April 26, 2025 • 39 mins
Episode 84 Frederick Dudek (Freddy D) Copyright 2025 Prosperous Ventures, LLC
Purpose Meets Profit: James Wellington's Blueprint for Business Success
Building a business that not only thrives but also cultivates devoted fans is no small feat, and that's exactly what we unpack in this episode with James Wellington. He shares his personal journey from losing his mother at a young age to finding purpose in entrepreneurship, realizing that true freedom goes beyond just making money. James emphasizes the importance of aligning purpose with profit, showing how businesses can inspire loyalty through meaningful impact.
With his experience founding Australia's largest digital marketing school and now leading Amala Finance, he demonstrates how to turn transactions into transformations. If you're looking to create a brand that resonates deeply with customers and drives profits, this conversation is packed with actionable insights that you won't want to miss.
Discover more with our detailed show notes and exclusive content by visiting: https://bit.ly/4jTzfd6
Kindly Consider Supporting Our Show: Support Business Superfans Podcast
The essence of entrepreneurship lies in creating a brand that resonates with people on a deeper level. James Wellington, founder of Amala Finance, shares his journey from personal tragedy to professional triumph, illustrating how his experiences shaped his approach to business. He reflects on the importance of creating a movement within the small to medium enterprise sector, offering solutions that empower businesses to scale effectively. James discusses the importance of merging marketing, sales, and finance into a cohesive strategy that enables businesses to thrive.
He provides valuable insights on nurturing customer relationships and transforming clients into brand advocates. Through innovative approaches, such as providing free marketing resources and finance solutions, James aims to help entrepreneurs unlock their potential and achieve sustainable growth. This episode not only highlights the mechanics of building a successful business but also reinforces the significance of purpose and community in the entrepreneurial journey.
This podcast is hosted by Captivate, try it yourself for free.
Takeaways:
- Building a business that fosters loyalty requires aligning purpose with profit, creating lasting impact.
- A key takeaway from James Wellington's journey is that true freedom in entrepreneurship transcends monetary gain.
- Effective customer engagement hinges on nurturing relationships and ensuring consistent follow-ups to build trust.
- Combining marketing, sales, and finance is essential for small to medium-sized businesses aiming for scalable growth.
Links referenced in this episode:
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- Amala Finance
- Amala Agency
- F45US
- NordicTrack
- Smirnoff
- GoHighLevel
- Brian Tracy
- Dr. Joe Vitali
- Philip Kotler
- Elon Musk
Hey, superfan superstar, Freddie D here. Before we wrap, here's your three A playbook, attract, advocate, and Accelerate your Business Power Move for today.
So here's this episode's top insight:
You don't scale a brand by selling harder. You scale by transforming...
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(01:42):
Hey, Freddie D. Here. Whatdoes it take to build a business
that not only grows, butcreates raving fans at every level,
customers, teams andcommunities alike. In this episode
we chat with James Wellington,who has lived that journey firsthand.
After losing his mom at ayoung age, he struggled to find purpose.
(02:02):
James threw himself into semiprofessional rugby before turning
his competitive drive towardentrepreneurship and quickly realized
that the true freedom isn'tjust about making money. It's about
building businesses that alignpurpose with profit and inspire loyalty
through impact. From foundingAustralia's largest digital marketing
(02:25):
school, to scaling companiesbeyond seven figures, and now helping
entrepreneurs in small to midsized businesses accommodate their
financial needs to AmalaFinance, James has mastered the art
of turning transactions intotransformation. If you're ready to
build a brand people believein and grow profits while you're
at it, you're going to lovethis conversation.
(02:50):
Hello James from Amala Agencyall the way from Gold Coast, Australia.
Welcome to the BusinessSuperfans podcast. We're excited
to have you James.
Thanks so much for having me,Frederic. It's an honor to be here.
It's an honor for you to be onthe show. Tell us a little bit about
the backstory of what is AmalaAgency all about and more importantly,
(03:12):
how did you come up with Amala Agency?
Perfect. I'll start with theword because I think that's the thing
that most people reallyresonate when they understand the
words. In 2006 I lost mymother Amanda Laney due to breast
cancer. The word Amalaactually comes from anchor of her
name, Amanda Lani, a M A L AFor those listening on podcasts.
You would not be able to tellbut I am half Italian. The word Amala
(03:33):
is actually an Italian term,means to love and to love her in
Arabic, Hindu. It means beaconof hope. Beacon of light, wisdom
and hope. The name itself,Amala is very much about being a
beacon of light, wisdom andhope in an industry for small to
medium sized businesses allthe way through to large corporates.
The design of the business wasto create a movement for the SME
sector to understand thatthere are solutions out there that
(03:55):
can teach their business togrow from 0 to 6, 7, even 8 figures
and beyond which we've beenable to achieve and we want to pass
that wisdom back on to manyothers. It's very sentimental. It's
a large organization, we havemultiple solutions. So we're not
just a one stop shop. Wedefinitely have a lot of different
focuses for businesses andvery much about helping the small
to medium sized sector.
What kind of Services do youguys offer?
(04:18):
So we started out in digitalmarketing. I know your background
comes from SaaS. We have movedinto SaaS now alongside Finance and
Fintech. We actually builtAustralia's largest digital marketing
school with over 12,000students across Australia and New
Zealand. From there werealized there was a lot of other
things that businesses needed.Any good marketer knows that leads
are only as good as thesalespeople selling them. If my business
(04:38):
partner listens to this, he'llprobably beg to differ. We also created
a sales training agency andwork alongside people like Dr. Joe
Vitali, Brian Tracy, PhilipKotla. We do marketing, sales and
now we've actually moved intofinance. We realized that if you
combine marketing, sales andfinance fundamental to many small
to medium sized businesses, wewant to give them a running start.
We've brought in housesolutions offered as a service and
(05:02):
our motto is actually we makemoney alongside you. So using finance,
we get paid from the lenderwhich allows us to make money alongside
our clients by acceleratingtheir growth. So yeah, we do quite
a lot, but those are the threemain things.
Oh, that's pretty cool.Interesting. So let's go down the
road. First of the marketingaspect that you're doing and how
do you help SMBs, what are theservices that you're providing in
(05:25):
that space? We'll talk aboutall three of them.
Perfect. So what we do in themarketing sector is inside of our
finance portal. We've createda merchant portal and we've actually
given all of our assets forfree as part of a business solution
for small to medium sizedbusinesses to use. Some of my friends,
colleagues and businesspartners are very high up in the
marketing space. We've donemarketing for F45US, NordicTrack,
(05:45):
Smirnoff. They asked some ofthose guys to contribute to what
we call the community. They'vebought together some of the best
marketing resources to teachpeople. The digital component we
help people is that we bringthem in to utilize our finance, give
them the resources to startand grow their business. If they
need additional services. Wehave offers for marketing, agency
and sales. We use a systemcalled Go high level to simple SaaS
(06:07):
software. We chose because ofthe open API and open coding which
allowed us to connect to otherassets and widgets and we just give
a full business solution. Interms of marketing, I think a lot
of people are focusing onevery platform versus you know, hey,
get good at one, get some leadflow coming in and then watch your
business grow from there. Wegive a lot of our resources away
for free in order to help thebusiness grow.
(06:30):
Excellent. Yeah, I use thesame platform for managing my podcast
stuff, so I'm quite familiarwith the platform actually. Back
in 1986, dating myselfclearly, I wrote my own CRM system
using a relational database ona Mac. I had a backpack for my Mac
and I would take it tocompanies that I was selling some
(06:52):
manufacturing software to andwe would use Excel to create an ROI
of their investment. I wasinvolving them in creating the roi,
so they had ownership in it.It wasn't me, it was them. The point
I'm bringing up is that it'simportant to leverage technology,
especially in today'smarketplace, to grow your platform.
(07:15):
Product like ohighlevel is anexcellent platform that incorporates
a multitude of capabilitieswithin one platform. What I did back
in the day was just a veryrudimentary CRM system with name,
number, address and some notes.
Agreed, Agreed. I think withthe way technology is moving at the
moment, once upon a time youassume SaaS coding ITech comes as
(07:36):
all these things that are outof the reach of the everyday human.
I know we mentioned before westarted that you've been to Australia
a few times. I'm a countrykid, so I will definitely say my
limitations are codingtechnology. But I do own large fintech
company. I'm the typical CEOvisionary and I'd have a team that
implements. I'm like, is itpossible? You know, I remember watching
a video with Elon Musk onceand he always challenges his team
(07:57):
to do things and if they can'tdo it, he'll try to figure it himself
and he'll go and hire someoneelse till they say yes, they can
do it. That's pretty similarto myself. My team's always like,
you've got these crazyvisions, but through go high level,
a lot of the things I'm sayingpossible, which I love for anyone
starting out. It's so muchmore than just a CRM with all the
different plugins now. Itallows people to have a full business
solution without having to bean IT genius or a coder like you
(08:21):
mentioned.
