September 14, 2025 • 26 mins
"I don't feel comfortable asking people for money."
This is a bit of a different one... it's a podcast within a podcast! My business coach (Marcus Kroek) asked me to go on his Business Unlocked podcast, to talk about my journey from employee to business owner.
We chat about everything from how I learned to define my own version of success (it's actually not about the money) to why I needed to stop working 24/7.
If you're in business yourself, you might get some helpful stuff from this chat. If you're not, I hope you'll just enjoy a bit of a behind-the-scenes look at the mindset shifts I've had to make along the way.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
Rabbit Podcast with Rabbit. Hey, I'm Rabbit.
I record this podcast inside a cute little retro caravan from
1967 that I've tore around all over the place.
Podcast with Rabbit. Well, this is a bit of a
different 1 today where the guest of the podcast is me and I
am not also the host of the podcast as much as I think Julie
(00:26):
just recently suggested that I said in the 200th episode in a
clue to her, if you've seen thatvideo online, I said the guest
or guests in the 200th episode. I love them.
And she went, Oh my God, it's you.
Is it just you talking to yourself?
She's so mean to me. Now listen, Marcus Crow, he's my
(00:48):
business coach. You've probably heard me mention
his name a million times. He has his own podcast, Business
Unlocked that he does under Pod Van Media.
So there's a bunch of podcasts that I produce now and put out.
If you haven't checked that one out, it's all business,
business, business, but really interesting stuff as well.
It's a lot of psychological kindof stuff behind business.
And then you've got Bobby Joe with her safari life one.
(01:10):
Then you've got fee with Beyond the Tube and of course, Richly
told which do a weekly one on a Friday business based as well,
but again, based on stories fromtheir time in business from
Lee's book Once Upon a time in small business.
So all these podcasts you can check out as well.
And please, I hope you do. I'm a fan of all of them and
each offers different things. So in Marcus's podcast business
(01:34):
Unlocked, he talks to a lot of business owners and gets their
stories and hopefully helpful things that others can learn
from. And he asked me if I wanted to
be on an episode and I'm like, what?
So what you got here is a podcast within a podcast because
this is his episode that he was recording for his one, which is
already out. But if you missed that one,
(01:55):
please enjoy this podcast withina podcast.
And maybe you find out some, I don't know, interesting stuff
from behind the scenes of the building of Pod Van Media.
OK, over to Marcus. Well, welcome along to another
episode of Business Unlocked. I've got with me the producer of
my podcast, Rabs. He's the founder and owner of
Pod Van Media and also runs his own podcast, Rabs Welcome Along
(02:19):
Today. Thank you.
We're here to talk about your journey in business. 18 months
in business since coming off theradio.
Been in radio for 34 years. Was it coming off the radio?
Starting your own podcast, creating Pod van media to help
other people do the same thing as well as marketing.
(02:39):
But what I really like from working with you is the
transition from I've been an employee from all that time, now
I've become a business owner. How you're thinking about
business and various elements ofbusiness have changed along the
way. So tell me about that.
What's the first thing that comes to mind when you think of
(03:01):
I used to be an employee and nowI'm a business owner?
Well, you talk about it a lot inyour podcast and that's
identity. And it really has to be an
identity shift because I didn't understand a lot of what you
said at 1st and I still don't. What happens is it takes me
about 3 months for things that you say to click in my head.
(03:23):
Quite often it's when I hear youtalking to someone else in one
of your episodes about it and I go it just takes time for those
things to click in. So I remember early on, and I
did it on the start of this a little bit, I used to say to
people, you know, I'm a businessman because I got.
And I'd say it like that, yeah, because I'm just some business,
because I'm a businessman. Like if I had a meeting with
(03:43):
someone. Yes.
Because it's just hilarious to me that I was doing business.
Yes. I've never done it exactly as
you say. I've always been an employee.
I remember the time when you said to me that you actually are
running a business. It's the idea of being a worker
in the business as opposed to being an owner.
So in your case, from a radio personality to business owner,
(04:04):
there's a different sense of thinking.
I always talk about plumbers because it's easy.
The owner of the plumbing business has got to stop being a
plumber when they're doing certain things.
You can't think that way. You're the owner of a business
and you got to think like that when you're out there.
You experience through life, as you go through jobs, go into a
job, you're not sure what's going on, not sure of the people
(04:26):
around you. And over time you build your
knowledge and skills. You become more confident if you
like, you become that person forthe job.
The way you said I'm going to doa business thing.
What you say is what you get andthat's an insight into your
subconscious is has got a funny feeling about this.
(04:46):
It's like protecting you from being a business owner.
So yeah, that's the change whereyou've gotta go.
Yeah, I'm a business owner. There's.
A big change as well because I've never been a business
owner. The reason I wanna talk to you
about it is certainly for peoplethat are starting out in
business. But you know, I come across many
people, we call them photocopy years.
You could have been in business for 20 years, but have you just
done the same year 20 times? You don't do 4th grade 12 times
(05:10):
and say you've graduated school.Yeah, you've got to become a
fifth grader or 6th grader all your way through school.
It's the same thing with business.
You can't keep doing the same things.
Your skill level has to change, your knowledge level has to
change, and the way you think about business has to change as
well. Yeah, So that's why I want
people to listen to you and get because I think you've done
(05:31):
extraordinarily well in how you think the changes that you've
had to make. You know, after all those years
being employed, it's much easierfor us to actually understand
what other people are doing sometimes and get insight from
them. I say that in marketing, if you
think about somebody else's business, you'll come up with
all these ideas and see you're good at that.
(05:51):
With the social media marketing for people, we struggle with it
in ourselves. I still do.
So, so much content for other people.
So. I can tell you.
But then when you hear me talking about it with somebody
else, you go, oh, I see. This was another massive 1 for
me when you had asked me right at the start as my business
coach what are my goals we want to get to?
