Productive Marketing | Simon Dell from Cemoh

Ever reminisce about the paths you've taken, the songs you've headbanged to, or the smart pivots that saved your business bacon? 

Simon Dell, Founder and CEO from Cemoh, pulls back the curtain on how the pandemic led to the innovative concept of fractional marketing services, transforming the digital marketing landscape and offering a lifeline to businesses in a time of need.

Cracking into the labor market's evolution, we navigate the currents from a talent war to a flood of job seekers and the rising tide of AI and automation. It's not just about the changing job roles; it's about the stories that get you hired, the relationships that keep you networked at events like our own beer lunch, and the art of standing out with authenticity. 

We tackle the intricacies of customer communication, from the missed shots at building a database to the artistry of brands that keep their dialogue with customers anything but stale.

Rounding off, we tackle the meat and potatoes of scaling a business with the candor only hindsight can provide. It's a tale of growth, innovation, and the entrepreneurial spirit, looking beyond revenue to the heart of profitability. 

We discuss maintaining that human touch amidst automation and, peering into the crystal ball, debate the irreplaceable value of human insight even as AI makes its mark. 

So, strap in for a journey filled with rich insights, where we don't just talk shop—we talk growth, passion, and the power of a well-placed guitar riff!

Hear how some of Australasia's most interesting and successful people are utilising People, Technology and Processes to live a productive life.

For more information on Lee Stevens visit www.leestevens.co

Sponsored by workforcery.com

Episode Transcript

Lee Stevens (00:08):
Welcome to the Time and Motion podcast with me,
your host, lee Stevens.
For over 25 years, I've workedwith businesses all over the
world to improve the technologyand the people within them.
In this podcast, I share someof my experiences and I chat to
guests who generously sharetheir stories of how to or, in
some cases, how not to live aproductive life.
I hope you enjoy the show.

(00:28):
Good morning, simon.
How are you?
I'm good, mate you well?
Yes, very good, very good.
How was the long?

Simon Dell (00:42):
journey from around the corner.
It was very taxing.
Yeah, I was driving for hours.

Lee Stevens (00:47):
Yeah, Okay, so we've got Simon from CMO on the
podcast this week and thanks forcoming on, simon.
This is my first attempt at theAustralian version of Time and
Motion, so, yeah, so I decidedto pick that up and do season
two, and very privileged thatyou've decided to come on and be
the first guest of season two.

Simon Dell (01:05):
My pleasure, my pleasure.

Lee Stevens (01:07):
Thank you.
So, simon, I always like tostart from our humble beginnings
and where we kind of grew up.
And you didn't grow up amillion miles from me, as people
tell about the accident.
So I just want to tell us a bitmore about you, where you grew
up and what earlier life waslike for you.

Simon Dell (01:21):
Yeah, I grew up in Bromley in southeast London,
which is not a very well knownplace in comparison to places
like Essex and stuff like that,but yeah, fairly standard sort
of British upbringing.
You know, two kids, parents,you know, house in the suburbs,
that sort of stuff, you know.
My parents worked really hard,sent me and my brother to you

(01:43):
know, pretty good school so wewere, you know, very grateful
for that, you know.
But my early days were I justdid a lot of, I just did a lot
of jobs, just like a lot of youknow, just to earn a bit of
money.
That was that was me since Iwas about 13 years old was
delivering papers or cleaningtoilets at one point, and just,
you know, working behind barsand that sort of stuff.

(02:05):
Anywhere I could just in theholidays or the weekends just
earn a bit of extra cash.
That was kind of, you know,sort of super important to me.
So good work ethic, yeah, Ithink so.
You know, I was one of thosekids who just wanted to have
things.
I was big on buying records,you know records and a few
clothes.
That was my, you know, and Isort of appreciated that my

(02:27):
parents didn't have a hugeamount of money and everything
they had they were spending onour school fees.
So you know, if I wanted, if Iwanted the latest record, I had
to go and get a job and, youknow, earn the money to buy it
myself.
What music was you into at theage?
I was all heavy metal in my inmy teenage years.
So I think I started off in theit's like.

(02:47):
I think my first day on myeverboard was Durand Durand or
something like that, but then itwas Guns N' Roses and Skid Row
and Nine Itch Nails and MotleyCrew and all those kind of
things.

Lee Stevens (02:56):
So yeah, that's what, that's what I was buying
so yeah, okay.
So, simon, just tell us a bitmore about SEMO and what you're
doing in Brisbane with SEMO.

Simon Dell (03:05):
Yeah, so my background is marketing has been
for about 15 years and then inabout 2022, so there's a little
story behind this that we, wewere, we were.
I was running a digitalmarketing consultancy with my
business partner, matt, and itwas 2022, february 2022, which
was the month before COVIDreally hit and all the lockdown

(03:26):
started and all those sort ofthings.
And we had a client who came tous who we were doing a bit of
work for and she'd lost hermarketing manager.
The marketing manager just sortof run up Monday morning and
said I'm not coming in, nevercoming back again, and she she
wasn't panicking, she's not thatkind of woman, but she was like
, hey, I need someone to come inand, do you know, do the
marketing stuff, and I can'tafford to pay an agency.

(03:47):
And she goes have you gotanyone in the office that can
come in a day a week and do doyou know what I need to have
done?
And we had a girl working for usand she was heavily pregnant at
the time.
She was like, look, I'll go inone day a week, that's fine.
She, she comes in, client ringsus up, the next day goes,
rebecca's, fantastic, can I haveher every day, every every week
for a day.
And we were like going, yeahsure, rebecca's keen on that.

(04:11):
And we were like scratching ourheads, going that's fine.
And she goes, how much do youwant me to pay you?
And we were like I don't know,Because we knew she wasn't, she
wasn't going to pay 150 bucksnow.
She just didn't have that kindof money.
So we kind of we, we all sortof put our heads together and
just went well, we've got to payRebecca this, she needs to pay
for a superannuation and a sickleave and holiday loading and

(04:32):
all that kind of stuff, and weneed to make a bit of margin.
And that's the thing.
You know.
We're doing contracts for whatis labor hire?
Essentially for marketingpeople one day a week, two days
a week.

Lee Stevens (04:44):
So this is that concept of fractional right.

Simon Dell (04:46):
Fractional, yeah.
Fractional marketing, yeah.

Lee Stevens (04:49):
So, as a venture, just off air, just before we
started recording, I had adouble with some software as a
service, what was a HR productabout a year ago and that's when
I suppose I really did fallinto that concept of fractional.
And for those listening,essentially fractional is where
you essentially contract in aexpert for one between one to
three days a week.
Yeah, yeah, sound like that.

Simon Dell (05:11):
And it could.
But it could even be like whereyou get someone impermanently
for three months on a fixedthree months contract, full time
.
Yeah, but the fraction alwaysjust this kind of Americanized
term that's very popular overthere.
And it's starting to build up abit of you know weight here in
Australia and it's like the ideabeing is that you can have the
skills of the person in thatrole without having to have them

(05:32):
on a full time contract.
Yeah, so that's kind of whereCMO was born out of.
It was just like a phone callfrom a client one day and then
we sort of went.
We launched CMO as a brand Julythat year and that's been what
we've been doing ever since.
And then the whole recruitmentthing that we've also do now

(05:54):
sort of became a byproduct ofyou know.
People come into us and go hey,thanks very much for finding us
that fractional marketingmanager.
They've been great.
Now can you hire me a permanentone?
And we were sort of going allright, I suppose we can.
Yeah, like finding our way inthe dark a little bit.
So it's kind of all worked outfrom that.

Lee Stevens (06:10):
So obviously the the the premise of time emotion
is about productivity.
So having worked in ITrecruitment, actually in Bromley
all those years ago, so forTony Kikosa at DP Connect and
who was a friend of theGoldbergs and the big recruiters
in Bromley, was up arecruitment central.

Simon Dell (06:27):
I don't know, that was before my time, so anyway so
.

