i could talk to you all day and we'll do that it has the time's gone really really quickly I do plan to catch you in an hour and 15 minutes so we could get lost maybe we should do a part two someday we will mate, travel safe, we'll talk soon keep up the journey mate, awesome

look forward to it, thanks very much cheers buddy, bye well Freedom Fighters how good was that to get a summary of all this investment gold in the show notes, just email me on hello at khgroup.com.au that's H-E-L-L-O

at khgroup.com.au or check us out at www.bushymartin.com.au forward slash GetInvested. I look forward to joining you next week for another episode of the GetInvested podcast. So thanks for listening. And as always, dream as if you live forever and live as if you die tomorrow.