(06:12):
Yep, I don't know and you even Iremember early days of you know.
So what's the amount you need toearn or want to earn?
Yes. I don't know.
In my mind, I wanted to earn more money than I did on the
radio and have more listeners tothe podcast than I had on the
radio. There was episodes you recorded
with Julie Goodwin and Mick Goodwin, separate episodes, and
it became clear that they workedback from what they wanted and
(06:38):
needed and broke it down from that.
And there's a lot of that that happens in your podcast and I
love it. So for them, it was we want to
put food on the table. We want to look after our
family, roof over our heads and we want to go on holidays a
couple times a year maybe. Yes.
And then you can actually put a number on that.
You can work out how much all ofthat is and but then you know
(06:59):
how much you need to earn. So a big thing that happened
with me was right from the start, I was just, I'm just
going as big as I can and I willwork 24/7 to get it as big as I
can. And it was when I was really
struggling with how much work I was doing, like working really,
really hard, Hardest I've ever worked in my life.
And you sort of pointing out to me that I didn't need to be
(07:21):
working that hard. And again, coming back to the
goal, like where do we need to get to?
Once I was able to get that number, working out how much the
mortgage repayments are, how much I had to do a budget and
work out those things. And then I was originally
picturing I would be hiring a team of maybe there'd be about 5
of us. And I've now realized that I
(07:43):
don't need it to be that at all for.
You and for me, and the thing that came out of those episodes,
you said, Mick and Julie both said you define success for what
it means. For you, that was what it was,
yeah. And that was the goals thing,
Yeah. And they were both very big on
this is the life we wanna do. Weren't trying to create $100
million company. That wasn't who they are.
(08:05):
But that's that's really interesting.
It's a mindset thing as well because if you ask me at the
start what success is, to me, it's having the number one
rating podcast in Australia and making a ton of money in radio.
Success is having the number oneshow in the market every two
years. When you go to negotiate your
contract, you get more money andyou get another two years.
(08:26):
That's what it's always been to me.
And you know, you're just constantly moving up and that
kind of thing to realize this. No, what is success to me now?
There's so many things. We're sitting here on terrible
beach recording this on a Sundaymorning because I can, I can
wake up when I want. I can stay up till 3:00 in the
morning working on stuff I'm into if I want to.
(08:47):
I say that to people all the time.
I'm at a stage where 9 to 5 isn't important to me.
You know, I define the terms of my life and business.
Whilst I don't book appointmentslate at night with people, I say
to clients if you need to ring me at 7:30 at night, I figure
there's a reason you need to ring me at 7:30 at night.
There's just myself and my wife at home and she'd probably
(09:08):
prefer that I talk to you ratherthan than her.
That's OK. But it also means I can do
things on a Saturday because I'mgoing to lunch with my wife on a
Tuesday if I'd want to. So it's very important.
And, and we, you know, we buy into the $100 million business,
the billionaire thing nowadays. And that's absolutely.
And if that's what drives you and people say, well, it's only
(09:31):
you're limiting beliefs getting in the way of that, but that's a
value statement about what you value in life.
Well, so because I got myself toa point where when I say 24/7,
it's pretty much if I'm awake, I'm working.
Yeah. And I guess in my mind I was
going to work myself to that point where I had to take
someone on. But in order to be able to do
that, I need to be making enoughmoney that I can then pay
(09:53):
someone else's wage and still begrowing mine.
And our rule, if you want to do that is when you can afford to
pay half the person, yeah, then they should be bringing in
enough money, whether it's through releasing you to do it
or them doing it to pay for themselves.
From a cash flow point of view, we might open a bank account for
you to bank half the money. So you can see, oh, yeah, I'm
(10:15):
actually doing that. And then you've got a buffer for
when you bring them on to get them going.
Yeah, that's another thing. So the identity is really
important. We go through that all through
life. You've talked to Heather Irvine,
the psychologist on your show a number of times, very popular.
You know, your psychology from ayoung age has formed, how you
(10:36):
think about things, your belief about things.
Money's a big one in business. Being a business owner is
another one. I mean money, one of the things
for you in in business whilst you'd have been employed.
Well, addressing that, actually asking people for money.
Oh, that was a huge thing. I did not feel comfortable about
it at first. I had a great moment with one of
(10:57):
the businesses that I work with where I spoke to the director on
the phone at one point about an idea that I had.
He was fully in for it. He's like, Yep, go for it.
What's the cost on it? I ran through that and he goes,
it makes me laugh. He goes, you know, I go back to
the time when you said to me, I don't feel comfortable asking
people for money. You certainly don't have a
problem with it now, do you? And we laugh so much.
(11:20):
It was a mindset shift because Ihonestly believe I'm giving you
value here. Like I look at it as here's a
thing that I can add to your business and your business will
grow from doing this thing. In charging people for those
things, I constantly feel like I'm not doing enough for people.
And you know that because I say it to you all the time.
But then you've got to measure their return on investment.
(11:42):
So one of the ways I explain that is a person in the employee
mindset or often still the manager mindset will ask what
does it cost and what do you do?Whereas the CEO asks what's my
investment and what's the outcome?
Do you get that distinction? No.
What does it cost? This is one of those things that
(12:03):
I'll figure out in about 3 months.
Yeah, yeah. Oh.
Sorry man's. If we go back to a plumber I
might ask. So I'm in this at the moment.
I've got to get a new hot water system.
What's it cost and what do you do?
So I say to the plumber, what's that going to cost?
And what are you going to do? And they say, I'll come and
replace your hot water system. What's my investment?
I'm sort of asking the same thing, but it means my head's in
(12:24):
a different space because I'm saying, and what's the outcome?
And they might say, you're goingto get hot water that you can
depend on. That's never going to run out
when your circumstances that's never going to break down.
It's like, oh, OK, so now that'swhat I get, not what you do.