Lee Stevens (06:30):
But having worked in that space, you know some
time ago we would.
I suppose we were just startingto see the emergence of some of
the tools that made it a littleeasier to to match people with
jobs, et cetera, and obviouslywith AI and all the tools that
are out there, you know, it'sprobably a little easier than it
was 15, 16 years ago, if notlonger, but in 2024, how

(06:52):
important is that software forremaining productive and, you
know, trying to find thosepeople.
Essentially, you're matchingright.

Simon Dell (06:58):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, we're like it's like Tinder for
marketing people.
That's what we sort of, youknow, compare ourselves to
sometimes and I have to say it'sstill, I still think there's a
gap there.
I still think there's somethingmissing, because, I can you
know, last week I had someonewho applied for a digital
marketing role, right, and thethree key components of this

(07:19):
digital marketing role areunderstanding SEO, search engine
optimization.
Understanding of SEMs searchengine marketing, so Google ads,
facebook ads, those kinds ofthings and understanding how to
update a website, so basicWordPress website.
Now, I feel that people withthose skills should be the
software, should shouldsomewhere pick up whether they
know these things before theyget to me, but I can tell that

(07:42):
they don't have a depth ofknowledge of those things.
In about two questions, threequestions, which is the, which
is the benefit of me, because Iunderstand those, because I've
been doing marketing for 15years.
But the matching software,certainly when you're coming
through job recruitment sites,doesn't really help much, and
that means seek and linkLinkedIn and all those kind of

(08:04):
things.
So to me, there's there's,there's still a there's still a
bit of a gap there for that AIsoftware that that actually can
look at someone and go hold on.
Let's look at your past workhistory.
Maybe let's ask you somequestions and get a better
overview of your capabilities,because at the moment that's
still being done by me and Ithink there's a gap there for

(08:25):
that.

Lee Stevens (08:26):
Do you think that the markets changed in the last
maybe 18 months, two years?
So about two years ago I'm sureyou were like all of us.
We were all struggling to findpeople.
It was a war for talent, yeah,yeah.
And you kind of speak to a fewpeople in Brisbane and further
afield and certainly that kindof upper mid-market.
You know those senior managers,and the general consensus is

(08:47):
that there's more people goingfor those permanent roles and
there's less of them.
And I'm just looking at andgoing, well, the tools are
probably replacing a lot ofthose people.
Right, ai is here and whereverwe like it.
I'm not.
And yeah, and I think you knowand certainly from a development
perspective, I was listeningthat Commonwealth Bank sent you.
A third of all their code nowis written by AI, so that's a

(09:09):
third of their developers.
That don't need anymore.
So the markets obviouslychanging but obviously, having
been for a couple of recessionsand you know I did have hair,
you know, at one stage in thefirst recession, not so much now
, but the markets are constantlychanging right and we go
through this cyclical processwhere you know contract
resources, really you knowimportant and then it beyond
with that to permanent and thenit goes contracts and so in a

(09:31):
recession, for example,contractors, the demand for
contractors and fractionalworkers, I'm going to guess, is
go up.
So are you seeing any sort ofbig trends or big changes in the
market in terms of how peoplerecruit.

Simon Dell (09:40):
There was a video I watched the other week on on
TikTok I'm not, it's not just,you know, people dancing and
miming to songs.
It was a guy talking about how,about a year ago it was an
American one, but it actuallycaptured what I think is
happening in the market at themoment.
He goes he could put a job onon the job boards or wherever on
a website and get 60 applicants.
A year ago he says now I'mputting that job out there and

(10:02):
get 400 applicants and I'm justlike, yeah, that's that's.
That's pretty much how I see it.
What I would say is that ofthose 400, there's a lot of
dross in there, there's a lot ofpeople who shouldn't be
applying, but that's prettyequally the same when there was,
you know, 60 applicants.
So you're kind of you're sortof wading through a lot of a lot

(10:23):
of people.
You're also got a lot more,which is obvious.
You've got a lot moreimmigrants into Australia
applying for jobs.

Lee Stevens (10:31):
Which we both are.

Simon Dell (10:32):
Yeah, well, absolutely, you know so and and
and.
Unfortunately it's, it's, it's.
It's hard to see that in a CVfrom someone from the UK or
North America or things likethat, Canada, but I see a lot of
South Americans, a lot ofBrazilians coming into the
country now, a lot of that sortof Indian subcontinent as well.
So, you know, I feel there's,there's, there's, and obviously

(10:56):
there has been a bit of muchbigger influx in because we've
taken more people in and youknow I'm not going to get into
the rights and whether that'sright or wrong and what all
those kind of things, but butyeah, there's, there's a lot of
people, there's a lot of peopleapplying.
And the second question was interms of AI it's going to
replace people.
There was a I can't rememberwho said this, but there was a

(11:18):
famous saying that AI won'treplace people, but people that
use AI will replace people thatdon't use AI.
So, you know, a marketingmanager could probably, as you
just said, in terms of typingcode and things like that.
You know, obviously marketingmanagers don't type code, but in
terms of what they can do, theycan achieve two times, three
times the amount with using AItools than they could do without

(11:41):
.
So if you're hiring someone andthey have an understanding of
how AI can benefit the business,give them a job straight away,
because not only will you knowfrom a marketing perspective,
they'll make you money, they'llprobably save you money as well.

Lee Stevens (11:55):
So I think we're going to see a big push in that
of is it actually be AI trainingfor executives?
So I was reading last nightthat apparently a century
training near 200, the top 200executives in the organization
globally.
They're starting at the top andhoping and that kind of ethic
will kind of cascade down.
So I think it's here right andI agree with you.

(12:17):
It's like a lot of theinnovations and the revolutions
we've had over the years.
I think what will happen is itwill just that people will end
up doing different kind of workrather than the same old labor
risk tasks.

Simon Dell (12:30):
That they can use.
There's two really goodexamples that you look back on
in the past and go it's the sametrend.
That's happening right now iswhen Xero first came to market.
Xero is a anyone who tried toremember to do their books or
trying to create a P&L insoftware before Xero existed.
You're like God, it was fuckinghard, it made no sense, you
couldn't you know.

(12:50):
But now I've got you know a guywho does roofs, who still
doesn't really understand a P&L,but he understands how Xero
works.
Right, he doesn't need to be afinance guru to understand how
Xero works.
So all Xero did was remove alevel of you know or reduce the
level of competence he needed tobe able to do your finance.
And that's what I think ishappening with AI.

(13:12):
And the second one is where thecalculator and this is a great
one about kids at schools isthat if we've got AI and AI can
write the kids essays and yourkids are in that sort of age
group where they're probably,you know, being sent homework,
why would you just not use chat,gpt to do your homework?
And the answer now is thatschools can't stop kids doing

(13:32):
that right, but it's the samereason, you know, it's the same
challenge that when they all gotcalculators, you know all the
kids could do the calculator,mass homework on the calculators
.
So what you have to do is,instead of giving them the
homework that you would havegiven them before, you have to
be a bit more creative and a bitmore in depth, as the homework
that you give them, that chatGPT for can't, you know, can't

(13:53):
assist them with as much.
So it's just the evolution ofhow we work that I think that's
what how AI is really going toimpact.

Lee Stevens (14:00):
So a way I kind of the way I kind of work out in my
mind is essentially it's makingyour life a little bit easier,
right?
So, for example, just bought aTesla you know a few months ago
and you stick it into autopilot.
Do I truly trust the autopilot?
No, not in Brisbane Just kind ofvery windy streets, but on the
highway it does the job, but thecognitive load that is taken

(14:20):
off you when you're on thehighway you haven't got to worry
about slowing down or you knowsort of fast, you know getting
faster it's just taking thatcognitive load away, and I kind
of see that being the case forAI for a lot of working
environment, for a lot of people.
What I will say as well is thatI think that I was saying about
this the other day I thinkwe've got to start categorizing
AI as well.

(14:41):
It's like IT, right?
Someone says, oh, you're ongood IT.
Well, it is so broad, you know,and there's so many different
subcategories it's hard to saythat.
So I think you know we need tostart saying, well, this is
generative, you know generativeAI.
So this is for you know tocreate content.
This one is for, you know,agents.
So these are the ones, are thebots, and we're going to start
talking to you or helping outwith customer service.