Right. Well, that's what Ineeded to do at the time because
nothing existed Then I endedup using a system called pat. Wow.
I still remember it. Contacts,activity and times for automation.
Back then there was no emailthat existed, so I would create template
documents and use them asletters. When I would go out and
(08:42):
sell to somebody, I would senda follow up. Thank you for taking
the time out of your busy dayto meet with me. Would it be one
letter? You know, these sixpeople and poof, it'd be personalized
and then it would actuallymail it through the postal service,
a letter. And that was a gamechanger because nobody was doing
that.
Yeah, it's true. I think as Imentioned, we worked directly with
(09:03):
Brian Tracy. One thing Briansaid to me, and it's so simple, I've
been in sales for nearly eightyears now and it was one of the first
interactions we had. He alwaysgives us little gems of advice and
my whole team was writing allof this down. It's such a simple
philosophy. He said 80% of themoney's made in the follow up. It's
as simple as asking someone,hey, how have you experienced the
service? Have you enjoyed it?Would you refer it to anybody else?
(09:25):
And it's like fundamentally,you know, to do that. But in this
digital day and age, we're sofocused on new lead generation and
therefore it feels like weactually forget to, you know, like
you mentioned, become thatsuper fan, actually have that strategy
to get your clientsindoctrinated, to then bring more
people in. Because I foundevery single time we've bought a
referral in, we've literallyhad so much more money come in, the
(09:48):
sales have been a milliontimes easier and the social proof's
already there because you'vedelivered the service. A lot of people
are struggling in this day andage. And like you mentioned, just
that little simple follow up.I wonder how many people, if they
just spent some time nurturingtheir list or actually sending a
message or saying thank youfor your service, did you enjoy your
service? I wonder how muchmore business people could have.
(10:09):
So I 100% agree with that. Ithink it's such an important little
thing to just do those littletweaks and follow ups and no one
seems to do it even to thisday. A lot of people struggle with
it.
Because it's the mindset'stransactional. But I have met Brian
Tracy. Actually, if you go onmy website, you'll see a picture
of me and him. He was in ameeting and we ended up getting a
little room in a restaurantand was a great session with him.
(10:32):
Super nice guy. I got somegreat tips out of him. But going
back to the engagement, one ofthe things that I talk about in my
book as well as when I'mcoaching some people is the sale
really isn't what people thinkthe sale is. In my mind, the sale
begins at the onboarding. Thepaperwork is the deal. The real sale
(10:56):
is the whole onboardingprocess. The whole customer experience
is the technology they'reUsing going to work for them because
that sets the precedent. Ifyou've got the right expectations,
you set up the right plans forpeople, especially for the workforce,
because they've got a targeton their backs. A guy that spent
the money and the technologysays, okay, how come you're not making
(11:17):
any money with this stuff yet?So if you set up the proper expectations
that a lot of people don't do,they just think, well, I got the
deal and that's it. And thatin turn sets a whole dynamics that
now they become yoursuperfans. Because Freddie took the
light off the back of ourhead, we need to run two systems
(11:39):
concurrently. Run the oldsystem until you're bringing in the
new technology. Phase one out,then this one goes full time. That
whole onboarding and bringingthat customer on sets the tonality
for the relationship.
Agreed, Agreed. And I think aswe mentioned, your background being
SaaS and our current realityin SaaS, I think the most important
(12:00):
metric with any SaaS businessshould be every business's churn
rate. I think a lot of peopleare always looking at the roas and
this comes from a digitalmarketer that runs a digital marketing
school that's great for growthand scalability. But if you've got
a business that's relying uponpayment plans, subscriptions, I guess
wanting to become a superfan,you should be focused on the churn
rate and the attrition rate ofactually maintaining the customer
(12:22):
relationships. But also themetric that we very much focus on
from a marketing standpoint islifetime value. Like how many times
has the customer said yes tosomething else? And I think that's
where a lot of businessesstruggle is they look at cost per
acquisition, average ordervalue and roi, or roas. We call it
return on ad spend. Thosethree metrics, they're all front
end metrics, but we go fromscaling our business from zero to
(12:45):
over $700,000 per month. We'vedone about 50 million in the space
to date. In the online highticket education space, the metrics
that really mattered was thebackend lifetime value. We had customers
coming in from the front a $97low ticket course and have spent
over $100,000 with us becausethe experience was world class. And
I think that's where thesuperfan really comes in. That strategy
(13:08):
of how can you have people buyinto a mission and a vision that
they don't just want to betransactional but more transformational.
How can your businesstransform them from day one to day
672 years down the track? AndI think A lot of people lose sight
of that totally.
Because when I was sellinginto the manufacturing space and
(13:28):
I had what's called computeraided manufacturing software in the
CAD CAM market space, and I gointo a tool and die shop, I didn't
get into the features andfunctions of the software because
reality is, I tell the owner,says, okay, James, all the other
products do the job. Some willturn right, some will turn left,
(13:49):
some are blue, some are green.Where do you see yourself two, three,
five years from now? What'sthe biggest bottleneck in your business
that's costing you and holdingback? And why are you looking at
this technology? Theconversation switched. My style of
selling was business strategy.This is just a tool. But how can
(14:11):
I help you get to where youwant to go? No pain points. Were
scrapping metal. How much didthat metal cost you? 20 grand. How
many times you scrap thatmetal per year when the milling machine
doesn't cut it correctlybecause of some algorithm issues?
Four times a year. Okay, sothat's $80,000. If I could save you
two of those, you're in a pluscolumn, investing in my technology.
(14:35):
And then we would work out thewhole plan, laying out the whole
implementation process,running concurrently, making the
decision, training, setting upsystems, processes and procedures.
We worked the sale backwards.I said, well, James, based upon your
timeline that you justoutlined, you need to issue me that
PO in the next hour and you'dbe toast. What happened is that company
(14:59):
we talked about went from a 40man shop to 120 people. They bought
the building next door, builta breezeway between those two and
bought the building on theother side. It completely scaled.
They were my super fan towhere they would call other owners
and say, you know, you'redoing overflow from us. You need
(15:20):
to contact Freddy D. Here andget the same technology. And just
like you said earlier, theguys would call up and say, hey,
Jack says I need to get this.What's it going to cost me? How fast
can you get it in here? Thatwas it.
Yeah. The fundamentals ofbusiness always remain the same,
but the way in which peopleperceive business is what's changing.
(15:42):
And a lot of people are inthat day and age where it's like,
I love social media for thetool that it is for business, but
it's just that at tool, theaddiction towards vanity metrics,
like even when I say 12,000customers, I say that as a metric.
But what I'm really proud ofis the thousands of people that started
an agency, the thousands ofpeople that have replaced their full
time Income, the hundreds ofpeople that have done over multiple
(16:05):
six figures. Now when I reallylook for it, I look at the people
that genuinely benefited fromit. I think sometimes in my entrepreneurial
journey starting out, I wasvery much into that, you know, sales
sale. Since doing that, I knowwe've mentioned marketing so far,
we do have sales and finance.When we created our sales program,
I was focused on connection tothe why and to the who that it actually
becomes. So the future ofthat. Whereas a lot of the past experiences
(16:29):
in sales and again, I won'tname names and this isn't a stab
at anyone in the industry, buta lot of sales trainers are teaching
these days the what and thehow. They take people into it. How
would you feel if you didn'tmake this experience? It's like a
negative fear based sellingmodel versus you know, why does something
like this benefit you? Who doyou think this could help or how
could this be in the future?The how question could be used from
(16:50):
a negative or a positive. Weteach our team to really create that
emotional connection becauseanybody can get all the flashy bells
and whistles. We live in a dayand age. Your website looks amazing,
but what's the saying? It'snot too crude, but you can't polish
a turd is what we say here inAustralia, you know, and it's.
Like a turd's a turd.
I think that sometimes thething is people spend so much time
(17:11):
on social media, Instagram,Facebook, but realistically, the
business has no substance.It's like, can I see your testimonials?
Can I see your results? Andpeople won't do that. But you mentioned
that once you help thatbusiness grow, that's a true testament
of the system and the productyou provided. And that's where I
think a lot of people need toget to in this industry. This is
how much money I make. I callbusiness owners out that we work
(17:34):
with. So we actually let go ofclients if they're too much in their
ego. We're like, where areyour loyal customers? Where's your
reviews? Where's your results?We won't bring them on in the first
place. But if we work withthem for two or three months and
they don't have that and theydon't have testimonials and people
aren't willing to rebuy, wehave a basically a three strike rule
and we'll say, hey, work withyou. We don't just want to pump and
(17:55):
dump your business. I findthat a lot of the biggest thing I
call Clients out on is whenthey go and celebrate their new Lamborghini
or their new this, and theyliterally are just like rubbing it
in the face of their clientsand their product isn't where it
should be. I'm like, you'vebasically just showed your whole
client base that they boughtyou that and you haven't delivered
on your service. I reallydon't like. And again, I've got nice
(18:16):
cars and things like that. Butit's more for me, the product. I
really just think theproduct's so integral in a day and
age where everyone's focusedon the flash and the cash.