What they do is replace the hot water system.
What I get is, you know, reliable hot water.
(12:45):
That's the sort of idea. So in what I do, people could
say, well, what's the cost? Well, here's the amount of money
per month you pay me and what doI do and go, why is it important
what I do? You want to pay me and you want
to get results in your business.That's the outcome.
You shouldn't care. So that's.
So that's King Kong and Mitre 10getting me doing some social
(13:06):
media reels for them, showing their kitchens that they have in
there. It's not about the how many
hours I'm going to spend editingit standing in in my cave.
I mean I. Know they do because they care
about you. But from a, from a, you know,
very blunt point of view, it's like, I couldn't care less what
you do. I just want to know, are you
selling kitchens for me? Yeah.
And and that's exactly what's happened is that there's, you
(13:28):
know, 10s of thousands of eyeballs that have been on those
reels that have that have gone out and they've had people
contacting them and saying didn't even know you guys did
kitchens. And that's the whole point of
us. King Gabba might have Chan have
been big supporters of the pod damn podcast right from the
start. And you get all the stuff from
them that you'd expect to. You get plants, you get all the
(13:49):
Weber stuff, you get all the still here, the amazing
principal kitchens, but it's thestuff that you don't expect.
Like this lady comes in and she's hired a goat but to clear
some lands and she wanted to work out a way how to tether
this go. I come up with an idea of a bit
of stainless steel wire between 2 trees, like a zip line between
the two trees to the goat. She took my advice.
(14:10):
I don't know how it turned out, but she was very happy with the
service that she got. That's what she got and the
mighty helpful King Cumber Minor.
Jen, have you been to Guandalin Bowling Club?
They're right there on the shores of Lake Macquarie.
They do delicious meals upstairsin the Four Shore Bistro and
Cafe which is run by the Dish Catering Group.
So you know it's good stuff and you can dine out on the balcony
(14:32):
looking out over the lake. It is beautiful.
They got the cute little 4 shorekiosk for a coffee and snacks
right by the jetty. The entertainment's top notch.
They got Friday nights, seafood raffles and Sunday sessions with
live music in the beer garden. You want to find out what's
happening at the club, check outtheir Facebook page or visit
gwendolinebowlingclub.com dot AU.
(14:53):
It's the podcast with Rabbit, another one that you taught me.
And this was the easiest for me to do from the start.
And it's a profit first thing, which you've taught a lot.
And that's the way you set up your bank accounts.
I've heard of these kind of things before.
I've done the barefoot investor stuff years ago.
(15:16):
Barefoot investor for business is what I tell people.
But yeah, old fashioned envelopestrategy.
Envelopes or or buckets or whatever it is, money comes in
and goes into separate buckets in my bank accounts.
I have a profit account, I've got a tax account, I've got the
expenses. So you should have an income
account. So the income, the income
(15:36):
accounts you pay packet, Yeah. And then you're distributing it
to the other ones to hold it forand then to.
Myself is the fifth one, essentially isn't.
Well, and and that's one of the biggest identity changes for
people in business that we come across all the time is taking
money out of the business. The owners comp is to show you
this business is giving you money.
(15:57):
There's a psychological part which makes it work.
You have to have the psychology and behaviour to make it work as
well. I do my finances every Saturday
which is a big shift. I did it once a year before and
when I would do my taxes and I have a spreadsheet set up.
I've got multiple spreadsheets set up now, but I actually
really enjoy doing it. So every Saturday I've got a
(16:19):
whole process and AI helps massively take through my my
what I do on a on a Saturday with my accounts.
I mean, I could tell you EE exactly the order, but I'll go
into square where I do my invoicing and stuff through and
I reconcile all that as to who'spaid what and and things that
I've paid as well. I go into my bank and then I go
through and I screenshot every business purchase and then any
(16:43):
income that's come in and I put all that into a folder.
Then I'll drop all of those screenshots into like a ChatGPT
or something and I've actually set up a custom chat so it knows
what I'm doing with this. It'll pull out the business
name, whether it was an expense or income and basically just
gives me all the fields for thisspreadsheet, copy them all
across into that. Then I go through them all one
(17:04):
by one. Doing it on a weekly basis is
easy then because it's not a massive number.
I've had weeks where I haven't done it for three weeks.
When I get round to doing it, it's brutal.
What I do from there is I see itspits out at the end and it's a
thing that you gave to me of theand I can set the percentages
for each field and I think I have my profit set at 5% and
(17:25):
expenses are 10%. I've got the percentages there.
It just breaks down how much money hit my bank account that
week and this is where it all needs to go.
Automatically calculates, Yeah. And just so people are clear, on
your podcast in particular, the profit is what we're setting
aside to be the dividend for youbeing the owner or shareholder
of the business. Just like if you had shares in a
(17:47):
publicly traded company, they'regoing to pay you a dividend.
That's what we're setting up. Profit is the reward you get as
a shareholder of that business. And I remember asking you and I
still didn't understand it, whathappens to that money?
And you go what's yours and you take it.
I was like when, whenever you want, like you could do it
quarterly or something. Quarterly is our advice gear.
Why? Don't I just put that into my my
(18:09):
own bank account then at that time because I need to see and
this is where I'm at right now. So the profit that's sitting in
that profit account now and the timing was perfect because I've
just seen a message come throughfrom The Crusaders, my rugby
team over in Christchurch and they've got Super Round in April
next year where all Super Rugby teams are going to be playing in
(18:29):
Christchurch at their brand new stadium.
That's what that money's going to.
Tiana and I are going to go across and we're going to spend
the weekend over there. So that my business, I don't
know, it's just another account,it's just a savings account.
So, so there's a mentality that goes there and I'll, I'll say
now, I always say to people, 80%of what we do is going to be
logical. What's your goals, what's the
(18:50):
amount of money, what's the marketing activity that you
know, the actions that you have to take?