(15:01):
And then maybe have AI which iskind of analyzing and, you know
, interpreting data, and I thinkyou know we can start getting
better at grouping those.
I think people kind of willunderstand it.
Yeah.

Simon Dell (15:11):
And I also think, you know, I want to constantly
be impressed by AI.
I want to be, but every time Iuse it, when I use it for the
written stuff, I'm like, okay,wow, that's done a job, it's
helped me formulate a startingpoint, and a good starting point
.
So, you know, if I sit thereand go, hey, I want to, I want
to create a course for CEOs inmarketing and it needs to be 12

(15:35):
modules and blah blah, and itwill do it for me, and I go,
okay, right, 10 of those areright.
You know I need to tweak that abit and that, but that's good.
But sometimes the graphicalstuff is just, I mean, we're
still getting.
You know, people keep sharingpictures, like you know, with
people with three hands or sixfingers and things like that.

Lee Stevens (15:51):
Yeah, AI.

Simon Dell (15:53):
And I'm like, how does the AI not know that humans
have generally have two handsand how we still in a position
this long that the AI toolhasn't learned or can go back
and go?
Actually, there's too manyhands in this.
I need to remove a hand.
And I did an eight bit pictureof Brisbane that I shared on
LinkedIn about two months ago.
So eight sort of old schoolvideo game eight bit.

(16:13):
It was really cute and I wasand I was trying to say to, and
I managed to do, get it to dofour or five iterations and
every iteration I kept saying no, it needs to be geographic,
it's not exactly accurate to theriver and the story bridge and
the build, and it just couldn'tdo it and I'm like, so I can't.
I kind of want to be impressedby it and go, wow, that looks
awesome.

(16:33):
But every time I look atsomething I'm going it's just
not quite there yet and I don'tknow what that is, and maybe
that's just me and I'm notputting in the right prompts or
something like that, but youknow.
But to your point, theeducational side of things for
those executives is definitelyneeded Absolutely.

Lee Stevens (16:48):
So nice segue then.
So if you're a business owneror an executive in one of the
sort of mid to larger businessesin Queensland or further afield
, we talk about productivity andtime and motion and people, etc
.
But from a marketingperspective.
So what?
What are some of the big trendsin your world that an average

(17:11):
business owner could listen toand go, oh, I can't need to be
aware of that, or that'ssomething I could put into
operation in my business?

Simon Dell (17:16):
Yeah, look, I, I'm going to say this.
I say this to everyone whenpeople sit there and go you know
what are the current trends in,you know going to be the next
10 years and things like that.
Um, honestly, I think a lot ofbusinesses just need to get the
can.
I swear on this.

Lee Stevens (17:29):
Yeah, okay, we can put the other ones on Get the
fucking basics right.

Simon Dell (17:35):
It's so many, there's so many businesses that
sit in there kind of trying todo the new, best thing and
trying to do this, trying to dothat and trying to be ahead of a
marketplace when they cannot dothe basics right.
When you look at things like um, you know classic marketing
stuff like email newslettersright, and everyone goes, no, we

(17:56):
want to be trendy email news.
We don't want to do that, wewant to sort of, you know, get
on social media.
Fuck, just a good quality emailnewsletter with high quality
content that people want to read, does it still work?
So fucking, smash is out of thepark.
You know, you get just.
And the thing with email ifyou've got um, if you've got a

(18:17):
decent database of people thatopen the emails right, it's
almost free marketing.
You're not really payinganything to send these emails
other than getting someone toput the content together.
But high quality email sent outfrom a company you're
interested in, that's tellingyou something interesting.
Smash is out of the park everytime.

Lee Stevens (18:35):
But what is working ?
Cause I don't read hardly anyof those.

Simon Dell (18:39):
But people do.
But if they're not, if you'renot reading it, it's because
you're just generally notinterested in what's coming out.
I mean, there's some emailsthat I will read all the time
because whoever's writing it isdoing a great job.
That's the trick.
It's not.
It's not necessarily you knowwho's sending it, it's the
content and making it engagingand that comes down.
That that's.
That's the story for everything.

(19:01):
I've got this great graph that Ishare with people.
That's got this line and it'stalked about how marketing is
easy.
You know, question markssupposed to be sarcastic and on
one end of the graph it sayssaying something, right, and
this is the, this is the.
The trick with all businessesis that any business can go out
there on social media orbillboard or TV or whatever it

(19:23):
is, and their brochures andwebsite and say something that's
easy, right, the other end ofthe spectrum of the words saying
something that convinces peopleto buy from you Right, and
that's a spectrum, right, andthere's 12 different plots, but
12 different points plotted onit.
I'll send it to you and you canstick it in the notes.
Yeah, that's the difference.

(19:44):
It's it's almost like.
It's almost like the mediumwhich you're communicating to
people is fairly Irrelevant.
You know that's not theimportant thing.
The important thing is talkingto people and telling them
something that encourages themto buy from you.
That's fucking hard sayingsomething, yep.

Lee Stevens (20:04):
And is it fair to say that probably 96% of the
stuff is people just sayingsomething and not convincing?

Simon Dell (20:09):
because because someone in there, because the
CEO said, oh, we've got to putsomething on social media, or
the CTO said we've got a report,this and and all that sort of
stuff.
Great example of that was yearsago.
I did a.
I did a.
What I did?
A review of Energex or Ergonthe same companies, whatever of
their of their LinkedIn page andthey were sharing stuff about

(20:32):
Weather reports, which onTwitter and Facebook will go
great guns that you know about.
There's a power line down,we're doing this and they take
photos and stuff like that.
Nobody gave a fuck on LinkedInand they were like they couldn't
quite understand why no one wasengaging on LinkedIn like they
were engaging all the otherplatforms On LinkedIn.
It was all the engineers andthe nerds that were following
them, right, and they got reallyhappy about, like you know,

(20:53):
we're putting this new pile onup and it's this type of pile
and we're connecting this.
Yeah, they love that shit.
But, nobody wanted that onFacebook, and it's just
different only medium, and thenyour audience different, or,
yeah, different, audience thereand it's and it's saying
something that's interesting andencourages people to buy and,
on the right platform.

Lee Stevens (21:09):
Do you think, though, how we are convinced has
changed in the last sort of 20,30 years?
Because I think there's just somuch noise out.
You know, right, you know youjust get bombarded on LinkedIn,
facebook, tv, and it's gettingmore targeted.
You know, I was watching TVabout a year ago and it says Lee
, you know, from Coca Cola, andthey'd personalised it.
I knew I'd logged in, etc.
I'll get that, and that was,you know, quirky, but did I buy

(21:32):
Coca Cola?
It was more about awareness,right, yeah, but we talked about
email just a moment ago, aboutit still being, you know,
relatively, you know, successfulfor me, I guess, where I've
kind of probably purchased andas a consumer or was a business
owner, has been when they'vebeen useful to me, no, they've
actually been, so that kind ofeducated, inspire kind of

(21:54):
component we kind of will hear alot about.
But is that kind of moreRelevant now?

Simon Dell (21:59):
I give you a specific example.
So for the past maybe threeyears we've used sales force.
Right, yeah, so this was a bigpiece of software.
It's clunky, you've got to begood to be out of you.
You'd have someone in theorganization who can customize
it for you.
And when we had sort of 15staff and 30 40 contractors,
sales force was a relativelyuseful tool.
But as we've sort of decreasedour headcount and move more to

(22:22):
contractors and permanent staff,we've sat there and gone.
Fuck, we're paying two grand amonth for sales force.
I'd rather have the two grand amonth in my back pocket and
give it to sales force and wejust probably don't need that.
We moved over from sales forceto pipe drive now.

Lee Stevens (22:39):
I went from HubSpot to pipe drive.
That lasted not very long.