Well, it's also building thoserelationships because, for example,
that tool and I shop. I talkedabout when the IT guy was going through
a divorce, who was sitting atthe bar with him, listening to all
the challenges he was goingthrough? Me. Who listened to his
(18:39):
aspirations of where he wantedto grow in the company. Me. When
I would go to other tool anddie shops because I was a space I
was in for a while, I wouldsend a thank you letter to everybody.
The guys from the shop floorwho ran the milling machines and
everything else. I wouldacknowledge them. Hey, you know Dave.
(19:00):
Hey, Steve, thanks for takingthe time out of your busy day to
participate in your thing.Your feedback was greatly appreciated
and all that stuff. And whathappened was when I'd win the sale,
I'd ask, you know, why did youchoose us? And the response was overwhelming
most of the time. We felt thatafter the sale he would give us the
(19:21):
best support.
Yeah, it's so important. SoI've always, when I've tracked business
and sales, I'm a devoutChristian myself, a believer. I've
always said to myself, howwould I want to be treated? Do unto
others as you would want doneto yourself. I always try to find
an avatar of a family memberthat I'm speaking with and be like,
if I'm talking to a lady or aman, how would my uncle be sold?
(19:42):
How would my dad be sold? Howwill my auntie be sold? I always
try to get into that emotionof if that person was my family member
and I'll watching someone elsesell them, honoured in what they're
doing. And if I could seeobjectively is that person doing
the right thing, I'd be like,you know, that's the way I've always
tracked sales. I'm like, wouldI want this done to a family member?
What I'm doing right now?Like, am I selling the right thing?
(20:02):
So it's those little 1percenters and I think that doesn't
go unnoticed. I like to putreminders of clients that I've worked
with. I put notes in CRMinside of GoHighLevel. I put reminders
for their birthday. We can useautomations these days. We've had
over 60,000 customers, so I'monly one person, but I'll just put
a reminder. And we have abirthday reminder text that goes
out just to say, hey, happyBirthday. Find that out on their
(20:25):
onboarding call.
The little things are the bigthings. That's what people don't
realize. Going to the bar,listening to him going through divorce
was a little thing, but forhim it was the world because it was
somebody that he liked, hetrusted, and was not related to family
in any way. It was just afriend. And I had become a friend.
(20:45):
Actually, the last time I wentto that shop, they wouldn't let me
in. They were holding the doorclosed. I'm going, what's up, dude?
And they're like, man, everytime you walk in there, you cost
us a hundred grand. You know,the bottom line was their business
had exploded. So it was justthem making fun of me, which is cool.
Yeah, sales is everything Ikind of like to look at. I don't
(21:06):
look at selling people. I getpeople to buy. That's the outlook
I'd look at. If it was yourfamily member, how would you like
them to feel? One of thethings I've learned over years in
sales and building businessesis it's really about your team. Because,
you know, Michael Jordan, oneof the greatest basketball players
(21:27):
in the world, couldn't do itby himself. He needed the team to
win all those championships. Ithink a lot of business owners have
a mindset and you probably runacross this, that I'm giving you
a job, you should be thankfulI'm giving you a job versus you should
be thankful that you got theperson that's taking a job away from
(21:47):
you so you can focus on doingsomething else. And that's the only
way you can grow, right?
Agreed. Again, going back to,you know, referencing the Bible,
one thing we very much live byin our organization is not using
the term visionary, becausethat's singular. We reference vision
casting. What I like to do isincorporate all of our team. Having
a vision within a visionreally grows and accelerates and
(22:08):
has had pretty exponentialgrowth, to be honest with you. But
it comes from a team having avision alongside side so alongside
a vision. Because if it's avisionary, it's singular. And sometimes
as a boss, you can see thatyou know I'm your employer and this
and that versus how are youcreating independent leaders inside
of an organization? So Ialways say to my team, we've got
a lot of team in thePhilippines. Being in SAS and tech,
(22:29):
there's some amazing teammembers from the Philippines. Basically,
I'm like, do not call me boss.It's just James, do not think that
it's my way or the highway. Ican't see everything. I can get very
tunnel vision focused. But ifI have you alongside me casting a
vision of how you see it,we'll spend more time in workshopping
than actually getting done. Sowe always workshop a lot. I've noticed
(22:49):
that all the big techcompanies do it. I have a few friends
that have worked inside Metaand Google and they'll workshop for
eight hours and doimplementation for an hour. We very
much focus on.
You could collapse the whole process.
Exactly. And so we'll bringtogether our team versus getting
fully indoctrinated in a taskthat might be weeks and months on
end. Will take checks and say,hey, how do you guys see this right
(23:11):
now? My team, it might be dayone or been with me for five years,
which some of my team havebeen. We keep our team for a long
time because they love ourenvironment. But I'll say to them,
it doesn't matter if it's yourfirst day or your thousandth day.
What do you say that I maynot. And they always, especially
the day one people, oh, I'm alittle bit, you know, nervous, but
I say, what do you see that Imay not? And they really have just
(23:33):
found their voice. One thing Ilove and it's really started to be
apparent with our vision andmission. Having lost Mum, our mission
is to lead to the eradicationof cancer. I want to bring people
together and start to wipe outthese diseases. My partner lost her
father. Mia was diagnosed withhiv. So cancer and HIV are two of
our big things. We want tolead to the eradication of. My team
now will say, I'll see one ofthe guys in the Philippines. It's
(23:54):
like 2am My time. So they'retwo hours by midnight. And I'm like,
what were you doing lastnight? And they were like, I was
working. I was just gettingthis project done. I'm like, yeah,
but that's not your day. Andthey said it's for a mala. And it's
really apparent that they'vebought into that mission of the business.
And they just say furamala.And I'm like, that's how we know
we're on the right track.
What you've got is you'vecreated super fans of your team.
(24:16):
That energy and that tonalityand that mindset trend. That's why
you guys are scaling sosuccessfully, because your team is
empowered. When you're talkingto prospective customers or existing
customers, that energy comesacross. Right. It's contagious because
(24:38):
if you reach out to someoneand get an email and you can tell,
you can see how the wordingis, or you have a phone conversation
and someone says, yeah, hi,can I help you? Yeah, you know that
they're not having a good day,they're not excited and everything
else. And you're going to go,I'm not sure about that business
or that place. And again, goesback to little things or big things.
(25:00):
And you've gotten someoneputting extra effort above and beyond.
That's someone that loveswhere they're working and they're
a super fan and they'retelling everybody about what a great
company they're working at.And again, you can't buy that kind
of pr.
(25:20):
Yeah. My friends in Australiamake the joke like, you're like the
king of the Philippines.Because whenever anyone needs a virtual
assistant, I Eileen, she'llhear this because she'll be part
of the editing team. I callher my boss. She's been with me for
nearly seven years now. Sheknows everything about my life, everything
about her business. Eileen'salways like, can we hire someone
new? And then she'll show meher DMs. And it would be flooded
with, can I come work for yourcompany? Can I come work for your
(25:42):
company? Because that's wherewe've been able to build that culture.
Even in the beginning, whenfinances were tight, I remember reading
a book, leaders Eat Last. Ifyou've read that book or heard of
that book before, it's a greatethos and philosophy, but also there's
legacy, which is about the AllBlacks, which you mentioned. Before
we started inside of the AllBlacks organization, what would happen
is that the captain, RichieMcCord, Dan Carter, and Tana Utman,
(26:04):
three of the greatest allbacksof all time. I used to play rugby
in my younger days, so thiswas the best book for me to read
coming into business. Thecaptains would sweep the sheds, so
the captains would sweep thesheds, so it wasn't rugby. If we
get covered in mud and dirtand everyone has tape all over them,
it's a messy change room, butthe captains would actually sweep
the sheds. When I startedbusiness, it was like, james, you'll
(26:24):
sweep the sheds. You need tosweep the sheds. If you're the captain
or the leader of this company,you sweep the sheds. And that's really
covered through our wholeorganization. Even in the beginning
when finances were tight, Iwas like, I'm not going to just skim
this business for profits. I'mgoing to sit there and make sure
everybody's got incentives,getting bonuses, Christmas time,
Christmas parties. Even if itisn't financially where it needs
(26:45):
to be, I'll still make sureeveryone else eats first. So that's
one thing I think a lot ofbusinesses I've seen make. The mistake
is it's like the employeesdispensable versus they're irreplaceable.