The 20% that is your psychology,your identity, what's in your
head makes the biggest difference to that.
We've got to get you moving up the entrepreneurial ladder.
We we talk about in how you think and where you're going to
get there. Final biggest thing I got from
(19:12):
you and something I'm working onright now is the mindset of I I
can fix that. I'll just just do it for the
client, which is a great thing for the client.
It's a great thing for me when the plumber is around at my
place and I go, I've also got that leaky tap upstairs and the
plumber goes, Oh, show me, I'll take care of it.
(19:32):
Oh mate, that's so good. But you from a business point,
but he should be charging for that.
He should just go no dramas. I could do that 50 bucks for you
because there are actually costs.
Involved. Involved because it's more time
for him. And there's there's what
referred to as an opportunity cost as well.
We want to give you fantastic customer service and most people
want to do that. And that's, you know, wonderful.
(19:54):
But if you're doing that too much, you could be costing
yourself an hour a day. And that could be the difference
between you having a good business and a stressful.
Business and that's where mine was heading.
It was very stressful. I was doing so much extra stuff
and I like doing that, but then the thing would be where, you
(20:17):
know, I've got all this other work that I have to get done,
but I spent all this time on something extra.
Good clients understand that you're A good clients appreciate
the value and I'd say that aboutgood people in society as well.
When I was coaching the kids baseball team, the same thing
happened with parents. The A grade parents showed up
(20:37):
early, asked to help, never questioned what you did, stayed
and packed up after the game. The D grade parents show up
late, complain that their kids not on the field, they don't
come to training. The A graders are there to help
you. They want you to do well.
They want your team to do well. The D grades don't.
That happens in your business aswell.
(20:58):
Your A grade clients appreciate you and they want you to do
well. If you don't do well in your
business, they're not going to have you to serve them.
And it doesn't mean we're not careful about what money we
spend, you know, but it's like going and paying for good
service. We want to pay for good service.
We want that restaurant to survive so we can go back there.
It says a lot about your business if you're constantly
(21:20):
looking for the undercut. Again, doesn't mean that you're
not looking for the best deal out there.
You're one of our big things in local communities like the
Central Coast of the Hunter Valley is support the people
that are here because your business could be the one next
if it's not the supported anyway.
I can rave on about that all day.
Yeah, thank you so much for everything that you have taught
(21:42):
me through this whole year. I've just followed what you've
said and the things I look back on from where I was to where I
am now. And it just keeps growing.
Like Pod van media wasn't even athing at the end of last year.
And that came from talking to a client.
And I kept just kept on coming up with ideas, oh, you should do
this. You could do this, you could do
this. And then and they said to me,
(22:02):
could you go away and come back with like a proposal of how you
could do this for us? And I went sure.
And then went away and probably called you straight away.
Well, as long as you realize every good idea that works is.
Thank you, Marcus. Yeah, that's the way it works.
I look, I credit all all my goodideas.
Generally most of them are SAV and then the other ones are you.
(22:24):
But talking about identity, I'd always seen myself as a radio
guy and on air radio guy. That's all I've seen myself as.
It's been through this year through working with all these
other clients and realizing that, oh man, my brain works
differently to theirs. Does you know grumpy Ginger
Yanko? They know everything about yarn,
wool and all of this stuff. I know nothing about that.
(22:47):
But I, I do know how to tell a story and I see things about
their business and I'll just bring them up in meetings.
You know, they've got a cafe attached to a little lunch cafe
and they're telling me about their owner coffee and Ona is
this brand and I don't even drink coffee and I'm like, So
what is it? Is it like a well known one or
something like it's a good coffee And what is it like
(23:07):
exclusive in this? There's only two places on the
coast. You can get one down South and
and they're the only one up north.
I'm like, do you tell people about that?
If you're a coffee person up theNorth End and then you find out
you can get that owner coffee there.
Like they tell that story and then have the barista, whoever's
there making the coffee do a little thing showing how you do
it. She was explaining it to me, may
(23:28):
not be a coffee person, and she almost talked me into having a
coffee. Like the way she was describing
it, I was like, I should have just put my phone on on record
just then. But they don't think that way
because they're in their business doing what they do and
they're good at what they do. And it was through that that I
realised, Oh no, I've I've got my brain has more, has other
things to give to about other businesses.
(23:49):
And what you're finding from that, particularly because of
how your brain works, I think one of the other things I'd like
people to get and to listen to your episodes, particularly with
Kyla and Heather about ADDADHD, all of those things, because
having a brain that works differently is good.
And I've read, you know, some about ADD and I know I come from
(24:11):
an education background at the time when 27 out of 30 kids in
the class were being diagnosed with ADD.
And it drives you mad and it takes the reality away from
those where it's, but it's like dyslexia.
Some of the greatest minds had what might be referred to as a
disability, you know, an impaired.
And I think the same with ADDI read something recently where
(24:33):
they said, well, without those people that they're actually
coming up with the ideas becausethey're thinking differently to
everyone else. And so just again, really want
people to take that on for kids.If we've done better with
mindfulness, but if people are understanding that as they're
growing up, then it's not at 45 or 50 years of age where they're
(24:56):
sitting down with me, learning about, thinking, yeah.
Differently Exactly. All right.
Again, I'll just say thank you so much for everything that you
have taught me. There's no way I would be where
I am with pod band media withoutyour guidance along the way.
So I really, really do appreciate it.
So thank you. Thank you Rebs, and thank you
for helping me realise a dream of getting some messages out to
(25:19):
people. It's pretty.
Cool, eh? Yes, yeah, like being able to do
a podcast. And yeah, that's the thing, I'm
editing and producing 5 podcastsnow.
I'm not taking on anymore at themoment through my business
coaches, guidance basically. Up on the wait list, yeah.
I mean, I've got a lot going on at the moment and I could take
on some more things right now, but it'd kill me.
