A Chat With Hunter Collingwood (Sunny Coast Windows) | Sydney, May 2026 (#117)

Hey folks! I'm in Sydney for some TV filming, and my good friend Hunter Collingwood (owner of a window cleaning business in Sunshine Coast) has joined me for a brief chat. Tune in!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Alright. Self-made episode, what is this? 116? 117? Um one or the other. I'm joined here with my good friend Hunter Collingwood, aka Sunny Coast Windows. Can you guess what he does?

SPEAKER_00 0:17

I clean Windows. Oh yeah, Windows. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 0:20

Yeah. So Hunter's got a cleaning business up in Noosa in the Sunshine Coast. Yeah. And him and I connected through TikTok a few years ago. Um, and we've been friends ever since. So now we're in Sydney. And all we want to do is make contacts. We we've done a couple of skip videos. One of them's doing pretty well on the Instagram right now. Yeah. And we're like, why not just sit down and record a quick podcast as well? So, no idea what we're going to talk about, but we're going to start with the topic of a cleaning business and just take it from there. So Hunter, tell us about your journey with starting the business into getting where you are now.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

Uh funny story, it actually started through McDonald's. So I was working at McDonald's. Um, and and part of working at McDonald's, I was cleaning the windows. Just like with the $5 squeegee and the $5 mop. Yeah. And then I remember this one shift. This is this is pretty much when I got all started. Within this one shift, I had probably like three people come up to me being like, oh, jokingly, uh, you should do cleaning for me, like, or you should clean my windows next, or this and that. And then I was like laughing back, and then I was like, Hold up, maybe I actually should start a business. And then I remember this one person offering me, oh, if you work for me cleaning windows, I'll pay you $40 an hour. And on Mecca, on Maca's wage, I was like, $40 an hour, dude, that's pretty crazy. That can change my life. Um, and so I was I thought about it. Um, and then I looked into it that night and I was like, should I actually start a window cleaning business? And and would that be helpful? Um, and then over the span of the next probably month, I literally went and bought my first squeezy and mop for $300 with a bucket, and I started bringing it to the McDonald's and cleaning it at McDonald's with this gear, just still working for McDonald's, not having my own business, but just like getting better with the Squeezy and Mop. And then from there, I I then put my name out there, started my name. It was my mum's birthday. Um, we came up with the idea of Sunny Ghost Windows, and then that's when it all started, pretty much.

SPEAKER_02 2:27

Yeah, that's awesome. It's funny. I know a few people who started like that where they were working like an office job and the office needed a cleaner, so they're like, alright, I'll do it. I want some extra hours of work. And then they did that, and you know, they start getting approached by other people at the office, like, hey, you should you should clean my house, we should clean the office, and then they started cleaning business, and you know, it worked. One thing led to the other.

SPEAKER_00 2:47

Yeah, so it's interesting how that happened, but now you've got what 250 clients and yeah, yeah, we've got 250 recurring clients, which isn't too much in the window cleaning world, but it's like it's enough to keep a business running, it's a great number. It is a good number. Um, and yeah, it's just so enjoyable. I couldn't imagine going back to another nine to five. Uh, it's just there's pros and cons to it, but more more pros than there is cons.

SPEAKER_02 3:10

Yeah, it obviously gives you the flexibility to do what we're doing now, which is just you know take a week off on very short notice, go travel, which is great. And yeah, um, what what are your kind of plans for the future with the business? Uh do you want to grow a team? Because I know you've been pretty comfortable just doing it by yourself with like one or two uh window cleaners with you. So what what are your what's on the horizons for you?

SPEAKER_00 3:34

I definitely do want to grow this business. Like I feel like there, especially where I am on the southern coast, like there's a lot of a lot of the market for it because every house is massive million-dollar mansions, and so like there's a lot of money in the window cleaning realm. I want to also integrate the uh pressure washing side to the business a bit more. And yeah, when it comes to team, like I'll I'll build up a proper team this year with like I don't know, two IC operations manager, all that all that good stuff. I want to get to the point where I'm not having to spend as much time on bringing in work and actually paying somebody else to do all that for me. So at this point in time, that's what's losing majority of my my time, um, which isn't helping me grow and work on the back end of the business to make it look better for everybody else, you know.