Simon Dell (22:44):
But we went to pipe drive and my because I'm lucky
enough to have a businesspartner who can customize
everything yeah, and we've satthere and gone.
This is customers 300 bucks amonth or something like that and
he's customized it perfectlyfor us.
It's got all the automations,it does everything we need.
We need it to do right and it'slike this is you know, this is
what this has worked out for usand he's done that based on a
recommendation from someone heknew.

(23:05):
So I think the way that we tookcome look back to the question,
how do we buy stuff I think theimportance of a recommendation
from somebody that we trust isso valuable.
It always has been valuable.
But I think in the B2B space,the software space, those kind
of things if a CTO is out there,you know, looking for a piece

(23:26):
of software and you know, andhe's got 200 employees, he's got
to make the right decisionbecause he's gonna sink some
cash into this and he's got allthese people pitching to him and
showing PowerPointpresentations and case studies.
But the likelihood is, if hemeets up, he's got another mate
who's a CTO and the CTO goes.
You got to use this, it's great.
Let me introduce you to thesalesperson Deal's done.
You know he'll go if.

(23:48):
If Lee tells me what to use,I'm more likely to trust that
than anything else out there.

Lee Stevens (23:53):
Yeah, and we had a certain degree of that in in New
Zealand where the CIOs kind ofall knew each other Right.
So, yeah, and I used to say,you know, sort of in said this
the other day it's not evenabout what I recommend anymore,
it's because it's just whateveryone else does.
So when you're a Microsoftpartner and it's pretty easy to
sell Microsoft when 96% of thecorporate world, you know, use
those solutions, and then from asecurity perspective and cyber

(24:15):
perspective, but, as you say,you know, if, if there's 10
other CIOs saying I've usedthese tools and you know it's
been fantastic, that's all thatMicrosoft needs.
Yeah, when you got the CIO fromCommonwealth Bank on stage and
he's gone, you know, using thisis all amazing.
Absolutely there's not going tobe any CIOs, a kind of prime
buck veteran.

Simon Dell (24:32):
No, and I think we that sort of lends you to the
sort of idea that this conceptof an influencer which, when you
say that word to people, you goAll right, they.
They immediately think of someyou know chick doing a dance on
tick tock in a bikini.
Yeah, you know.
But, what I think a lot of B2Bbusinesses and software
businesses and those kind ofbusinesses that are selling

(24:52):
high-ticket items, whether thesales cycle is sometimes 12
months, 18 months long, thosekind of things.
They'd need to tap into thosepeople that are influencers in
those Marketplaces and they maybe the CIOs, the CTOs, the CEOs
out there.
There are social that aremeeting people that are doing
talks on stage and go how do Iget them?

(25:13):
You know, as as a user of mybusiness already, how I get them
to go and sell me, becausethat's massively powerful and I
think people should spend moremoney and more time having to
think about that Than going,fuck, let's do a Google ads
campaign or let's just you know,whatever it might be.
I think you know stayingfriendly and you sort of

(25:35):
mentioned that point abouthelping people and supporting
people and teaching them and allthose Kind of things.
If you can do that as well topeople that already use your
product, that's fucking powerful.

Lee Stevens (25:46):
So, on that note, we've all done it.
So I came over to Australiafour months ago.
Don't know anyone.
Yeah, obviously, what didn'tknow anyone four months ago?
It's not linked in and you knowyourself out there and and you
know that'll come right, so I'mnot worried about that.
You know you.
You know you get what you putinto it.
So how did you crack intoAustralia and Brisbane and kind

(26:06):
of market yourself, yeah, yeah.

Simon Dell (26:09):
I mean that took time.
My first job here was in sales,selling beer.
I mean I wish it's already beenhard, naturally social, social
job.
But I tell you what I found.
I Found probably that we'vewe've ramped up a lot in the
last sort of maybe three or fouryears.
Is the idea of Going to eventsright?

(26:30):
I know people fucking hate itbecause it's like I'm gonna go
to a networking event.

Lee Stevens (26:34):
In Japan, so I'm one anyone, I think.

Simon Dell (26:36):
I think even if you're an extravert, you don't
enjoy going to network eventsbecause they're they're hard,
yeah, so we sat there and justwent.
You know what?
We're gonna create our own oneand sort.
For the past two years We'vebeen doing this kind of beer
lunch once a quarter.
Yeah, getting people in theroom that you know want to have
a few beers on a Fridaylunchtime, have a nice meal 100
people there, just building thatnetwork through doing something

(26:59):
that we wanted to do.
So I mean, I still go tonetworking events.
I sort of try and avoid that,but I Find and I've said this, I
said this to people who've gotsingle-person businesses and
I've said this to you know CEOswho have got a hundred people,
200 people working for them thebest Marketing tool is to get up

(27:21):
in front of people and talkabout your product and talk
about who you are and what youdo.
Problems You've solved, theproblems you've solved right.
So any chance you can get tobuild your brand, go and talk
for free, go get on podcasts, goto networking events, do that
kind of thing.
And and my trick for networkingevents was I said this to
someone the other day I went toone.

(27:43):
I.
I smashed my toe up playingfootball a while back, so I was
walking around everywhere in apair of slides and socks, right.
So I turn up in everyone else'sin suits and ties, and there I
am in jeans and a t-shirt andslides and socks, and and I made
the point here I said buteveryone's gonna remember me,
I'm the only one here in jeansand t-shirts and slides and
socks.
And and there was another womanthere with these fantastic

(28:05):
cowboy boots.
She'd had these.
She bought me in Texas and theywere these pink, sparkly cowboy
boots.
Everyone remembered her, youknow, and the best thing for her
was we had this discussion.
I had this discussion with her.
She goes it's an immediateconversation, star, I don't have
to do that shitty.
Where you from?
What do you do?
All that kind of people come upto me.
Go, your cowboy boots areamazing.

(28:27):
Where do you get them from?
She goes I'll talk about that.
Ice broke and we can have aconversation about anything.

Lee Stevens (28:32):
Oh, I kind of.
So I agree with that and youknow it's this great, is be
memorable, right, and then yougo big, go home, all that kind
of those statements.
But I just remember there'sbunch of facts I'm talking about
and there's probably Rememberthis one guy went to networking
event and he took this like fourfoot koala bear and it can't be
a plonk it next year, right,and you try to have this serious

(28:53):
comes a bit your business.
And he was obviously like hesaid I want to be and everyone's
talking about the koala, youknow what was?
He said I want to be the koalaman and and and he was wearing,
like you're, like an Alan wickerkind of right, yeah, pastel
color as well, yeah, and the hat, and I just thought that was a
bit too Pretty, gone too far,too far.

(29:13):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Simon Dell (29:14):
Yeah, but not, you know, and not perhaps for a
stupid way.
Yeah, you know, cowboy, youknow, maybe the pink cowboy
boots are the things that thatpeople remember you for.
But, yeah, you got.
I mean you got follow-up onthat as well.
You can't just be the koala guy.
You got to go, yeah, but youknow, I bet you may not even
remember what the koala guy does.

Lee Stevens (29:33):
I've got no idea no .

Simon Dell (29:34):
I remember a guy used to do pictures and he would
.
He was selling, he was sellingto big companies and he'd always
the first two slides.
It's bizarre that I stillremember this is 25 years ago
first two slides and hispresentation deck were always
his motorbike.
Right, he goes, this is mymotorbike and they're all
sitting there, this is mymotorbike, it's whatever that he

(29:54):
said.
And then you have a picture ofhim on the motorbike and going
around a corner or something andI think it's right now onto the
presentation.
Right, but it was cleverbecause it just broken the ice
with everybody in the room.

Lee Stevens (30:05):
Yeah, and I think like I'm doing it wrong.
I'm a big believer in the youknow, standing out.
So I was talking to someone theother day, like the Seth Godin
book, the purple cow, yeah, yeah.
So you know, for those whohaven't read that book, go read
it, you know, come by copy,digitally or by paper copy, but
essentially he talks about In aworld of black and white cows.
If you're driving through afield in France and it's just
cows and black and white cows,if you saw a purple one, you'd

(30:27):
sit and take notes and it'sbeing memorable.
Yeah, staying that from thecrowd so some yeah, I believe
that, and I think it's very hardto do that, you know if you're
in a quite a bland market, but Ithink there's always ways we
can do that right.