(25:41):
And that's what I've realised isthat no, no, it's got some
systems in place where it's all manageable and then I'll be able
to take one or two more things on.
But yeah, that was a big learning for me is not saying
yes to everything and pump the brakes a bit.
Thank you, Marcus.
Rabbit Podcast with Rabbit. Hey, I'm Rabbit.
I record this podcast inside a cute little retro caravan from
1967 that I've tore around all over the place.
Podcast with Rabbit. Well, this is a bit of a
different 1 today where the guest of the podcast is me and I
am not also the host of the podcast as much as I think Julie
(00:26):
just recently suggested that I said in the 200th episode in a
clue to her, if you've seen thatvideo online, I said the guest
or guests in the 200th episode. I love them.
And she went, Oh my God, it's you.
Is it just you talking to yourself?
She's so mean to me. Now listen, Marcus Crow, he's my
(00:48):
business coach. You've probably heard me mention
his name a million times. He has his own podcast, Business
Unlocked that he does under Pod Van Media.
So there's a bunch of podcasts that I produce now and put out.
If you haven't checked that one out, it's all business,
business, business, but really interesting stuff as well.
It's a lot of psychological kindof stuff behind business.
And then you've got Bobby Joe with her safari life one.
(01:10):
Then you've got fee with Beyond the Tube and of course, Richly
told which do a weekly one on a Friday business based as well,
but again, based on stories fromtheir time in business from
Lee's book Once Upon a time in small business.
So all these podcasts you can check out as well.
And please, I hope you do. I'm a fan of all of them and
each offers different things. So in Marcus's podcast business
(01:34):
Unlocked, he talks to a lot of business owners and gets their
stories and hopefully helpful things that others can learn
from. And he asked me if I wanted to
be on an episode and I'm like, what?
So what you got here is a podcast within a podcast because
this is his episode that he was recording for his one, which is
already out. But if you missed that one,
(01:55):
please enjoy this podcast withina podcast.
And maybe you find out some, I don't know, interesting stuff
from behind the scenes of the building of Pod Van Media.
OK, over to Marcus. Well, welcome along to another
episode of Business Unlocked. I've got with me the producer of
my podcast, Rabs. He's the founder and owner of
Pod Van Media and also runs his own podcast, Rabs Welcome Along
(02:19):
Today. Thank you.
We're here to talk about your journey in business. 18 months
in business since coming off theradio.
Been in radio for 34 years. Was it coming off the radio?
Starting your own podcast, creating Pod van media to help
other people do the same thing as well as marketing.
(02:39):
But what I really like from working with you is the
transition from I've been an employee from all that time, now
I've become a business owner. How you're thinking about
business and various elements ofbusiness have changed along the
way. So tell me about that.
What's the first thing that comes to mind when you think of
(03:01):
I used to be an employee and nowI'm a business owner?
Well, you talk about it a lot inyour podcast and that's
identity. And it really has to be an
identity shift because I didn't understand a lot of what you
said at 1st and I still don't. What happens is it takes me
about 3 months for things that you say to click in my head.
(03:23):
Quite often it's when I hear youtalking to someone else in one
of your episodes about it and I go it just takes time for those
things to click in. So I remember early on, and I
did it on the start of this a little bit, I used to say to
people, you know, I'm a businessman because I got.
And I'd say it like that, yeah, because I'm just some business,
because I'm a businessman. Like if I had a meeting with
(03:43):
someone. Yes.
Because it's just hilarious to me that I was doing business.
Yes. I've never done it exactly as
you say. I've always been an employee.
I remember the time when you said to me that you actually are
running a business. It's the idea of being a worker
in the business as opposed to being an owner.
So in your case, from a radio personality to business owner,
(04:04):
there's a different sense of thinking.
I always talk about plumbers because it's easy.
The owner of the plumbing business has got to stop being a
plumber when they're doing certain things.
You can't think that way. You're the owner of a business
and you got to think like that when you're out there.
You experience through life, as you go through jobs, go into a
job, you're not sure what's going on, not sure of the people
(04:26):
around you. And over time you build your
knowledge and skills. You become more confident if you
like, you become that person forthe job.
The way you said I'm going to doa business thing.
What you say is what you get andthat's an insight into your
subconscious is has got a funny feeling about this.
(04:46):
It's like protecting you from being a business owner.
So yeah, that's the change whereyou've gotta go.
Yeah, I'm a business owner. There's.
A big change as well because I've never been a business
owner. The reason I wanna talk to you
about it is certainly for peoplethat are starting out in
business. But you know, I come across many
people, we call them photocopy years.
You could have been in business for 20 years, but have you just
done the same year 20 times? You don't do 4th grade 12 times
(05:10):
and say you've graduated school.Yeah, you've got to become a
fifth grader or 6th grader all your way through school.
It's the same thing with business.
You can't keep doing the same things.
Your skill level has to change, your knowledge level has to
change, and the way you think about business has to change as
well. Yeah, So that's why I want
people to listen to you and get because I think you've done
(05:31):
extraordinarily well in how you think the changes that you've
had to make. You know, after all those years
being employed, it's much easierfor us to actually understand
what other people are doing sometimes and get insight from
them. I say that in marketing, if you
think about somebody else's business, you'll come up with
all these ideas and see you're good at that.
(05:51):
With the social media marketing for people, we struggle with it
in ourselves. I still do.
So, so much content for other people.
So. I can tell you.
But then when you hear me talking about it with somebody
else, you go, oh, I see. This was another massive 1 for
me when you had asked me right at the start as my business
coach what are my goals we want to get to?
(06:12):
Yep, I don't know and you even Iremember early days of you know.
So what's the amount you need toearn or want to earn?
Yes. I don't know.