SPEAKER_02 4:24

Yeah, and it's it's good. Like saying you want to scale the services kind of horizontally that adding on pressure washing and um you know gutter cleaning and all those other exterior services, like you Q and since you've got that base of 250 customers already, even if just 10% of them wanted pressure washing, you know, that's an extra like um you know, 30,000, 40, maybe even $50,000 in revenue just pulled out thin air before you got those. So, what have been some of the challenges you've faced in growing the business to where it is now? And what do you what have you found that's worked really well for you? Obviously, you do content similar to me. Um yeah, talk about talk about some of the challenges you faced and and how you kind of dealt with them.

SPEAKER_00 5:04

And I would say, um I would honestly say the hardest thing was literally just I mean it's it's pretty counterintuitive, but starting the business. Like that was probably one of the biggest challenges I've had to face so far. As in the first six months, like you have to break through that barrier of like, is this working? Is this gonna be something that I can actually live off? Um, and it it is like you just gotta build that that structure first for multiple different reasons. One being you're gonna get your name out there, which is the biggest thing. And what that what that has led to is now that my name is out there. Um, I'm having people come to me and all the organic leads come out of thin air. People will just be like, Oh, you were referred by this person, this person, and this person. Can I get my windows cleaned? And especially on the Sunshine Coast, but a lot of different places, the biggest or the easiest way to get a client is coming from somebody else that they trust. Yeah. Because that's the word they're gonna believe more. Like, I don't know how I don't care how how many ads you do, like at the end of the day, if someone sees an ad or if someone hears a word from a friend, they're gonna or get someone gets told a word from the friend, they're just gonna take the word from their friend better.

SPEAKER_02 6:15

The best customers are always gonna be from referral, yeah. But they're also the hardest customers to get because not only does someone have to know like and trust you enough to want to recommend you to a friend, but they have to like really truly believe that their friend or family member or whoever they're referring to is gonna have a positive experience for you. Exactly. Because if their friend or whoever they refer doesn't have a good experience, then that reflects poorly on the person referring them. Exactly. So it is it is like a very big thing on their part because they don't want to refer someone to you know a window cleaner, and then they don't have a good experience with them and they they're really unhappy, and then that doesn't look good on them. So a referral is it's a really big ask. It's not just like, oh yeah, I use this guy. It's like there's a lot of trust built up and tied up into that. So yeah, but it's also like the most powerful way to grow. It's like it's trump any kind of advertising we do. I mean, the TikTok and Instagram would be at close second because people obviously like watch me online and they they develop that like affinity towards me. And then you know, when when we do the quote, it's like they've already kind of sold themselves on why they want to use us, but a referral is just like a step above that. And so if you can incentivize referrals and you can build a business on that, like you're not going anywhere, you're not gonna be affected by market changes and price changes. Yeah. Um, and like our business now, 30% of all of our new customers come from referral or word of mouth. So it's just something as well that that builds as the business grows. Like that snowball, it starts very small because obviously you can't get usually you can't get customers from word of mouth when you haven't started yet. Correct. So over time it's gonna get bigger and bigger, and then one day you're gonna be in a position where you've got 250 clients, and now you've got 250 like referral partners essentially. Yeah, and that they've got friends, they've got family, and that snowball and that customer base just gets bigger and bigger.

SPEAKER_00 8:02

Yeah. Oh, it's it's amazing. Like, as I said, that's why starting the business, because I didn't want to go through ads off the bat because it's just not organic. I like the organic growth, it's just it's the best way to grow a business, and you get the best feedback once you well, if you if you do a good job, then you get the best feedback. Um, the other thing that I have realized that has worked so well is on the first time you go to a person's house and you do that clean, just spending like an extra 10% of your time just to make sure everything else is done above what you would normally do. I don't care if what you do already is amazing already. Just spending it 10% extra time, even if that's just talking with the client about, I don't know, the cat Jeffrey or something. Because you build that personal connection with that client, and that just helps them trust you and trust your business to then also refer in the future.

SPEAKER_02 8:56

Yeah, we had a meetup in uh in Sydney the other day with some people in my coaching program, and um, this was like a big, big topic of discussion there. We were talking about how we're pretty much all we do the same thing, right? Like the cleaning business is technically commoditized. We all do the exact same cleaning. Like, I'm the same as another house cleaner that does full house cleans, like you clean windows, other window cleaners do the same thing you do. And so the only thing separating you from other people is you, like the person behind the brand. Yeah, and so the the difference could be like one customer could be looking at business A and business B, like same type of business, same price, but if this customer has like an affinity towards uh business A, for whatever reason, it could be like, you know, this customer is a Christian and this is like a Christian-led business, yeah, they're just gonna go to that business rather than this one.