Simon Dell (30:38):
So and I think there's there are a lot of
businesses that need to do it.
Well, I mean accountants.
I mean every accountant doesthe same thing really, and it's
hard for them to sort of createa difference.
So, realistically, thedifference for accountant should
be you know their personalityand the people behind the
accountancy, you know.
Just just create a bit ofpersonality for you.

Lee Stevens (30:57):
Well, interesting, I was on the hunt for a new
accountant myself, yeah, and Ijust had this very kind of
Anti-malpal and style kind ofapproach to business.
I'm like I'm not gonna connectwith those guys, you know, yeah,
and and there's a couple youknow, just with the complete
opposite of that, but they wereso over subscribed.
I'm sorry, I can't take it.
So, yeah, okay, all right.

(31:17):
So so, going back to guess whatyou do, and you know business
productivity and I think youknow marketing and how you kind
of take your message In your,your services to market.
We would take the averagebusiness owner out there that
needs to do free things in 2024.
You talked about some of theemail campaigns and some other
things, but what's like the freebig ticket items I need to be

(31:40):
doing as a business owner?

Simon Dell (31:41):
I think okay.
So number one would be let'stake a step back from the email
list and send in our emails, butnumber one is just getting the
database right.
There's some businesses outthere Again.
Remember a retail business andshe'd been running for three or
four years before we spoke toher and I said to her where's
your email database?
And she's like I don't reallyhave one.
I've got about 200 people and Isaid but you've been running

(32:01):
for three or four years andyou've been doing pop-up stores
If you're not collected anyone'semail address?
And she was like no.

Lee Stevens (32:07):
So that's a really good point because you know,
take my own journey relativelyearly in that journey don't have
anything right, so but youthink that's kind of more
foundational.
You kind of have to debate.

Simon Dell (32:17):
I think.
I think it's and I say this asa person as well your personal
database, whether you keepoutside of work if you're not
the CEO, you're not a C levelperson.
You should have a, and I thinkthis is a Seth Godin thing, and
I can't remember whether it's ahundred people or a thousand
people, but he talks about howyou tried that fan the tribe
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

(32:38):
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,yeah, yeah, yeah.
All of a sudden, that's that'sthat artificial tribe that
you're part of.
You went to a certain school.
Some people are going to giveyou a job because you went to

(33:01):
that school, but I thinkcreating a database of emails,
phone numbers.
You know there was a famousfinance year in New York who had
this Rolodex, because that'swhat it used to be.
The Rolodex, you know back inthe 80s and 90s right, but on
the roller decks he hadeveryone's, all of his clients

(33:22):
wives' names, their kids' names,all of their birthdays,
everything.
So he knew when anything washappening and he would always
send a message out saying youknow, just wish your wife a
happy birthday for me, and theygo fucking hell.
How does she remember that?
That is powerful.
And if you think that'spowerful on a solo basis for
yourself, think about howpowerful that is if you do that.

Lee Stevens (33:45):
So get the foundation, get your data, get
your data right.

Simon Dell (33:47):
And get it in a place where you can use it, so
it's not scattered around onbusiness cards or someone's desk
or it's in 20,000 differentemails, all that sort of stuff
and multiple systems, from whatI see as well.

Lee Stevens (33:56):
Absolutely so it's just disparate Absolutely.

Simon Dell (33:59):
The second thing is then content.
You know we sort of flaggedthis earlier is is sit there and
have a serious think about whatyou're trying to tell the world
, right, is it just?
Are you just sharing contentfor the sake of sharing content,
or are you actually trying tosay something that's convincing
people to buy from you?
You know, and if you can getthat right I mean Christ you

(34:20):
think about some of the sort ofbig businesses in the last few
years that have got that really.
Apple gets that right all thetime.
You know they get their storyright.
They get what they're trying tosay right, love him or hate him
.
Elon Musk gets it right most ofthe time.
You know how.
He just stands on stage andthrows a brick at a window of a
cyber truck and next thing, youknow he's got 100,000 orders for
cyber trucks.

(34:40):
It's like there's differentways of doing it.
You know getting that, gettingthat story right.
And the third thing I would sayis which kind of links to the
other two is you got to keeptrying to talk to people.
You got to keep trying to talkto your customers and I think a
lot of businesses make thismistake and they'll have a
conversation with the customerand the customer goes yeah,

(35:04):
thanks very much, not interestedright now.
And then the business justleaves them, and that's the big
mistake.

Lee Stevens (35:10):
Yep.

Simon Dell (35:12):
It's, it's.
I use this I use this examplebecause this is the best example
is the McDonald's example.
Right, how McDonald's operateand every business irrespective
of whether you've got 10,000staff or it's just you and your
mate running a business shouldthink like McDonald's.
Mcdonald's always havesomething going on in their
business, right?
Whether it's a new burger, orit's a promotion, or it's a

(35:33):
competition, or it's a new drink, or it's whatever, or the rib
is back and wish the rib cameback, but but there's always
something going on and what thatallows McDonald's to do is
constantly have a conversationwith the end consumer, right?
If McDonald's spent the next sixmonths going lead by a burger,
lead by a burger, lead by aburger, by the time you've heard

(35:54):
that 10 times, you just likeyou've tuned out, right?
But what McDonald's do is theytell you to buy a different
burger every month, you know.
So they get the capacity, theyget the opportunity to talk to
you about something differentevery month and therefore you
don't tune out of it.
Now, if you can take thatMcDonald's, you know the way

(36:14):
that they operate and bring thatinto your B2B business where
everyone's wearing suits andyou're talking to them about
something different every month.
If they don't want to buy fromyou in February or what we in
March now they may still want tobuy with you.
You buy from you in December,but they've heard from you every
month.
They still know who you are,I'd argue.

Lee Stevens (36:33):
Microsoft do that?
Well, okay, because what theydo is they they constantly
rename their products, you know.
So they long, or they longsomething, you know.
So the big, like the satyaapproach is basically just get,
get it out there, yeah, you know, even if it's got bugs or
defects, whatever, and then ifit doesn't really take any take
off, then we'll kill it, right,yeah, so, but they don't get
many wrong.
But yeah, I think that they'vealways.

(36:54):
They're always giving you areason to be able to go and talk
to your customers and go.
This is a new tool and it'ssomething like 1995 different
products now in Microsoft 365.
So, and there's always new onescoming out.

Simon Dell (37:05):
So you know yeah, exactly so this sounds.
If you're a BDM in Microsoft,you know, and you get something
new, new feature, whatever youcan go back genuinely to your
customer base or your prospectcustomer base and just go hey,
look, we've got this now.
With that is that, I know thatmight be something that you said
, you, you weren't interested inthis three months ago, but this
does this now.
Would you be interested in itnow?

(37:26):
And plus, couple that in withhey, we can do the first month
for free, or would you 30, 30days, just that constant.
I mean you've got to be careful.
If it's not, if it continues tobe very sales, then people do
switch.
Yeah, you know, you've just gotto.
Is the final line.
Again, this comes back tocreating content that allows
people to buy from you.

(37:47):
Yep, it's, it's the differencebetween being sales and being,
you know, informative andeducational.
Yep, and if my, if someone likeMicrosoft can do that and be
constantly out there trying toeducate their, their potential
customer base, that's powerfuland I think, as a as a business
that sells those solutions.

Lee Stevens (38:07):
Actually, you know we've talked about this earlier,
but what you're actuallyselling you're not actually
selling the tech, you're sellingthe outcome right.
So you actually say, well, thisis going to help you cut costs,
this is going to help you onboard your staff more
effectively, this is going tocut the amount of time it takes
to process that particular thing.

Simon Dell (38:22):
Whatever that, might be yeah.