In my mind, I wanted to earn more money than I did on the
radio and have more listeners tothe podcast than I had on the
radio. There was episodes you recorded
with Julie Goodwin and Mick Goodwin, separate episodes, and
it became clear that they workedback from what they wanted and
(06:38):
needed and broke it down from that.
And there's a lot of that that happens in your podcast and I
love it. So for them, it was we want to
put food on the table. We want to look after our
family, roof over our heads and we want to go on holidays a
couple times a year maybe. Yes.
And then you can actually put a number on that.
You can work out how much all ofthat is and but then you know
(06:59):
how much you need to earn. So a big thing that happened
with me was right from the start, I was just, I'm just
going as big as I can and I willwork 24/7 to get it as big as I
can. And it was when I was really
struggling with how much work I was doing, like working really,
really hard, Hardest I've ever worked in my life.
And you sort of pointing out to me that I didn't need to be
(07:21):
working that hard. And again, coming back to the
goal, like where do we need to get to?
Once I was able to get that number, working out how much the
mortgage repayments are, how much I had to do a budget and
work out those things. And then I was originally
picturing I would be hiring a team of maybe there'd be about 5
of us. And I've now realized that I
(07:43):
don't need it to be that at all for.
You and for me, and the thing that came out of those episodes,
you said, Mick and Julie both said you define success for what
it means. For you, that was what it was,
yeah. And that was the goals thing,
Yeah. And they were both very big on
this is the life we wanna do. Weren't trying to create $100
million company. That wasn't who they are.
(08:05):
But that's that's really interesting.
It's a mindset thing as well because if you ask me at the
start what success is, to me, it's having the number one
rating podcast in Australia and making a ton of money in radio.
Success is having the number oneshow in the market every two
years. When you go to negotiate your
contract, you get more money andyou get another two years.
(08:26):
That's what it's always been to me.
And you know, you're just constantly moving up and that
kind of thing to realize this. No, what is success to me now?
There's so many things. We're sitting here on terrible
beach recording this on a Sundaymorning because I can, I can
wake up when I want. I can stay up till 3:00 in the
morning working on stuff I'm into if I want to.
(08:47):
I say that to people all the time.
I'm at a stage where 9 to 5 isn't important to me.
You know, I define the terms of my life and business.
Whilst I don't book appointmentslate at night with people, I say
to clients if you need to ring me at 7:30 at night, I figure
there's a reason you need to ring me at 7:30 at night.
There's just myself and my wife at home and she'd probably
(09:08):
prefer that I talk to you ratherthan than her.
That's OK. But it also means I can do
things on a Saturday because I'mgoing to lunch with my wife on a
Tuesday if I'd want to. So it's very important.
And, and we, you know, we buy into the $100 million business,
the billionaire thing nowadays. And that's absolutely.
And if that's what drives you and people say, well, it's only
(09:31):
you're limiting beliefs getting in the way of that, but that's a
value statement about what you value in life.
Well, so because I got myself toa point where when I say 24/7,
it's pretty much if I'm awake, I'm working.
Yeah. And I guess in my mind I was
going to work myself to that point where I had to take
someone on. But in order to be able to do
that, I need to be making enoughmoney that I can then pay
(09:53):
someone else's wage and still begrowing mine.
And our rule, if you want to do that is when you can afford to
pay half the person, yeah, then they should be bringing in
enough money, whether it's through releasing you to do it
or them doing it to pay for themselves.
From a cash flow point of view, we might open a bank account for
you to bank half the money. So you can see, oh, yeah, I'm
(10:15):
actually doing that. And then you've got a buffer for
when you bring them on to get them going.
Yeah, that's another thing. So the identity is really
important. We go through that all through
life. You've talked to Heather Irvine,
the psychologist on your show a number of times, very popular.
You know, your psychology from ayoung age has formed, how you
(10:36):
think about things, your belief about things.
Money's a big one in business. Being a business owner is
another one. I mean money, one of the things
for you in in business whilst you'd have been employed.
Well, addressing that, actually asking people for money.
Oh, that was a huge thing. I did not feel comfortable about
it at first. I had a great moment with one of
(10:57):
the businesses that I work with where I spoke to the director on
the phone at one point about an idea that I had.
He was fully in for it. He's like, Yep, go for it.
What's the cost on it? I ran through that and he goes,
it makes me laugh. He goes, you know, I go back to
the time when you said to me, I don't feel comfortable asking
people for money. You certainly don't have a
problem with it now, do you? And we laugh so much.
(11:20):
It was a mindset shift because Ihonestly believe I'm giving you
value here. Like I look at it as here's a
thing that I can add to your business and your business will
grow from doing this thing. In charging people for those
things, I constantly feel like I'm not doing enough for people.
And you know that because I say it to you all the time.
But then you've got to measure their return on investment.
(11:42):
So one of the ways I explain that is a person in the employee
mindset or often still the manager mindset will ask what
does it cost and what do you do?Whereas the CEO asks what's my
investment and what's the outcome?
Do you get that distinction? No.
What does it cost? This is one of those things that
(12:03):
I'll figure out in about 3 months.
Yeah, yeah. Oh.
Sorry man's. If we go back to a plumber I
might ask. So I'm in this at the moment.
I've got to get a new hot water system.
What's it cost and what do you do?
So I say to the plumber, what's that going to cost?
And what are you going to do? And they say, I'll come and
replace your hot water system. What's my investment?
I'm sort of asking the same thing, but it means my head's in
(12:24):
a different space because I'm saying, and what's the outcome?
And they might say, you're goingto get hot water that you can
depend on. That's never going to run out
when your circumstances that's never going to break down.
It's like, oh, OK, so now that'swhat I get, not what you do.
What they do is replace the hot water system.
What I get is, you know, reliable hot water.
(12:45):
That's the sort of idea. So in what I do, people could
say, well, what's the cost? Well, here's the amount of money
per month you pay me and what doI do and go, why is it important
what I do? You want to pay me and you want
to get results in your business.That's the outcome.