SPEAKER_01 9:47

Correct.

SPEAKER_02 9:48

And they're also gonna have like a stronger working relationship because they have like that that common interest, or you know, they they like this business's values, like maybe it's built on eco-friendly, like sustainability, that kind of thing. Maybe that's something they value. Yeah, and so you you kind of just mitigate the whole issue of like price competitiveness and and all of that. And like that's why I I really encourage people to like just share a bit about themselves online, like the people that that post cleaning videos, like, don't just make it about the cleaning, make it about you too. Like just post about your day, post about what you're doing, post about what interests you because you never know how that's gonna resonate with someone. Yeah, that could be the difference between you, you know, just being another cleaning business or you really like developing a strong like customer base of raving fans and stuff. Because that's what we've got in ours. Like people love us, we've had clients for six years now. It's like, you know, the value of that is is crazy. Some people have spent we have got one customer that I've had for seven years, and I think he spent like $40,000 with us to clean his house, which is just crazy. So, yeah, there's a lot of value in that. But um, with the content as well, you've you've obviously done a bit of content. Um what's what's your experience been like with that? Because I know you've you felt like you hit a bit of a a wall with that. So, how'd the content go? Did you get a lot of customers from TikTok and Instagram?

SPEAKER_00 11:14

Um, the content side of things for me and for what I was doing uh per content, I didn't get I probably have gotten 10 clients from my TikTok. But that's just because how I base my content, like it's a very satisfying video type of content, so you're not looking like your demographic that you're aiming at is not a client's demographic. So it's like people are just saying that and they're like, oh, that's cool, and then they scroll past. Correct. Yeah, um, but in saying that, it has led to um, as you would know, like sponsorships or brand deals or even just like reposters like paying for your content. So I feel like it's just like especially when I first started, there was that extra boost of money that I like it was just enjoyable in the business, you know? Because all you had to do was film a 30-second video and then bam, a reposter's paying you $500 for that video.

SPEAKER_02 12:09

Yeah, and you say, like, you know, 10 customers isn't anything to shrug your shoulders about. Like life lifetime value of 10 customers for you could be $20,000, $30,000. So um, like it's gonna open, and like you've you haven't really put that much effort into content, have you? No, yeah, like exactly. So um, I think I think going into I think I've talked about this before, like going into the the second half of this year and and 2027, like content is really going to be king, but not just content for the sake of content, but actually like really developing a brand and a personal brand. Like my my business, I don't really have like a social media for the business, it's just me, which is like it's kind of weird because I don't really talk about enhanced on my you know on my Jason Clean's TikTok account. Yeah, but despite that, 30% of all of our customers come from TikTok. Yeah, so it's like if people want to seek you out, they'll go find you. Yeah, I think a lot of people have the wrong idea about the content, they make the content so commercial and like business focused. Yeah, but the ones the people that do the best are the ones that have a personal brand that's like indirectly sort of linked to their business. Like I'm wearing this shirt in all my videos, um, I talk about what I do, but I'm never like, you know, this is my business enhanced cleaning. I'll be like, I own a cleaning business, and then this is me doing my work. And the people I know who do that, they're the ones that do the best on social media. Like, yeah, um yeah, like Charlotte from Care Cleaning, like her TikTok account is Charlotte, like it's it's about her, and she's like one of the biggest people in like Australia in the cleaning TikTok space. So then I look at other people and it's like it's the name of the business, it's all just videos of their cleans and stuff like that, and that's falling into the category of like you know, we're a commodity, like this is a cleaning business. I can't tell you apart from the next cleaning business and the next one, exactly. And so you've gotta, I know it's uncomfortable for a lot of people, but you just have to incorporate that human element and you know put your face out there or at least put your voice out there, and um, I think founder-led marketing is is gonna be really, really important in the near future.

SPEAKER_00 14:24

Yeah, yeah. Well, because people don't want to be told what to do, right? Like if if they're seeing a TikTok come from the business page, then it's just another ad to them. But if you're seeing like if they're seeing a TikTok come from this personal brand and this this person that actually owns a business, but they're not shouting in your face, then uh psychologically they're automatically wanting to drift towards that person more than the business.