Lee Stevens (38:24):
So, so yeah, I think that's kind of only what
you're selling.
And one thing that I wanted totouch on as well is I'm just
curious if this is an Australianthing.
I'm just going to win lots offriends and people every month
recently to Australia, but itjust amazes me how many people
don't actually talk to theircustomers.
So you know, you're certainlyin the tech world.
So you know, I was in a meetingand the clients are going to do

(38:45):
this, this and this and theythink this.
And I was like, have youactually spoken to them?
I was like, oh no, no, we justknow.
I was like you might want tospeak to them because they're
not saying that.
And I always used to say, like,if we had a as my old business,
we were very good at that weused to, you know, go and speak
to them, go.
What could we do better?
What are you not liking?
You know, you know what couldbe improved, what's not what?
How's your business going?

(39:06):
And if a client was unhappywith what we've done, it was
like a dagger to my heart.
I literally I'd go home and cry.

Simon Dell (39:12):
You know, because I was I genuinely cared about and
you couldn't invest it but youwas invested and yet over here
it seems to be very much.

Lee Stevens (39:19):
oh well, you know they've got unrealist
expectations.

Simon Dell (39:23):
Yeah, I think there's a there's a slightly
different attitude in Australia.
I mean, again, it's been.
It's been 20 years since Iworked in in the UK and I worked
in, you know, and there was avery different, different roles
and different level of senioritywhen I was in the UK.
But sometimes I do feel thatthe Australians are a little bit
lackadaisical for one of abetter word around.

Lee Stevens (39:46):
you know that engagement with their customer
base, you know and I see thatwe're not going to win many
friends by.

Simon Dell (39:52):
No, no, but I don't think, I don't think there's
many people that would actuallyargue with that.
Really They've been it.
Yeah, I yeah, because I thinkit's quite, and certainly in
Brisbane it's.
It's much more of a relaxedyeah, you know, and I'm not, and
perhaps that's you know.
That has its pros and it hasits cons.
You know, I think one of thecons is obviously people feel

(40:14):
then, you know, disconnectedfrom the customer base, but it's
one of the the pros is thenthere's there's not so much
stress on everyone to make surethat the you know, the customers
happy all the time.
I mean, maybe they should, youknow.
So, yeah, I don't think that's,I don't think what you're
saying is is, is is genuinelywrong.
Um, yeah, and maybe that's justa Brisbane thing as opposed to

(40:39):
maybe that's, that's not thesame in in Melbourne and Sydney.

Lee Stevens (40:43):
Yeah, yeah, I mean I've mined.
Mine stemmed from, obviously,10 years in New Zealand, so it
was very relationship based andI think it was.
You had to build those deeprelationships where there may be
a little bit more transactionover here.
I don't know.

Simon Dell (40:53):
So, yeah, yeah, I think you know well.
You know you talked about thecyclical, cyclical patterns of
business and I think businessesoften go through this.
You know one.
You know they want to suddenlybe best friends with their
customers and then all of asudden, you know the CFO looks
at the bottom line and goes howmuch are we spending on, you
know, on lunches and corporateentertainment?

(41:14):
And you know BDM's out on theroad, we need to dial back on
that.
So let's put more processes inplace where we don't have to be
as touchy-feely with everybody.
And then all of a sudden, theythat that steps back and they
become less engaged with theircustomers.
And then all of a sudden, thecycle comes back round again.
You know it happens witheveryone.
When I was working in beer salesit was, you know, we were

(41:36):
always taking them to sportingevents and all these kinds of
things.
All the BDMs were out on theroad knocking on doors and that
was an that was expensive, butwe had great relationships with
a customer base.
But then someone looks at thenumbers and goes we need to make
more profit.
What do we do?
Let's get.
And I think that's probably oneof the things to think about is
that when, when the people arelooking at you know growing

(41:57):
profit margins and growingmargins and growing, you know in
business, they sort of go right.
Well, let's get rid of a few ofthe salespeople or let's get
rid of the the customer successpeople and all those, because we
can automate that no one willnotice long in the long term.
Everyone knows I forget aboutrelationships.

Lee Stevens (42:12):
They do, they do.

Simon Dell (42:12):
And some people and I get you don't necessarily want
to build a hundred percentrelationship driven business
because that's hard to scale,yep.
And when someone moves on yousuddenly they take all the
customers with them and I thinkthat's something that people are
scared of.
Is that you know, you'veprobably seen it is good BDMs
when they leave a business thattheir customer base just goes

(42:33):
well we might go somewhere elsenow.

Lee Stevens (42:34):
Yeah, I mean.
I mean, if I'm an accountmanager perspective I think you
know I've said this time andtime again it's that people buy
from people.

Simon Dell (42:41):
Right.

Lee Stevens (42:41):
And I think, when it comes to managing an account
or a bigger account, you knowsomething some of those
enterprise and those corporateones it's a full time job, right
.
So anyone is just thinks thatthey're out there schmoozing and
which there is an element of.
Don't get me wrong, it's outthere, you know, taking people
out with his coffees, beers,lunches.
You know, just getting to knowthem and understand how they,
how they work.
But there's also the, thejuggling, 40,000 different

(43:05):
things that are coming at themfrom different angles and so you
know, certainly I take my hatoff to those, those account
managers, and because it's notsales really at that point it's
more around the trafficmanagement, I think, yeah.

Simon Dell (43:17):
Well, I think the other thing is is that people
don't understand in that accountmanagement certainly you know,
in sales, but even even withbeer, is that there might not be
.
It might not be the fact thatthey're working full time all
the time, but it's like a goodaccount manager, a good BDM, a
good whatever they, whateverthey are, but that sort of sales
role.
They can have a conversationwith a customer in 15 minutes

(43:40):
and put you know a huge amountof margin onto the you know a
huge amount of revenue on.
They can increase price becauseyou know they've got that
relationship and a 15 minuteconversation.
Go, look, do you want to addthis onto your software?
Or we think you should do this?
And I look, you're doing good,can we add some more seats on?
Or whatever.
Like, like that, right, and a15 minute conversation can make

(44:02):
a massive change to yourbusiness.
Yeah.
So to sort of beat them up andgo hey, what have you done for
the past eight hours?
It's kind of a bit unfairbecause you go, sometimes just
those small conversations orjust tiny things that they'll do
will make a massive differenceto your business.
Yep, you know, and I find thatmyself, I can sometimes sit
there and go.
I haven't actually doneanything today, you know, but
then I'll do.

(44:23):
I'll have a day where I, youknow, from my own productivity
point of view, like Tuesdaymorning, at for three hours I'll
just smash a huge amount ofthings out and then I probably
won't do a lot for the rest ofthe day.
But that's just the pattern inwhich I work.
So, yeah, I think you know goodaccount managers can make a
real difference to your business.

Lee Stevens (44:42):
We talked about some of the three things that
you should be doing, but one ofthe reasons I wanted to get you
on was that ability to scale.
So we talked about how you growa business and, having done it
myself, you know you look backand it looks easy when you're
looking backwards.
When you're looking forwards,it's not so easy.
So what were some of the thingsthat you put your ability to

(45:03):
scale down to?

Simon Dell (45:05):
I'm incredibly lucky to have a business partner who
can, who knows automation, whoknows automation like the back
of his hand.
So you know he's built a lot ofautomation into the business.
He's actually built thesoftware that runs the business
in the back end in terms of, youknow, the contractors doing
time sheets and things like that.
So that's all, it's allcompletely automated.
So for him to run all thepayments to our contractors

(45:28):
literally takes him about 15minutes at the end of the month.
You know, presses a couple ofbuttons, checks, things are done
off, it goes Right.
So for me, scaling is.
Scaling is two things.
Number one getting rid of thegetting rid of the people
element that aren't that can beremoved and replaced with some

(45:51):
sort of automation software theprocess, the process.
Yeah, that's what I was lookingfor.
So that was number one.
And there was a point two yearsago we had 15 staff.
We turned over I think 300,something, a thousand one month
and we were scaling to a pointwhere I'd go right, well, this
year we're going to hit fivemillion revenue after the second

(46:11):
year of business and we werelike everyone's patting each
other on the back and all thatkind of stuff.
And then I looked at the bottomline and went net profit was
about five grand and I just wentfuck, this isn't right.
And unfortunately some changeswere sort of pushed on us at
that point and we got rid ofmost of the staff and we

(46:32):
probably got to a point where wewere making half as much
revenue and about three or fourtimes as well, it's amazing.