When they become a super fan,like you mentioned, they're irreplaceable.
I get so upset when someoneleaves and I don't ever beg. I always
want them to go on theirjourney and do what they want to
do with their life. But I loveour team and I think it's such an
(27:08):
important thing to really havethat asset of super fans in your
organization like you mentioned.
Yeah. One thing aboutmanagement is that as a manager or
as an executive in thecompany, your job is really to make
sure that your team issuccessful. That's it. You make sure
that they're successful.You're the conduit between executive
(27:31):
management. If they needsomething, they tell you, you go
to executive management andyou help them be successful. If you
take care of your team,they'll take care of you. You don't
have to worry about yourself.It's automatic.
Agreed.
So let's talk about the thirdquadrant here which we talked about
(27:51):
finance. Tell me a little bitabout how you guys help businesses
via finance.
I think I really pulled backthe veil on what I've been able to
have success with mycompanies. I've had multiple seven
figure companies and two eightfigure businesses. I really sat down
at the core of it all and itwas the ability to access money for
ourselves, our clients.Coincidentally, the number plate
(28:11):
on my car is PIF stands forpaid in full sales. You know, I was
the CRO of the digitalmarketing school, so my partner Scott
was CEO. So you know, had thatidentity of a paid in full sale.
But when you let go of the egoand you look at the businesses objectively,
you realize it wasn't the paidin full sales. It was the ability
to access cash flow and makethings financially affordable. I
(28:31):
remember the first time I dida 100k deal in online high ticket
in online coaching. That's abig deal. It was because we had finance
so we could package up theseservices and make it affordable without
depleting cash and having12,000 students and rediscovering
God and coming back to faith.I just want to help small businesses
have the best opportunity togrow and scale. And I realize that
(28:52):
a lot of people would love abusiness doing 20,000amonth, but
they think it's such bigstretch. Do I do SaaS and sign people
up for 97amonth? Do I docoaching where it's 2000amonth? When
you pull back the numbers, ifyou can offer a service between 5
to $10,000 and genuinely makeit affordable and get your customer
a great result, you're onlyneeding to do two to four sales a
(29:14):
month and you have a businessdoing a quarter of a million dollars
per year. When you contributethat to lead flow and everything
else, what we've decided todo, and it hasn't really been done
before in the industry,especially in coaching, holding onto
the guru and they want to beseen as the expert. Tony Robbins
was the first to say, I'm notyour guru, I don't want to be your
guru. But I wanted to offer anobvious solution. We have finance
(29:35):
here in Australia, New Zealandand the US and we're about to open
up the uk. What we're doing isfinance for free for all clients
to use for their businesses.We get paid through the lender by
providing the services atfinance broker a small subscription
which just covers a couple ofbills for the team. We don't pay
our staff members for being insdr, but we ideally are giving away
(29:55):
all of our resources. If I cangive someone finance, teach them
everything we used to chargethousands of dollars for for marketing,
teach everything in terms ofsales. If they can get a lead, convert
that lead, place them intofinance, we can genuinely help over
10,000 people create a sixfigure business rather than we're
a billion dollar company. I'dlove to be able to say created billions
(30:17):
of dollars through ourclients. You spoke about superfans
and we speak about it all.Obviously the theme of the podcast
we had mission 10,000 for ourschool and it was, you know, 10,000
certified marketers. We did12,000 this time around. I'm like,
I want to help 10,000 smallbusinesses utilize a system of marketing,
sales and finance to grow asuccessful six figure business so
(30:38):
they can have time, freedomfor their family, look back in two,
three years time and be likewe did that. Finance to me is the
way to not just treat it likefinance, but treat it like a system,
if that makes sense.
Oh, it does make sense becausethat's usually one of the things
that kills a lot of companies.They're living invoice to invoice
and you get a situation wheresomeone decides to slow pay you,
(31:01):
your cash flow just completelygets screwed up. Especially if you
didn't have any extra cushionand you were counting on that invoice,
you've got teams to pay andsuppliers to pay and everything else.
It's detrimental.
Yeah, it is, it is. And thenbecause we've attached the software
(31:22):
to it through go high level,we've actually built out the CRM,
the system. So it's everythinga business would need. So it's like
everything I need to start mybusiness. So it's a full business
solution and finance being thedriving key because if you can, like
you said, slow pace, paymentplans can be the killers of business,
especially in the online worldthat a lot of us are operating in
these days. Unless you want tobe that company that follows them
(31:44):
up and sends them to debtcollectors and do all that nasty
stuff that nobody wants to do,but you have to when you've delivered
a service. And I think for alot of people especially, I've got
a lot of mates in trade, youknow, all it takes is one or two
invoices not getting paid, theperson not returning their calls
or literally avoiding them atall costs and they're laying staff
off. So it's like if you canget finance, which means you can
(32:06):
de risk your business, butmore importantly you can increase
your cash flow and make itmore affordable for your customers.
So what we've done as well isthat once a client becomes an active
referral partner, our visionis to lead to the eradication of
cancer and HIV and many othersicknesses, illnesses. And whether
we get rid of things in thisworld, I want to do good in this
world. So once someone becomesan active referral partner, from
(32:28):
our 97amonth subscriptions,that's USD, we actually then are
going to donate once theystart referring $100 from that 97
straight to a charity ofchoice. The goal is 10,000 active
referral partners. So we cangive a million dollars a month. Collective
community input will equalcollective community output. Like
you're stronger together, youknow, and that superfan, this is
(32:50):
exactly what we're talkingabout. I'm so grateful to have been
on here today because what youbelieve is exactly what I believe.
And it's a mission far beyondthat. Ourselves, you know, we want
to bring.
It'S really empowerment, whatwe're doing is we're empowering people
to empower other people. Onceyou've got those people empowered,
phenomenal things happen. Justlike you described. You've got your
(33:11):
guy at midnight in Singapore.I remember I've shared a story several
times, but it drives the pointhome. We were prepping for a presentation
and it was about midnight.Presentation is following morning.
We got to present anddemonstrate our software designing
the customer's part. You can'tjust. They want to see how it works
for their stuff, not the dogand pony show. It is about midnight,
(33:36):
and our manager walks in witha couple of pijits and some beers.
He sits down with us and wehave some pizza and a couple of beers.
He basically goes, I know youguys are going to stay late. Don't
stay late, but you're going tostay late. Appreciate you guys. And
then left. But the fact thathe showed up was monumental. We did
(33:57):
the presentation the nextmorning. We all crashed at the office,
did the wash in the bathroom,switched into our suits and all that
stuff. And at the end of thepresentation, it was a Thursday afternoon.
We're all done. He goes, allright, guys, looks like it all went
well. I'll see you guysMonday. Get out of here.
It's the best. It's little things.
And I remember it's probablyabout the 12th time I shared that
(34:20):
story, but you know how manypeople you see do that anymore?
Yeah, it's so true. And it'sthose little, you know, because they
say that the core memories ofdevelopment are from 0 to 6 years
of age. But I don't believeour innocence and childlike nature
ever goes away. So whensomeone treats you with respect,
that's the biggest thing inthe world. You remember that I'm
exactly the same. I canremember times where I had bad bosses
(34:42):
and when I had great bosses. Istrive to be that person that leaves
those core memories of team.We've had team leave and just be
like, hey, I made a mistake.Can I come back? I'm like, we don't
have anything at the moment,but you'll be the first that we that
now we've actually bought teamback in. And I know that's where
everyone's like, don't dothat. But it's like, I don't believe
anyone ever leaves on theirown accord through malice. I believe
(35:02):
they either haven't been heardor they are trying to accelerate
their own future. And that'swhere I always say to my team, right
there, I think, who am I tolimit someone else's future potential.
That's what I always say tomyself. Everyone makes it personal
and I'm a big vision thinkerand I want visionaries alongside
me. So when someone says I'mgoing to do this on my own, I'm like,
good luck. If you need me toendorse something, if you need support,
(35:24):
let me know. I've got theresources. We always strive to do
that. It hurts at first,especially when they've been with
you for a long time. But whenyou get out of the ego and out of
the look at poor old me andgo, hey, get.
Yourself out of your own way.
Exactly. Exactly.
James, as we come to the endhere, how can people find you?
(35:46):
The easiest way is throughInstagram. If people connect with
me on social media, it's atjameswellingtonofficial or our main
website is amalafinance.comare building our new website because
we have expanded our finance.I've got Amala Group, my team's currently
building that out because Ican be quite spontaneous and having
visionaries in yourorganization, we tend to build a
(36:06):
few other things. We've gotbookkeeping services, a lot of other
things coming, butamala.finance.com au is probably
the easiest way.