SPEAKER_02 14:49

Exactly, because people like to buy from people, yeah. That's all it comes down to at the end of the day. That's why I always try to do in-person quotes because you get that human connection, and a lot of the time just having that that connection and having a conversation with someone could be the difference between you getting the quote and not, just because that's what people value, especially like now more than ever, because we've got all this AI stuff, and like everyone is so disconnected, and social media is like just plaguing everyone. Like, people are craving that human element in in business, whether it be like I feel like there's been a resurgence in like the hospitality space as well. Like, cafes and restaurants are just packed everywhere you go, and it's like I think we're coming full circle, and people just want to be people again. People want to be more social, so you do need to show that human element in your in your content now. And if you're not doing content at all, like first of all, you have to be doing that. But if you are doing content, just try to just try to be, you know, should show yourself in your videos and and even just on Instagram, just post stories of yourself. Like, there's a few people I follow on Instagram that are like, you know, they're not big, they've got a couple hundred followers, but they just post so consistently and like they're posting everything they're doing throughout the day, like, you know, just completed the first clean, and they're at like um just showing like what they got for lunch, and then they're like off, go do a quote, and then they're like walking their dog, and it's like I just like like I'm talking about them now because I remember them, like these are memorable people that I follow, and it's like if I was if I was a customer in that market, I would go to that person because they're always at the top of my consciousness and they're always posting consistently, and it's like, oh, I like this guy, he seems nice. Like, you know, like this is what's gonna differentiate you from all the other people in the market. So yeah, I think content's really important. Obviously, I'm biased, um, but you can still build a great business with you know paid ads. But as you said, organic's always gonna be better. Um when it comes organically, that there is no competition. Like paid ads, you do have competitors, yeah, and it can come down to things like price. When you build something organically with content or word of mouth or referral, none of that is even a thing. Yeah, so yeah, it's it's interesting, and like you get to you know meet people as well. Like we met through TikTok, and like now we've we've been friends for a few years and we've learned a lot from each other, which is great. So even just that community aspect is good, and yeah, now we're in we're in Sydney together. If you're not watching this podcast on video, we do have this on video, no matter how it's gonna turn out. Uh, I don't even know how how much time do we have on this camera. I think we only have like what does it say on the thing?

SPEAKER_00 17:27

How many minutes at the top does it say we have left?

SPEAKER_02 17:29

Uh 28 minutes, all right.

SPEAKER_00 17:30

Uh we got it we got a bit of time. Yeah, we got the time. What else should we talk about? Um, let me drift this towards you. I would say, like, we we spoke about this ages ago. Yeah. Um, I think it was the first time we actually met, and I spoke to you and I was like, How'd you do it? And you're like, Oh, I just got lucky. And I'm like, okay, interesting. And then you told me this other thing saying that when you hit six employees, that's when you realize, well, that's when like things started to shift. So, what what made it about those six employees that shifted your business? That's a good question.