Lee Stevens (46:39):
I mean I'm quite fortunate because I do help out
some businesses and talk to lotsof business owners, but it just
kills me actually how many ofthem they'll classic you know
turn over for vanity and profitfor sanity.
But it's like one of my oldbusiness partners.
Next chart account he said oh,you're just keeping people in
jobs.
You know you're a charity, youknow it's like you don't make

(47:00):
any money and like, first of all, businesses make money right.

Simon Dell (47:03):
Yeah, and that's honestly you know.
Now I look back on it and gothat that appeared to be scaling
.
We were putting 40, 50 grandrevenue on every month.
I look back in the three, thetwo years, three years that
we're operating whatever, andthere was not a month that we
hadn't grown.

Lee Stevens (47:21):
I put that down to and maybe this is like a trend
that we'll look back on in 10years time doing a lot of the
humble brag period.
So we're up to 55 people and$25 million turnover and don't
make no money.
But it's funny because in theSaaS world, like in the product
world, there's a lot of thatright.
We make the X amount of money,and so I remember going over to

(47:41):
the SaaS the conference club acouple of years ago and
everyone's talking about allthese revenues and there was no
plan for most of them to achieveprofitability because it was
the next round of funding, nextround of funding, next round of
funding, and it's almost like adirty word that you actually
made money.

Simon Dell (47:57):
But it's bizarre and we were falling into that trap.
And now I look back on it andgo that was never gonna be out
of scale.
So the two things that we'relooking at now, number one we've
solved.
The process is an automation,that's all in place.
In fact, there's three things,so process and automation is
number one.
The second thing, what we'vedone and now I think we've

(48:20):
solved this is getting our coremessage right.
Ours is just really goodmarketing people.
So people go.
What do you do?
So we do really good marketingpeople.
That's it.
I can answer that question infour words.

Lee Stevens (48:34):
It's like the wrong till, like no one knows what
wrong till it's over here, right, they don't do that no.

Simon Dell (48:38):
Does exactly what it says on the tin.
So we do really good marketingpeople, right, and then I can go
into that a little bit.
We do recruitment and we dofractional and all that sort of
stuff, but that's what we do andwe were confused.
We were doing other things.
We were doing Google AdWordsfor people, we were building
websites, like I can't stopdoing all that.
That's what we're just doingpeople.
Simplify your message.

Lee Stevens (48:56):
Simplify the message.

Simon Dell (48:57):
So number one was automate.
Number two was make it, becausemy this is a good point.
I use my business partnersquote, and I use this all the
time.
People don't buy the cheapestproduct, they buy the product
that they understand thequickest.
Yep, right, so they'll give youfucking, They'll give you the
money if they understand whatyou do really quickly.

(49:18):
So, oh, that's what you do.
Yeah, all right, I'm interested.
If you sit there and have toexplain it to them for half an
hour, they're like fuck it, Idon't know it.
No matter how cheap you are,they're not gonna buy it from
you.
So the three things for scaleNumber one was automation
process get all that in place.
Second thing was just get yourmessage really clear.
You just be able to go outthere and do one thing, and just
do one thing really fuckingwell, right, the more complexity

(49:40):
there, the harder you are gonnahave complete that compete with
people.
And the third thing that wehaven't answered and this is
where we're still sort ofworking this one at the moment
is what is the framework forscaling?
Now, software is kind ofrelatively easy, but if you sort
of look at a piece of softwareand go, how am I gonna start
sending to people in anothercountry?

(50:01):
Now that's a hard question.
You go, what?
Do we start building them in?
Aud?
Do we need a?
Do I need a foreign bankaccount, or what are the
implications of me putting staffin that?
So for us it's about how do wescale into Sydney, for example,
because whilst we can automate alot of stuff and this is
probably the other key thing forus whilst we can automate and

(50:23):
put process behind most of whatwe do, we still need a human
element in there.
And it's the same with software.
You might be an automatedsoftware business, but someone
still wants to talk to someone,especially in our case when it's
people.

Lee Stevens (50:37):
Yeah, I think for us it's because we're
consultants.
I always say we're consultantsfirst in technology, second.
So essentially it's being ableto have that bedside manner and
ask the right questions and youknow, and always say some of the
best consultants are the oneswho say this isn't for us.
You know this isn't for you andso say no.

Simon Dell (50:55):
Well, the big thing we find is that customers
certainly when it comes tomarketing people, customers
don't actually know what theywant.
They think they know what theywant.
Then we can have a look at themand go you probably don't need
to be spending 90,000 a year onthat.
We can get that done for twodays a week.
Of the fractional person,fraction of the cost, so you
know.
But for us it's about how do wemove into Sydney, do we employ

(51:17):
someone in Sydney which then allof a sudden you've got a fall
to the burden of a full-timewage.
Do we not worry about Sydneyand do we continue to grow
Brisbane?
You know, because I think forus Brisbane is maybe a five $10
million market, you know, and ifthat's a $5 million, $10
million market, sydney's a $20million or $25 million,
melbourne's a $20, $25 millionmarket.

(51:38):
So you know, and that's justthe three cities in Australia.
So if we can get Brisbane rightand I can get that up to $5
million, then that will help me.

Lee Stevens (51:47):
So a lot of people.
What you're talking about is abook I read a few years ago.
It talks about businesses havea like restaurant.
So you have to get the DNAright in that first one, because
if you don't, all you're doingis copying bad DNA and
eventually you'll die becausethere were some faults in the
DNA and I think we've got that.

Simon Dell (52:06):
DNA right, but it's now about the model, the actual
business model.
Is it?
I have to say it's not afranchise, but is it?
Do we license it out?
Do we employ people?
Do we go acquisition?
There's a lot of people lookingat acquisition in terms of, you
know, being a growthopportunity.
Do we go and look at othersmall recruitment places that

(52:28):
are in the same niche as we areand go, okay, we may not be able
to buy them, but can we mergewith them?
So that to me now is thequestion around scale, and that
might be easier for other peopleto answer.
For a software business, itmight be easier to answer, but
for us, as a people business,that's still.
I say, nothing keeps me awakeat night.
I sleep very well, but ifsomething was gonna keep me

(52:50):
awake, that would be how do wenow do what we've?
How do we take the excellenceand the clear message in that
we've got here, and how do I putthat now in another?

Lee Stevens (52:57):
city and the why as well.
I suppose that's the otherthing.
Why do you want to scale right?
So it's amazing how many peoplego oh, we've got to be in
Melbourne and Sydney andCanberra and all these other
places, and I'm up, but why?
You know so.

Simon Dell (53:08):
Yeah, and certainly for me and I'm a, you know, I'm
a single dad.
I have my kids week on, weekoff, and I go.
I don't want to have to go downto Sydney when I've got the
kids because that's gonna causeme a huge amount of issue.
You know, if I can do it, if Ican do it the week so I don't
have the kids, then it's gonnabe, you know, party on.
But yeah, so that's I meanthat's a good question Is do I

(53:29):
actually, do we actually want toscale it?
Because if we could do $5, $10million revenue here with maybe
a team of three or four, that'sa fucking great business you
know, and I probably don't needto do anything else.
But it comes back to that vanitything.
Is you kind of go?
And you know who am I trying toprove this to?

(53:49):
So I'm just trying to provethis to me, or I'm trying to
prove this to other people, oryou know why am I doing this?

Lee Stevens (53:55):
So, as we kind of bring our conversation to an end
, I just want to ask onequestion, which is kind of in
bubble in the way.
You've also been listening tospeak and we talked about AI and
everyone is at the moment, youknow at the moment but how much
of a threat is that for you andyour business, which is such a
people-centric business?