Excellent. And then do youhave something for our listeners?
So if anyone comes throughthere and they mention that in the
notes, you can get access tothe finance company. We do 30 free
trial. You don't have to stayon past the trial. We guarantee you
(36:26):
will get a funded applicationwithin your first month. If you don't,
there's no obligation to stay.We only fund deals 5,000 and above.
It's 97amonth, so it's like a6x guarantee. So basically if you
get a deal in your firstmonth, we guarantee we'll help you
five to six extra investments.We're here to help people grow and
achieve the life they deserve.
James, we've had a greatconversation, great insight. It's
(36:49):
great for our listeners and welook forward to having you on the
show down the road again.
Appreciate it. Thanks so muchfor having me.
Hey, superfan superstarFreddie D. Here before we wrap, here's
your three A playbook Attract,advocate and accelerate your business
power move for today. Sohere's this episode's top insight.
(37:12):
You don't scale a brand byselling harder. You scale by transforming
customers into believers whochampion your mission alongside of
you.
You.
So here's your business growthaction step Design one customer experience
upgrade this week that makescustomers feel like mission driven.
Insiders, not just transactions.
(37:36):
If Today's conversationsparked an idea for you share with
the fellow business leader whowould benefit and grab the full breakdown
in the show notes. Let'saccelerate together and start creating
business superfans who notonly champion your brand but accelerate
your growth.
Hey, Freddie D. Here. Whatdoes it take to build a business
that not only grows, butcreates raving fans at every level,
customers, teams andcommunities alike. In this episode
we chat with James Wellington,who has lived that journey firsthand.
After losing his mom at ayoung age, he struggled to find purpose.
(02:02):
James threw himself into semiprofessional rugby before turning
his competitive drive towardentrepreneurship and quickly realized
that the true freedom isn'tjust about making money. It's about
building businesses that alignpurpose with profit and inspire loyalty
through impact. From foundingAustralia's largest digital marketing
(02:25):
school, to scaling companiesbeyond seven figures, and now helping
entrepreneurs in small to midsized businesses accommodate their
financial needs to AmalaFinance, James has mastered the art
of turning transactions intotransformation. If you're ready to
build a brand people believein and grow profits while you're
at it, you're going to lovethis conversation.
(02:50):
Hello James from Amala Agencyall the way from Gold Coast, Australia.
Welcome to the BusinessSuperfans podcast. We're excited
to have you James.
Thanks so much for having me,Frederic. It's an honor to be here.
It's an honor for you to be onthe show. Tell us a little bit about
the backstory of what is AmalaAgency all about and more importantly,
(03:12):
how did you come up with Amala Agency?
Perfect. I'll start with theword because I think that's the thing
that most people reallyresonate when they understand the
words. In 2006 I lost mymother Amanda Laney due to breast
cancer. The word Amalaactually comes from anchor of her
name, Amanda Lani, a M A L AFor those listening on podcasts.
You would not be able to tellbut I am half Italian. The word Amala
(03:33):
is actually an Italian term,means to love and to love her in
Arabic, Hindu. It means beaconof hope. Beacon of light, wisdom
and hope. The name itself,Amala is very much about being a
beacon of light, wisdom andhope in an industry for small to
medium sized businesses allthe way through to large corporates.
The design of the business wasto create a movement for the SME
sector to understand thatthere are solutions out there that
(03:55):
can teach their business togrow from 0 to 6, 7, even 8 figures
and beyond which we've beenable to achieve and we want to pass
that wisdom back on to manyothers. It's very sentimental. It's
a large organization, we havemultiple solutions. So we're not
just a one stop shop. Wedefinitely have a lot of different
focuses for businesses andvery much about helping the small
to medium sized sector.
What kind of Services do youguys offer?
(04:18):
So we started out in digitalmarketing. I know your background
comes from SaaS. We have movedinto SaaS now alongside Finance and
Fintech. We actually builtAustralia's largest digital marketing
school with over 12,000students across Australia and New
Zealand. From there werealized there was a lot of other
things that businesses needed.Any good marketer knows that leads
are only as good as thesalespeople selling them. If my business
(04:38):
partner listens to this, he'llprobably beg to differ. We also created
a sales training agency andwork alongside people like Dr. Joe
Vitali, Brian Tracy, PhilipKotla. We do marketing, sales and
now we've actually moved intofinance. We realized that if you
combine marketing, sales andfinance fundamental to many small
to medium sized businesses, wewant to give them a running start.
We've brought in housesolutions offered as a service and
(05:02):
our motto is actually we makemoney alongside you. So using finance,
we get paid from the lenderwhich allows us to make money alongside
our clients by acceleratingtheir growth. So yeah, we do quite
a lot, but those are the threemain things.
Oh, that's pretty cool.Interesting. So let's go down the
road. First of the marketingaspect that you're doing and how
do you help SMBs, what are theservices that you're providing in
(05:25):
that space? We'll talk aboutall three of them.
Perfect. So what we do in themarketing sector is inside of our
finance portal. We've createda merchant portal and we've actually
given all of our assets forfree as part of a business solution
for small to medium sizedbusinesses to use. Some of my friends,
colleagues and businesspartners are very high up in the
marketing space. We've donemarketing for F45US, NordicTrack,
(05:45):
Smirnoff. They asked some ofthose guys to contribute to what
we call the community. They'vebought together some of the best
marketing resources to teachpeople. The digital component we
help people is that we bringthem in to utilize our finance, give
them the resources to startand grow their business. If they
need additional services. Wehave offers for marketing, agency
and sales. We use a systemcalled Go high level to simple SaaS
(06:07):
software. We chose because ofthe open API and open coding which
allowed us to connect to otherassets and widgets and we just give
a full business solution. Interms of marketing, I think a lot
of people are focusing onevery platform versus you know, hey,
get good at one, get some leadflow coming in and then watch your
business grow from there. Wegive a lot of our resources away
for free in order to help thebusiness grow.
(06:30):
Excellent. Yeah, I use thesame platform for managing my podcast
stuff, so I'm quite familiarwith the platform actually. Back
in 1986, dating myselfclearly, I wrote my own CRM system
using a relational database ona Mac. I had a backpack for my Mac
and I would take it tocompanies that I was selling some
(06:52):
manufacturing software to andwe would use Excel to create an ROI
of their investment. I wasinvolving them in creating the roi,
so they had ownership in it.It wasn't me, it was them. The point
I'm bringing up is that it'simportant to leverage technology,
especially in today'smarketplace, to grow your platform.
(07:15):
Product like ohighlevel is anexcellent platform that incorporates
a multitude of capabilitieswithin one platform. What I did back
in the day was just a veryrudimentary CRM system with name,
number, address and some notes.
Agreed, Agreed. I think withthe way technology is moving at the
moment, once upon a time youassume SaaS coding ITech comes as
(07:36):
all these things that are outof the reach of the everyday human.
I know we mentioned before westarted that you've been to Australia
a few times. I'm a countrykid, so I will definitely say my
limitations are codingtechnology. But I do own large fintech
company. I'm the typical CEOvisionary and I'd have a team that
implements. I'm like, is itpossible? You know, I remember watching
a video with Elon Musk onceand he always challenges his team
(07:57):
to do things and if they can'tdo it, he'll try to figure it himself
and he'll go and hire someoneelse till they say yes, they can
do it. That's pretty similarto myself. My team's always like,
you've got these crazyvisions, but through go high level,
a lot of the things I'm sayingpossible, which I love for anyone
starting out. It's so muchmore than just a CRM with all the
different plugins now. Itallows people to have a full business
solution without having to bean IT genius or a coder like you
(08:21):
mentioned.
Right. Well, that's what Ineeded to do at the time because
nothing existed Then I endedup using a system called pat. Wow.
I still remember it. Contacts,activity and times for automation.
Back then there was no emailthat existed, so I would create template
documents and use them asletters. When I would go out and
(08:42):
sell to somebody, I would senda follow up. Thank you for taking
the time out of your busy dayto meet with me. Would it be one
letter? You know, these sixpeople and poof, it'd be personalized
and then it would actuallymail it through the postal service,
a letter. And that was a gamechanger because nobody was doing
that.
Yeah, it's true. I think as Imentioned, we worked directly with
(09:03):
Brian Tracy. One thing Briansaid to me, and it's so simple, I've
been in sales for nearly eightyears now and it was one of the first
interactions we had. He alwaysgives us little gems of advice and
my whole team was writing allof this down. It's such a simple
philosophy. He said 80% of themoney's made in the follow up. It's
as simple as asking someone,hey, how have you experienced the
service? Have you enjoyed it?Would you refer it to anybody else?