You shouldn't care. So that's.
So that's King Kong and Mitre 10getting me doing some social
(13:06):
media reels for them, showing their kitchens that they have in
there. It's not about the how many
hours I'm going to spend editingit standing in in my cave.
I mean I. Know they do because they care
about you. But from a, from a, you know,
very blunt point of view, it's like, I couldn't care less what
you do. I just want to know, are you
selling kitchens for me? Yeah.
And and that's exactly what's happened is that there's, you
(13:28):
know, 10s of thousands of eyeballs that have been on those
reels that have that have gone out and they've had people
contacting them and saying didn't even know you guys did
kitchens. And that's the whole point of
us. King Gabba might have Chan have
been big supporters of the pod damn podcast right from the
start. And you get all the stuff from
them that you'd expect to. You get plants, you get all the
(13:49):
Weber stuff, you get all the still here, the amazing
principal kitchens, but it's thestuff that you don't expect.
Like this lady comes in and she's hired a goat but to clear
some lands and she wanted to work out a way how to tether
this go. I come up with an idea of a bit
of stainless steel wire between 2 trees, like a zip line between
the two trees to the goat. She took my advice.
(14:10):
I don't know how it turned out, but she was very happy with the
service that she got. That's what she got and the
mighty helpful King Cumber Minor.
Jen, have you been to Guandalin Bowling Club?
They're right there on the shores of Lake Macquarie.
They do delicious meals upstairsin the Four Shore Bistro and
Cafe which is run by the Dish Catering Group.
So you know it's good stuff and you can dine out on the balcony
(14:32):
looking out over the lake. It is beautiful.
They got the cute little 4 shorekiosk for a coffee and snacks
right by the jetty. The entertainment's top notch.
They got Friday nights, seafood raffles and Sunday sessions with
live music in the beer garden. You want to find out what's
happening at the club, check outtheir Facebook page or visit
gwendolinebowlingclub.com dot AU.
(14:53):
It's the podcast with Rabbit, another one that you taught me.
And this was the easiest for me to do from the start.
And it's a profit first thing, which you've taught a lot.
And that's the way you set up your bank accounts.
I've heard of these kind of things before.
I've done the barefoot investor stuff years ago.
(15:16):
Barefoot investor for business is what I tell people.
But yeah, old fashioned envelopestrategy.
Envelopes or or buckets or whatever it is, money comes in
and goes into separate buckets in my bank accounts.
I have a profit account, I've got a tax account, I've got the
expenses. So you should have an income
account. So the income, the income
(15:36):
accounts you pay packet, Yeah. And then you're distributing it
to the other ones to hold it forand then to.
Myself is the fifth one, essentially isn't.
Well, and and that's one of the biggest identity changes for
people in business that we come across all the time is taking
money out of the business. The owners comp is to show you
this business is giving you money.
(15:57):
There's a psychological part which makes it work.
You have to have the psychology and behaviour to make it work as
well. I do my finances every Saturday
which is a big shift. I did it once a year before and
when I would do my taxes and I have a spreadsheet set up.
I've got multiple spreadsheets set up now, but I actually
really enjoy doing it. So every Saturday I've got a
(16:19):
whole process and AI helps massively take through my my
what I do on a on a Saturday with my accounts.
I mean, I could tell you EE exactly the order, but I'll go
into square where I do my invoicing and stuff through and
I reconcile all that as to who'spaid what and and things that
I've paid as well. I go into my bank and then I go
through and I screenshot every business purchase and then any
(16:43):
income that's come in and I put all that into a folder.
Then I'll drop all of those screenshots into like a ChatGPT
or something and I've actually set up a custom chat so it knows
what I'm doing with this. It'll pull out the business
name, whether it was an expense or income and basically just
gives me all the fields for thisspreadsheet, copy them all
across into that. Then I go through them all one
(17:04):
by one. Doing it on a weekly basis is
easy then because it's not a massive number.
I've had weeks where I haven't done it for three weeks.
When I get round to doing it, it's brutal.
What I do from there is I see itspits out at the end and it's a
thing that you gave to me of theand I can set the percentages
for each field and I think I have my profit set at 5% and
(17:25):
expenses are 10%. I've got the percentages there.
It just breaks down how much money hit my bank account that
week and this is where it all needs to go.
Automatically calculates, Yeah. And just so people are clear, on
your podcast in particular, the profit is what we're setting
aside to be the dividend for youbeing the owner or shareholder
of the business. Just like if you had shares in a
(17:47):
publicly traded company, they'regoing to pay you a dividend.
That's what we're setting up. Profit is the reward you get as
a shareholder of that business. And I remember asking you and I
still didn't understand it, whathappens to that money?
And you go what's yours and you take it.
I was like when, whenever you want, like you could do it
quarterly or something. Quarterly is our advice gear.
Why? Don't I just put that into my my
(18:09):
own bank account then at that time because I need to see and
this is where I'm at right now. So the profit that's sitting in
that profit account now and the timing was perfect because I've
just seen a message come throughfrom The Crusaders, my rugby
team over in Christchurch and they've got Super Round in April
next year where all Super Rugby teams are going to be playing in
(18:29):
Christchurch at their brand new stadium.
That's what that money's going to.
Tiana and I are going to go across and we're going to spend
the weekend over there. So that my business, I don't
know, it's just another account,it's just a savings account.
So, so there's a mentality that goes there and I'll, I'll say
now, I always say to people, 80%of what we do is going to be
logical. What's your goals, what's the
(18:50):
amount of money, what's the marketing activity that you
know, the actions that you have to take?
The 20% that is your psychology,your identity, what's in your
head makes the biggest difference to that.
We've got to get you moving up the entrepreneurial ladder.
We we talk about in how you think and where you're going to
get there. Final biggest thing I got from
(19:12):
you and something I'm working onright now is the mindset of I I
can fix that. I'll just just do it for the
client, which is a great thing for the client.