Simon Dell (54:13):
It's funny because when I first met my business
partner, it was probably aboutfive, six years ago he was
introduced to me through amutual friend and the three of
us had sat down and gone.
You know, what we should buildis an AI CMO right, and I knew
Matt, my business partner, hadthe capacity to do that right.

(54:35):
But he looked at it and justwent he goes I'm going to need
to be in a fucking dark room for18 months to do this and he
said I'll need to earn moneywhen I'm doing this.
So what we decided to do is doa bit of consultancy first to
earn some money to allow to freehim up to actually build that.
And it just got to a pointwhere it just all became too
much and he was like I can'tdedicate that and we kind of

(54:56):
abandoned that idea.
We should CMOCEMOHcom.
That was originally going to bean AI CMO.
That's why we bought the nameand we were very lucky to get a
five-lettercom which is rare ashence to December.
Yeah, it was impossible to get,and the idea was being is that
all businesses would be able touse CMOcom to plug into their

(55:21):
board of directors, theirC-level, and use the insights
from our AI to tell them whetherthey're driving the business
right or wrong.
So, essentially, what yourquestion is is we were going to
try and kill all the CMOs outthere by using this tool, and

(55:42):
it's funny now that AI is somuch more prevalent than there
are a couple of tools out there.
But I still think, no matterhow much AI out there, no matter
, there's always someone neededfrom a human element to

(56:03):
understand what's you know.
I'll give you a good example.
You look at a keyword that weget searched for on Google
marketing recruiters.
Right Now, I know that 90% ofthe people typing that search
term in are probably looking fora job.
They're not looking for amarketing recruiter to help them
find someone.

(56:23):
But how does an AI ever knowthat?
I know and I know you couldteach.
You could teach it for you.
I just don't think it would.
It would sit here and go look,180 people are searching for
marketing recruiters.
Here's your target market.
But it's not.
There's only 10% of that areactually a target market.
So do I want to spend all thistime and effort getting traffic
tomorrow.

Lee Stevens (56:41):
We have exactly the same, so SharePoint online.
So, when people are searchingSharePoint online, I know for a
fact they're trying to log on toit and not looking for
consultants Totally and I gothere's always.

Simon Dell (56:53):
I think, yes, ai is a threat to.
Ai is a threat to not very goodmarketers that have been
hanging on to their job for along time, in the same way that
Uber was a threat to shitty taxidrivers.
Right, there's still taxidrivers out there still driving
taxis, still making money.
The medallion is whatever it'scalled here is still worth
something.
Right, all Uber does is justyou know these new technologies

(57:18):
and these new, you know these,these new businesses just remove
an element of Drosts that's atthe bottom and and hopefully
step everyone up.
The problem with Uber now isthere a bit shit as well.
So they've just kind of just,they've taken a share of the
taxi market and just replaced itwith slightly different shitty

(57:39):
taxis.
So, you know, I Think I don'tthink it's a massive threat.
I think there will always needto be a human element, human
people looking at things andjust go yeah, that's good,
that's not right, we need to dothis, all that sort of thing.
I think back to that earlierpoint I made is I is there in In

(57:59):
order to able to make thepeople that are good even better
.
Yep, and I think that's that'swhere it's gonna play an
important part in what happenedin the next 10 years.
Okay, and and what's next foryou mate scale really you talk
about.
Scale is now we're sort ofPutting our heads together and
going you know, how do we, howdo we, how do we make more money

(58:20):
?
But I think the key for us nowis how do we make more money and
stay profitable?
Is Not do that startup thingwhere, all of a sudden, where
I'm trying to get people to fundus and you know, and I'm not
making, we're very adamant, wego.
If we scale, now we want tomake sure we are at least still
making the same level of profit,which you know be perhaps a
lower gross, you know a lowerprofit margin in from a

(58:43):
percentage terms, but there'sstill cash coming in the bank.

Lee Stevens (58:46):
I wonder how many entrepreneurs and business
owners, like the second or thirdbusiness that you know, you say
, like the second house youbuild, third house you build is
the better, yeah, it's the bestone, yeah, but I wonder how many
business owners out therewho've kind of done their second
or third thing and I'm justgone?
Do you know what I don't?
I've done with people I've donebefore?
I don't want to be a full-timetherapist, as someone said to me
the other day.
You know I'm happy having youknow 10 people.

(59:08):
Yeah, we're good, good roosters, good people.
I'd want to hang out where youknow, enjoy work of them, make
some money, you know, and hangout with good customers and and
this is pretty.

Simon Dell (59:17):
That's a really good point, because I Would probably
say this is the fourthiteration of me running a
business.
The first one was just me on myown and no fucking idea what I
was doing.
Then picked up some dodgyclients, made a bit of money but
it never really went anywhere.
And then I got into businesswith a couple of different
people and again built up a bigagency.

(59:39):
At one point again 14 15 peopleworking for me full-time, but I
didn't have a handle on whatwas happening financially, got
into a lot of debt.
That business just wentspiraling downwards very quickly
.
And when I met Matt I said tohim so I'm not doing that again
because that was a.
That was a massive amount ofstress.
When you see a business failing,it's a huge amount of stress

(01:00:01):
you know, and I just got married, just had my first son, Just
having all that on top of me atthe same time is just you know.
So now we're in this positionwhere we've evolved CMO from
actually doing client stuff tojust be in that core people
business.
So that's why I kind of thinkit's the sort of fourth
iteration of a business.
And now we're going.
What are the elements that wewant to take out of that have

(01:00:22):
caused us stress?
Dealing with dealing with a lotof Staff, you know.
The second thing is dealingwith shitty customers who who
complain if you charge them 400bucks you know and you're just
like, yeah, let's not, we don'twant to deal with those.
Yeah, so I've now got into aposition in business where
You're absolutely right is thatyou just eliminate all the

(01:00:42):
things that you don't want todeal with anymore and go.
I want to deal with high-valuecustomers, or at least customers
that understand, who get it,who get it, who know they've got
to pay that amount of moneybecause that's what the skill
cock skill costs.
You know people that pay ontime.
Fucking.
Well, now we do.
Now we do security deposits andwe get people to pay the first

(01:01:03):
month up free, up front, and wewere like going, no one's gonna
do that.
Fucking, everybody does it.
We're just like we.
We were questioning that andpeople were like, yeah, it's
fine, we'll do that.
Yeah, so now we don't have anylegacy debt whatsoever.
We've got one customer thatowes us money now and that's
from two years ago and we'restill chasing that one.
No legacy debt, no, you know.

(01:01:23):
No cash flow issues.
We've got money saved in thebank.
We're sitting there going rightnow in a position to scale, and
I think that's probably a goodlesson is get yourself into that
, say, put money away, get youknow, sit there and go, for all
goes pear shape.
We've got that amount of moneyin the bank that can still pay
our wages for the next threemonths, even if we had no
customers.
You know, and we're, and I'mlucky enough to be in that

(01:01:46):
position and it's.
It's been fucking hard, yeah,but it's it's.
The next step for us now is go.
How do we make sure we keep themoney in the bank, we stay
profitable and we scale?
And I might find the answers tothat this year.
It might take a little bitlonger, but I'm pretty confident
we'll get there one way oranother awesome Listen.

Lee Stevens (01:02:07):
I really appreciate your time and I've really
enjoyed talking this morning andlistening about your business
and you know how you think theworld's going with AI and
marketing etc.
I'm sure people listening wouldhave got a lot out today
today's session as well.
So I appreciate your time andwish you all the best.

Simon Dell (01:02:22):
Thank you, it's been an absolute pleasure.

Lee Stevens (01:02:23):
All right, cheers, mate.
So that's another great episode, done and dusted, as always.
I'd love to hear from you ifyou know anyone that's got a
really good story to tell abouthow they are, or not live in a
productive life.
If you want to get in touchwith me, please do so by my
website, wwwleastevansco.
That's wwwleastevansco.

(01:02:46):
You can email me, lee atLeastEvansco, or get in touch on
LinkedIn, which way I also hangout In the meantime.
Have a good week.