(09:25):
And it's like fundamentally,you know, to do that. But in this
digital day and age, we're sofocused on new lead generation and
therefore it feels like weactually forget to, you know, like
you mentioned, become thatsuper fan, actually have that strategy
to get your clientsindoctrinated, to then bring more
people in. Because I foundevery single time we've bought a
referral in, we've literallyhad so much more money come in, the
(09:48):
sales have been a milliontimes easier and the social proof's
already there because you'vedelivered the service. A lot of people
are struggling in this day andage. And like you mentioned, just
that little simple follow up.I wonder how many people, if they
just spent some time nurturingtheir list or actually sending a
message or saying thank youfor your service, did you enjoy your
service? I wonder how muchmore business people could have.
(10:09):
So I 100% agree with that. Ithink it's such an important little
thing to just do those littletweaks and follow ups and no one
seems to do it even to thisday. A lot of people struggle with
it.
Because it's the mindset'stransactional. But I have met Brian
Tracy. Actually, if you go onmy website, you'll see a picture
of me and him. He was in ameeting and we ended up getting a
little room in a restaurantand was a great session with him.
(10:32):
Super nice guy. I got somegreat tips out of him. But going
back to the engagement, one ofthe things that I talk about in my
book as well as when I'mcoaching some people is the sale
really isn't what people thinkthe sale is. In my mind, the sale
begins at the onboarding. Thepaperwork is the deal. The real sale
(10:56):
is the whole onboardingprocess. The whole customer experience
is the technology they'reUsing going to work for them because
that sets the precedent. Ifyou've got the right expectations,
you set up the right plans forpeople, especially for the workforce,
because they've got a targeton their backs. A guy that spent
the money and the technologysays, okay, how come you're not making
(11:17):
any money with this stuff yet?So if you set up the proper expectations
that a lot of people don't do,they just think, well, I got the
deal and that's it. And thatin turn sets a whole dynamics that
now they become yoursuperfans. Because Freddie took the
light off the back of ourhead, we need to run two systems
(11:39):
concurrently. Run the oldsystem until you're bringing in the
new technology. Phase one out,then this one goes full time. That
whole onboarding and bringingthat customer on sets the tonality
for the relationship.
Agreed, Agreed. And I think aswe mentioned, your background being
SaaS and our current realityin SaaS, I think the most important
(12:00):
metric with any SaaS businessshould be every business's churn
rate. I think a lot of peopleare always looking at the roas and
this comes from a digitalmarketer that runs a digital marketing
school that's great for growthand scalability. But if you've got
a business that's relying uponpayment plans, subscriptions, I guess
wanting to become a superfan,you should be focused on the churn
rate and the attrition rate ofactually maintaining the customer
(12:22):
relationships. But also themetric that we very much focus on
from a marketing standpoint islifetime value. Like how many times
has the customer said yes tosomething else? And I think that's
where a lot of businessesstruggle is they look at cost per
acquisition, average ordervalue and roi, or roas. We call it
return on ad spend. Thosethree metrics, they're all front
end metrics, but we go fromscaling our business from zero to
(12:45):
over $700,000 per month. We'vedone about 50 million in the space
to date. In the online highticket education space, the metrics
that really mattered was thebackend lifetime value. We had customers
coming in from the front a $97low ticket course and have spent
over $100,000 with us becausethe experience was world class. And
I think that's where thesuperfan really comes in. That strategy
(13:08):
of how can you have people buyinto a mission and a vision that
they don't just want to betransactional but more transformational.
How can your businesstransform them from day one to day
672 years down the track? AndI think A lot of people lose sight
of that totally.
Because when I was sellinginto the manufacturing space and
(13:28):
I had what's called computeraided manufacturing software in the
CAD CAM market space, and I gointo a tool and die shop, I didn't
get into the features andfunctions of the software because
reality is, I tell the owner,says, okay, James, all the other
products do the job. Some willturn right, some will turn left,
(13:49):
some are blue, some are green.Where do you see yourself two, three,
five years from now? What'sthe biggest bottleneck in your business
that's costing you and holdingback? And why are you looking at
this technology? Theconversation switched. My style of
selling was business strategy.This is just a tool. But how can
(14:11):
I help you get to where youwant to go? No pain points. Were
scrapping metal. How much didthat metal cost you? 20 grand. How
many times you scrap thatmetal per year when the milling machine
doesn't cut it correctlybecause of some algorithm issues?
Four times a year. Okay, sothat's $80,000. If I could save you
two of those, you're in a pluscolumn, investing in my technology.
(14:35):
And then we would work out thewhole plan, laying out the whole
implementation process,running concurrently, making the
decision, training, setting upsystems, processes and procedures.
We worked the sale backwards.I said, well, James, based upon your
timeline that you justoutlined, you need to issue me that
PO in the next hour and you'dbe toast. What happened is that company
(14:59):
we talked about went from a 40man shop to 120 people. They bought
the building next door, builta breezeway between those two and
bought the building on theother side. It completely scaled.
They were my super fan towhere they would call other owners
and say, you know, you'redoing overflow from us. You need
(15:20):
to contact Freddy D. Here andget the same technology. And just
like you said earlier, theguys would call up and say, hey,
Jack says I need to get this.What's it going to cost me? How fast
can you get it in here? Thatwas it.
Yeah. The fundamentals ofbusiness always remain the same,
but the way in which peopleperceive business is what's changing.
(15:42):
And a lot of people are inthat day and age where it's like,
I love social media for thetool that it is for business, but
it's just that at tool, theaddiction towards vanity metrics,
like even when I say 12,000customers, I say that as a metric.
But what I'm really proud ofis the thousands of people that started
an agency, the thousands ofpeople that have replaced their full
time Income, the hundreds ofpeople that have done over multiple
(16:05):
six figures. Now when I reallylook for it, I look at the people
that genuinely benefited fromit. I think sometimes in my entrepreneurial
journey starting out, I wasvery much into that, you know, sales
sale. Since doing that, I knowwe've mentioned marketing so far,
we do have sales and finance.When we created our sales program,
I was focused on connection tothe why and to the who that it actually
becomes. So the future ofthat. Whereas a lot of the past experiences
(16:29):
in sales and again, I won'tname names and this isn't a stab
at anyone in the industry, buta lot of sales trainers are teaching
these days the what and thehow. They take people into it. How
would you feel if you didn'tmake this experience? It's like a
negative fear based sellingmodel versus you know, why does something
like this benefit you? Who doyou think this could help or how
could this be in the future?The how question could be used from
(16:50):
a negative or a positive. Weteach our team to really create that
emotional connection becauseanybody can get all the flashy bells
and whistles. We live in a dayand age. Your website looks amazing,
but what's the saying? It'snot too crude, but you can't polish
a turd is what we say here inAustralia, you know, and it's.
Like a turd's a turd.
I think that sometimes thething is people spend so much time
(17:11):
on social media, Instagram,Facebook, but realistically, the
business has no substance.It's like, can I see your testimonials?
Can I see your results? Andpeople won't do that. But you mentioned
that once you help thatbusiness grow, that's a true testament
of the system and the productyou provided. And that's where I
think a lot of people need toget to in this industry. This is
how much money I make. I callbusiness owners out that we work
(17:34):
with. So we actually let go ofclients if they're too much in their
ego. We're like, where areyour loyal customers? Where's your
reviews? Where's your results?We won't bring them on in the first
place. But if we work withthem for two or three months and
they don't have that and theydon't have testimonials and people
aren't willing to rebuy, wehave a basically a three strike rule
and we'll say, hey, work withyou. We don't just want to pump and
(17:55):
dump your business. I findthat a lot of the biggest thing I
call Clients out on is whenthey go and celebrate their new Lamborghini
or their new this, and theyliterally are just like rubbing it
in the face of their clientsand their product isn't where it
should be. I'm like, you'vebasically just showed your whole
client base that they boughtyou that and you haven't delivered
on your service. I reallydon't like. And again, I've got nice
(18:16):
cars and things like that. Butit's more for me, the product. I
really just think theproduct's so integral in a day and
age where everyone's focusedon the flash and the cash.
Well, it's also building thoserelationships because, for example,
that tool and I shop. I talkedabout when the IT guy was going through
a divorce, who was sitting atthe bar with him, listening to all
the challenges he was goingthrough? Me. Who listened to his
(18:39):
aspirations of where he wantedto grow in the company. Me. When
I would go to other tool anddie shops because I was a space I
was in for a while, I wouldsend a thank you letter to everybody.
The guys from the shop floorwho ran the milling machines and
everything else. I wouldacknowledge them. Hey, you know Dave.
(19:00):
Hey, Steve, thanks for takingthe time out of your busy day to
participate in your thing.Your feedback was greatly appreciated
and all that stuff. And whathappened was when I'd win the sale,
I'd ask, you know, why did youchoose us? And the response was overwhelming
most of the time. We felt thatafter the sale he would give us the
(19:21):
best support.