It's a great thing for me when the plumber is around at my
place and I go, I've also got that leaky tap upstairs and the
plumber goes, Oh, show me, I'll take care of it.
(19:32):
Oh mate, that's so good. But you from a business point,
but he should be charging for that.
He should just go no dramas. I could do that 50 bucks for you
because there are actually costs.
Involved. Involved because it's more time
for him. And there's there's what
referred to as an opportunity cost as well.
We want to give you fantastic customer service and most people
want to do that. And that's, you know, wonderful.
(19:54):
But if you're doing that too much, you could be costing
yourself an hour a day. And that could be the difference
between you having a good business and a stressful.
Business and that's where mine was heading.
It was very stressful. I was doing so much extra stuff
and I like doing that, but then the thing would be where, you
(20:17):
know, I've got all this other work that I have to get done,
but I spent all this time on something extra.
Good clients understand that you're A good clients appreciate
the value and I'd say that aboutgood people in society as well.
When I was coaching the kids baseball team, the same thing
happened with parents. The A grade parents showed up
(20:37):
early, asked to help, never questioned what you did, stayed
and packed up after the game. The D grade parents show up
late, complain that their kids not on the field, they don't
come to training. The A graders are there to help
you. They want you to do well.
They want your team to do well. The D grades don't.
That happens in your business aswell.
(20:58):
Your A grade clients appreciate you and they want you to do
well. If you don't do well in your
business, they're not going to have you to serve them.
And it doesn't mean we're not careful about what money we
spend, you know, but it's like going and paying for good
service. We want to pay for good service.
We want that restaurant to survive so we can go back there.
It says a lot about your business if you're constantly
(21:20):
looking for the undercut. Again, doesn't mean that you're
not looking for the best deal out there.
You're one of our big things in local communities like the
Central Coast of the Hunter Valley is support the people
that are here because your business could be the one next
if it's not the supported anyway.
I can rave on about that all day.
Yeah, thank you so much for everything that you have taught
(21:42):
me through this whole year. I've just followed what you've
said and the things I look back on from where I was to where I
am now. And it just keeps growing.
Like Pod van media wasn't even athing at the end of last year.
And that came from talking to a client.
And I kept just kept on coming up with ideas, oh, you should do
this. You could do this, you could do
this. And then and they said to me,
(22:02):
could you go away and come back with like a proposal of how you
could do this for us? And I went sure.
And then went away and probably called you straight away.
Well, as long as you realize every good idea that works is.
Thank you, Marcus. Yeah, that's the way it works.
I look, I credit all all my goodideas.
Generally most of them are SAV and then the other ones are you.
(22:24):
But talking about identity, I'd always seen myself as a radio
guy and on air radio guy. That's all I've seen myself as.
It's been through this year through working with all these
other clients and realizing that, oh man, my brain works
differently to theirs. Does you know grumpy Ginger
Yanko? They know everything about yarn,
wool and all of this stuff. I know nothing about that.
(22:47):
But I, I do know how to tell a story and I see things about
their business and I'll just bring them up in meetings.
You know, they've got a cafe attached to a little lunch cafe
and they're telling me about their owner coffee and Ona is
this brand and I don't even drink coffee and I'm like, So
what is it? Is it like a well known one or
something like it's a good coffee And what is it like
(23:07):
exclusive in this? There's only two places on the
coast. You can get one down South and
and they're the only one up north.
I'm like, do you tell people about that?
If you're a coffee person up theNorth End and then you find out
you can get that owner coffee there.
Like they tell that story and then have the barista, whoever's
there making the coffee do a little thing showing how you do
it. She was explaining it to me, may
(23:28):
not be a coffee person, and she almost talked me into having a
coffee. Like the way she was describing
it, I was like, I should have just put my phone on on record
just then. But they don't think that way
because they're in their business doing what they do and
they're good at what they do. And it was through that that I
realised, Oh no, I've I've got my brain has more, has other
things to give to about other businesses.
(23:49):
And what you're finding from that, particularly because of
how your brain works, I think one of the other things I'd like
people to get and to listen to your episodes, particularly with
Kyla and Heather about ADDADHD, all of those things, because
having a brain that works differently is good.
And I've read, you know, some about ADD and I know I come from
(24:11):
an education background at the time when 27 out of 30 kids in
the class were being diagnosed with ADD.
And it drives you mad and it takes the reality away from
those where it's, but it's like dyslexia.
Some of the greatest minds had what might be referred to as a
disability, you know, an impaired.
And I think the same with ADDI read something recently where
(24:33):
they said, well, without those people that they're actually
coming up with the ideas becausethey're thinking differently to
everyone else. And so just again, really want
people to take that on for kids.If we've done better with
mindfulness, but if people are understanding that as they're
growing up, then it's not at 45 or 50 years of age where they're
(24:56):
sitting down with me, learning about, thinking, yeah.
Differently Exactly. All right.
Again, I'll just say thank you so much for everything that you
have taught me. There's no way I would be where
I am with pod band media withoutyour guidance along the way.
So I really, really do appreciate it.
So thank you. Thank you Rebs, and thank you
for helping me realise a dream of getting some messages out to
(25:19):
people. It's pretty.
Cool, eh? Yes, yeah, like being able to do
a podcast. And yeah, that's the thing, I'm
editing and producing 5 podcastsnow.
I'm not taking on anymore at themoment through my business
coaches, guidance basically. Up on the wait list, yeah.
I mean, I've got a lot going on at the moment and I could take
on some more things right now, but it'd kill me.
(25:41):
And that's what I've realised isthat no, no, it's got some
systems in place where it's all manageable and then I'll be able
to take one or two more things on.
But yeah, that was a big learning for me is not saying
yes to everything and pump the brakes a bit.
Thank you, Marcus.
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Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.