Yeah, it's so important. SoI've always, when I've tracked business
and sales, I'm a devoutChristian myself, a believer. I've
always said to myself, howwould I want to be treated? Do unto
others as you would want doneto yourself. I always try to find
an avatar of a family memberthat I'm speaking with and be like,
if I'm talking to a lady or aman, how would my uncle be sold?
(19:42):
How would my dad be sold? Howwill my auntie be sold? I always
try to get into that emotionof if that person was my family member
and I'll watching someone elsesell them, honoured in what they're
doing. And if I could seeobjectively is that person doing
the right thing, I'd be like,you know, that's the way I've always
tracked sales. I'm like, wouldI want this done to a family member?
What I'm doing right now?Like, am I selling the right thing?
(20:02):
So it's those little 1percenters and I think that doesn't
go unnoticed. I like to putreminders of clients that I've worked
with. I put notes in CRMinside of GoHighLevel. I put reminders
for their birthday. We can useautomations these days. We've had
over 60,000 customers, so I'monly one person, but I'll just put
a reminder. And we have abirthday reminder text that goes
out just to say, hey, happyBirthday. Find that out on their
(20:25):
onboarding call.
The little things are the bigthings. That's what people don't
realize. Going to the bar,listening to him going through divorce
was a little thing, but forhim it was the world because it was
somebody that he liked, hetrusted, and was not related to family
in any way. It was just afriend. And I had become a friend.
(20:45):
Actually, the last time I wentto that shop, they wouldn't let me
in. They were holding the doorclosed. I'm going, what's up, dude?
And they're like, man, everytime you walk in there, you cost
us a hundred grand. You know,the bottom line was their business
had exploded. So it was justthem making fun of me, which is cool.
Yeah, sales is everything Ikind of like to look at. I don't
(21:06):
look at selling people. I getpeople to buy. That's the outlook
I'd look at. If it was yourfamily member, how would you like
them to feel? One of thethings I've learned over years in
sales and building businessesis it's really about your team. Because,
you know, Michael Jordan, oneof the greatest basketball players
(21:27):
in the world, couldn't do itby himself. He needed the team to
win all those championships. Ithink a lot of business owners have
a mindset and you probably runacross this, that I'm giving you
a job, you should be thankfulI'm giving you a job versus you should
be thankful that you got theperson that's taking a job away from
(21:47):
you so you can focus on doingsomething else. And that's the only
way you can grow, right?
Agreed. Again, going back to,you know, referencing the Bible,
one thing we very much live byin our organization is not using
the term visionary, becausethat's singular. We reference vision
casting. What I like to do isincorporate all of our team. Having
a vision within a visionreally grows and accelerates and
(22:08):
has had pretty exponentialgrowth, to be honest with you. But
it comes from a team having avision alongside side so alongside
a vision. Because if it's avisionary, it's singular. And sometimes
as a boss, you can see thatyou know I'm your employer and this
and that versus how are youcreating independent leaders inside
of an organization? So Ialways say to my team, we've got
a lot of team in thePhilippines. Being in SAS and tech,
(22:29):
there's some amazing teammembers from the Philippines. Basically,
I'm like, do not call me boss.It's just James, do not think that
it's my way or the highway. Ican't see everything. I can get very
tunnel vision focused. But ifI have you alongside me casting a
vision of how you see it,we'll spend more time in workshopping
than actually getting done. Sowe always workshop a lot. I've noticed
(22:49):
that all the big techcompanies do it. I have a few friends
that have worked inside Metaand Google and they'll workshop for
eight hours and doimplementation for an hour. We very
much focus on.
You could collapse the whole process.
Exactly. And so we'll bringtogether our team versus getting
fully indoctrinated in a taskthat might be weeks and months on
end. Will take checks and say,hey, how do you guys see this right
(23:11):
now? My team, it might be dayone or been with me for five years,
which some of my team havebeen. We keep our team for a long
time because they love ourenvironment. But I'll say to them,
it doesn't matter if it's yourfirst day or your thousandth day.
What do you say that I maynot. And they always, especially
the day one people, oh, I'm alittle bit, you know, nervous, but
I say, what do you see that Imay not? And they really have just
(23:33):
found their voice. One thing Ilove and it's really started to be
apparent with our vision andmission. Having lost Mum, our mission
is to lead to the eradicationof cancer. I want to bring people
together and start to wipe outthese diseases. My partner lost her
father. Mia was diagnosed withhiv. So cancer and HIV are two of
our big things. We want tolead to the eradication of. My team
now will say, I'll see one ofthe guys in the Philippines. It's
(23:54):
like 2am My time. So they'retwo hours by midnight. And I'm like,
what were you doing lastnight? And they were like, I was
working. I was just gettingthis project done. I'm like, yeah,
but that's not your day. Andthey said it's for a mala. And it's
really apparent that they'vebought into that mission of the business.
And they just say furamala.And I'm like, that's how we know
we're on the right track.
What you've got is you'vecreated super fans of your team.
(24:16):
That energy and that tonalityand that mindset trend. That's why
you guys are scaling sosuccessfully, because your team is
empowered. When you're talkingto prospective customers or existing
customers, that energy comesacross. Right. It's contagious because
(24:38):
if you reach out to someoneand get an email and you can tell,
you can see how the wordingis, or you have a phone conversation
and someone says, yeah, hi,can I help you? Yeah, you know that
they're not having a good day,they're not excited and everything
else. And you're going to go,I'm not sure about that business
or that place. And again, goesback to little things or big things.
(25:00):
And you've gotten someoneputting extra effort above and beyond.
That's someone that loveswhere they're working and they're
a super fan and they'retelling everybody about what a great
company they're working at.And again, you can't buy that kind
of pr.
(25:20):
Yeah. My friends in Australiamake the joke like, you're like the
king of the Philippines.Because whenever anyone needs a virtual
assistant, I Eileen, she'llhear this because she'll be part
of the editing team. I callher my boss. She's been with me for
nearly seven years now. Sheknows everything about my life, everything
about her business. Eileen'salways like, can we hire someone
new? And then she'll show meher DMs. And it would be flooded
with, can I come work for yourcompany? Can I come work for your
(25:42):
company? Because that's wherewe've been able to build that culture.
Even in the beginning, whenfinances were tight, I remember reading
a book, leaders Eat Last. Ifyou've read that book or heard of
that book before, it's a greatethos and philosophy, but also there's
legacy, which is about the AllBlacks, which you mentioned. Before
we started inside of the AllBlacks organization, what would happen
is that the captain, RichieMcCord, Dan Carter, and Tana Utman,
(26:04):
three of the greatest allbacksof all time. I used to play rugby
in my younger days, so thiswas the best book for me to read
coming into business. Thecaptains would sweep the sheds, so
the captains would sweep thesheds, so it wasn't rugby. If we
get covered in mud and dirtand everyone has tape all over them,
it's a messy change room, butthe captains would actually sweep
the sheds. When I startedbusiness, it was like, james, you'll
(26:24):
sweep the sheds. You need tosweep the sheds. If you're the captain
or the leader of this company,you sweep the sheds. And that's really
covered through our wholeorganization. Even in the beginning
when finances were tight, Iwas like, I'm not going to just skim
this business for profits. I'mgoing to sit there and make sure
everybody's got incentives,getting bonuses, Christmas time,
Christmas parties. Even if itisn't financially where it needs
(26:45):
to be, I'll still make sureeveryone else eats first. So that's
one thing I think a lot ofbusinesses I've seen make. The mistake
is it's like the employeesdispensable versus they're irreplaceable.
When they become a super fan,like you mentioned, they're irreplaceable.
I get so upset when someoneleaves and I don't ever beg. I always
want them to go on theirjourney and do what they want to
do with their life. But I loveour team and I think it's such an
(27:08):
important thing to really havethat asset of super fans in your
organization like you mentioned.
Yeah. One thing aboutmanagement is that as a manager or
as an executive in thecompany, your job is really to make
sure that your team issuccessful. That's it. You make sure
that they're successful.You're the conduit between executive
(27:31):
management. If they needsomething, they tell you, you go
to executive management andyou help them be successful. If you
take care of your team,they'll take care of you. You don't
have to worry about yourself.It's automatic.
Agreed.
So let's talk about the thirdquadrant here which we talked about
(27:51):
finance. Tell me a little bitabout how you guys help businesses
via finance.
I think I really pulled backthe veil on what I've been able to
have success with mycompanies. I've had multiple seven
figure companies and two eightfigure businesses. I really sat down
at the core of it all and itwas the ability to access money for
ourselves, our clients.Coincidentally, the number plate
(28:11):
on my car is PIF stands forpaid in full sales. You know, I was
the CRO of the digitalmarketing school, so my partner Scott
was CEO. So you know, had thatidentity of a paid in full sale.
But when you let go of the egoand you look at the businesses objectively,
you realize it wasn't the paidin full sales. It was the ability
to access cash flow and makethings financially affordable. I
(28:31):
remember the first time I dida 100k deal in online high ticket
in online coaching. That's abig deal. It was because we had finance
so we could package up theseservices and make it affordable without
depleting cash and having12,000 students and rediscovering
God and coming back to faith.I just want to help small businesses
have the best opportunity togrow and scale. And I realize that
(28:52):
a lot of people would love abusiness doing 20,000amonth, but
they think it's such bigstretch. Do I do SaaS and sign people
up for 97amonth? Do I docoaching where it's 2000amonth? When
you pull back the numbers, ifyou can offer a service between 5
to $10,000 and genuinely makeit affordable and get your customer
a great result, you're onlyneeding to do two to four sales a
(29:14):
month and you have a businessdoing a quarter of a million dollars
per year. When you contributethat to lead flow and everything
else, what we've decided todo, and it hasn't really been done
before in the industry,especially in coaching, holding onto
the guru and they want to beseen as the expert. Tony Robbins
was the first to say, I'm notyour guru, I don't want to be your
guru. But I wanted to offer anobvious solution. We have finance
(29:35):
here in Australia, New Zealandand the US and we're about to open
up the uk. What we're doing isfinance for free for all clients
to use for their businesses.We get paid through the lender by
providing the services atfinance broker a small subscription
which just covers a couple ofbills for the team. We don't pay
our staff members for being insdr, but we ideally are giving away
(29:55):
all of our resources. If I cangive someone finance, teach them
everything we used to chargethousands of dollars for for marketing,
teach everything in terms ofsales. If they can get a lead, convert
that lead, place them intofinance, we can genuinely help over
10,000 people create a sixfigure business rather than we're
a billion dollar company. I'dlove to be able to say created billions
(30:17):
of dollars through ourclients. You spoke about superfans
and we speak about it all.Obviously the theme of the podcast
we had mission 10,000 for ourschool and it was, you know, 10,000
certified marketers. We did12,000 this time around. I'm like,
I want to help 10,000 smallbusinesses utilize a system of marketing,
sales and finance to grow asuccessful six figure business so
(30:38):
they can have time, freedomfor their family, look back in two,
three years time and be likewe did that. Finance to me is the
way to not just treat it likefinance, but treat it like a system,
if that makes sense.
Oh, it does make sense becausethat's usually one of the things
that kills a lot of companies.They're living invoice to invoice
and you get a situation wheresomeone decides to slow pay you,
(31:01):
your cash flow just completelygets screwed up. Especially if you
didn't have any extra cushionand you were counting on that invoice,
you've got teams to pay andsuppliers to pay and everything else.
It's detrimental.
Yeah, it is, it is. And thenbecause we've attached the software
(31:22):
to it through go high level,we've actually built out the CRM,
the system. So it's everythinga business would need. So it's like
everything I need to start mybusiness. So it's a full business
solution and finance being thedriving key because if you can, like
you said, slow pace, paymentplans can be the killers of business,
especially in the online worldthat a lot of us are operating in
these days. Unless you want tobe that company that follows them
(31:44):
up and sends them to debtcollectors and do all that nasty
stuff that nobody wants to do,but you have to when you've delivered
a service. And I think for alot of people especially, I've got
a lot of mates in trade, youknow, all it takes is one or two
invoices not getting paid, theperson not returning their calls
or literally avoiding them atall costs and they're laying staff
off. So it's like if you canget finance, which means you can
(32:06):
de risk your business, butmore importantly you can increase
your cash flow and make itmore affordable for your customers.
So what we've done as well isthat once a client becomes an active
referral partner, our visionis to lead to the eradication of
cancer and HIV and many othersicknesses, illnesses. And whether
we get rid of things in thisworld, I want to do good in this
world. So once someone becomesan active referral partner, from
(32:28):
our 97amonth subscriptions,that's USD, we actually then are
going to donate once theystart referring $100 from that 97
straight to a charity ofchoice. The goal is 10,000 active
referral partners. So we cangive a million dollars a month. Collective
community input will equalcollective community output. Like
you're stronger together, youknow, and that superfan, this is
(32:50):
exactly what we're talkingabout. I'm so grateful to have been
on here today because what youbelieve is exactly what I believe.
And it's a mission far beyondthat. Ourselves, you know, we want
to bring.
It'S really empowerment, whatwe're doing is we're empowering people
to empower other people. Onceyou've got those people empowered,
phenomenal things happen. Justlike you described. You've got your
(33:11):
guy at midnight in Singapore.I remember I've shared a story several
times, but it drives the pointhome. We were prepping for a presentation
and it was about midnight.Presentation is following morning.
We got to present anddemonstrate our software designing
the customer's part. You can'tjust. They want to see how it works
for their stuff, not the dogand pony show. It is about midnight,
(33:36):
and our manager walks in witha couple of pijits and some beers.
He sits down with us and wehave some pizza and a couple of beers.
He basically goes, I know youguys are going to stay late. Don't
stay late, but you're going tostay late. Appreciate you guys. And
then left. But the fact thathe showed up was monumental. We did
(33:57):
the presentation the nextmorning. We all crashed at the office,
did the wash in the bathroom,switched into our suits and all that
stuff. And at the end of thepresentation, it was a Thursday afternoon.
We're all done. He goes, allright, guys, looks like it all went
well. I'll see you guysMonday. Get out of here.
It's the best. It's little things.
And I remember it's probablyabout the 12th time I shared that
(34:20):
story, but you know how manypeople you see do that anymore?
Yeah, it's so true. And it'sthose little, you know, because they
say that the core memories ofdevelopment are from 0 to 6 years
of age. But I don't believeour innocence and childlike nature
ever goes away. So whensomeone treats you with respect,
that's the biggest thing inthe world. You remember that I'm
exactly the same. I canremember times where I had bad bosses
(34:42):
and when I had great bosses. Istrive to be that person that leaves
those core memories of team.We've had team leave and just be
like, hey, I made a mistake.Can I come back? I'm like, we don't
have anything at the moment,but you'll be the first that we that
now we've actually bought teamback in. And I know that's where
everyone's like, don't dothat. But it's like, I don't believe
anyone ever leaves on theirown accord through malice. I believe
(35:02):
they either haven't been heardor they are trying to accelerate
their own future. And that'swhere I always say to my team, right
there, I think, who am I tolimit someone else's future potential.
That's what I always say tomyself. Everyone makes it personal
and I'm a big vision thinkerand I want visionaries alongside
me. So when someone says I'mgoing to do this on my own, I'm like,
good luck. If you need me toendorse something, if you need support,
(35:24):
let me know. I've got theresources. We always strive to do
that. It hurts at first,especially when they've been with
you for a long time. But whenyou get out of the ego and out of
the look at poor old me andgo, hey, get.
Yourself out of your own way.
Exactly. Exactly.
James, as we come to the endhere, how can people find you?
(35:46):
The easiest way is throughInstagram. If people connect with
me on social media, it's atjameswellingtonofficial or our main
website is amalafinance.comare building our new website because
we have expanded our finance.I've got Amala Group, my team's currently
building that out because Ican be quite spontaneous and having
visionaries in yourorganization, we tend to build a
(36:06):
few other things. We've gotbookkeeping services, a lot of other
things coming, butamala.finance.com au is probably
the easiest way.
Excellent. And then do youhave something for our listeners?
So if anyone comes throughthere and they mention that in the
notes, you can get access tothe finance company. We do 30 free
trial. You don't have to stayon past the trial. We guarantee you
(36:26):
will get a funded applicationwithin your first month. If you don't,
there's no obligation to stay.We only fund deals 5,000 and above.
It's 97amonth, so it's like a6x guarantee. So basically if you
get a deal in your firstmonth, we guarantee we'll help you
five to six extra investments.We're here to help people grow and
achieve the life they deserve.
James, we've had a greatconversation, great insight. It's
(36:49):
great for our listeners and welook forward to having you on the
show down the road again.
Appreciate it. Thanks so muchfor having me.
Hey, superfan superstarFreddie D. Here before we wrap, here's
your three A playbook Attract,advocate and accelerate your business
power move for today. Sohere's this episode's top insight.
(37:12):
You don't scale a brand byselling harder. You scale by transforming
customers into believers whochampion your mission alongside of
you.
You.
So here's your business growthaction step Design one customer experience
upgrade this week that makescustomers feel like mission driven.
Insiders, not just transactions.
(37:36):
If Today's conversationsparked an idea for you share with
the fellow business leader whowould benefit and grab the full breakdown
in the show notes. Let'saccelerate together and start creating
business superfans who notonly champion your brand but accelerate
your growth.
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