SPEAKER_02 18:07

Yeah, I always tell people like the sweet spot for a business is like six to twelve employees. I think the real sweet spot is about ten. And the reason for that is like first of all, I finally felt like I had structure. Yeah. You know, when I had less than six employees, if I lost, you know, if I had a bad couple of weeks and I lost two employees, I would be, I'd be working like, you know, 100 hours a week just trying to keep on top of things. And I just felt like a hamster on a wheel constantly. Yeah. And then yeah, I got to this point where I had about six employees, and all of a sudden, like I felt like I had a bit of breathing room. I felt like if someone calls in sick, you know, we've got five other people that can kind of cover for them. Sure. If I lose someone, like same thing, we can kind of cover and make it work. Sure. And I finally felt like I had a solid foundation to actually start building the business on. And then, yeah, from that point on, it just kind of took off. Like I went from six to ten to twelve to fifteen to twenty. And it was, I think it was a big mental shift for me. I was like a big mindset reframe. Just um, like I finally kind of validated to myself, like, this is a real business, this is something that I can grow. Like this is something that people want. This is something that people, you know, what people want to work for me. Yeah. It was like, it took me the longest time to realize that, you know, people actually want to do this. Yeah. And um, yeah, it's like just and from an operational standpoint, like I was saying, people call in sick, you've got contingency, um, and you've also got you've now got a base of people that you can, you know, you can pick one or two good people and you know promote them up. And uh, but I would say it was like a big just mindset shift for me. I I finally just realized that this was something that you know wasn't going anywhere and I could grow it. And it just gave me the most comfortability as a business owner because I could finally step back and work more on the business uh rather than in it. Yeah. And then yeah, I would say that was like the big turning point for me. And ever since then, like, you know, we just haven't gone back. And a lot of the people that I I help, like, same thing. I I helped them get to a point where they've got um actually someone at the the lunch that we went to the other day, Steph, um she I think she has around six employees now. Same thing for her, like she's finally kind of got some breathing room where she can step back. And um Christian, who we who we met up with, he's got a cleaning business in Sydney, um, doing about you know 20 to 25k a month, which is the other thing as well. When you've got more employees, you're doing more revenue, you make more money. But he's got, I think he's got about six uh employees as well, and he's finally stepped back and he's making, he's making like a really good income without needing to work, and he can now just focus on the business. And yeah, it just gave me that breathing room and and also that confidence to to actually really work on the business and grow it. Because until then, I was like, I was pretty, I wouldn't say half-hearted about it. I wouldn't say I wasn't trying, but I just didn't have this like really firm and solid belief that this was going to be something big. Sure. And so yeah, it was just like just an arbitrary uh number where like in hindsight I look back and that was where everything kind of changed for me. Everything started attacking. Yeah, and just from seeing other people and and their experiences, like um it seems like that's a pretty common thread for you know, residential and commercial cleaners where you get that you get that um solid foundation that you can start to build from. And same thing in Perth, like when I launched the second location, it was just it was it was such an interesting thing because I had like Bunbury, which is the the main location I have. Bunbury was doing, you know, like when I started Perth, it was probably doing one and a half million a year. And so like I'm just you know, I'm making a comfortable uh uh income from that without needing to do anything. And so I'm like, all right, I'll Do the same thing in Perth, but I basically had to do it all over again from scratch. Like I was cleaning myself. I was um, you know, when I went to one, two, three employees, like there's all the headaches of having a small team and like you gotta fill in for people, and then I was like, man, this is like the exact same thing as when I was building Bunbridge. Like the timeline was condensed a little bit because I obviously had learned from a lot of mistakes, but it was the same, same battles, same fires I was putting out. And then again, same thing. When I when I got into that kind of like six employee range in Perth, I finally was able to step back and just work on growing the business. And then that's when you know Perth went from um 200k to 300 to 400 to 500. Um, and like the the timeline for growth just accelerates once you're able to finally start to work on the business, which I think is that's the important thing as well. Like people are too short-sighted in business. They see you know, when when you take yourself out of the business to work on it, your income drops. Like that's just the reality. Like you're when you're trading your time uh for you know working in the business and getting paid for the hours that you're putting in, yeah, like that's a hundred percent margin. Yeah. So you make pretty good money. And then as soon as you step back and work on the business, that income just pretty much drops to like, you know, if you're hiring employees, it drops to like 20%.

SPEAKER_01 23:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:26

But the leverage you get where you can then sink your time into actually growing the business, and then over a period of like six months, twelve months, or years, those hours you put in compound into like, for me, it's been you know millions of dollars. Yeah. But people are just too short-sighted and they don't want to take themselves out because you know they're gonna earn, you know, whatever it is, a thousand dollars less per week, but they don't see the bigger picture where you finally get that time back that you can spend working on the business to then five exit in like two or three years.

SPEAKER_00 24:01

So well, that exactly right. And I remember you saying also, like, Stacey, so your your main gal, like she's brought on so much work for you that like you're just so thankful to have her. Um, and I feel like, yeah, people don't realize that not only bringing that person on, it it saves time for you, but then it also brings on more work for you, like it allows you to fit more water in the tank, pretty much.

SPEAKER_02 24:27

Yeah, and I I was able to just scale up my marketing efforts because I was no longer working in the business. Yeah, and then yeah, I put I put Stacy in, who was at the time a lot more a lot more hungry than I was, like to just really grow it. She had that drive and that that work ethic. And so I took myself out and I finally had more time to like build systems, refine things, work on the hiring process, um, do more content, do more, do more advertising. And then yeah, the leads, the lead flow tripled. And because Stacy had that that drive, she just like was converting the leads and making sales, and it meant like we doubled the business in like nine months. Yeah. And I'm doing the same thing at birth, and it's just like it's the it's funny how similar the experiences are. It's like the exact same journey to get to where I am or where I was in Bunbury, just in a shorter period of time. Yeah, so and I see it with every business, like every business is the same, and we all go through the same mental challenges, yeah, and we all go through the same like hurdles and stuff. It's really just a matter of who can like withstand that the best or who can navigate that the best mentally. Yeah, like the people that give up are like that's it, they're just the people that give up. Yeah. Like the the only real reason you fail in business is because you said you did, yeah, and then you you walk the other way. Yeah. But the people that do well, like they they've experienced the same hardship as you and I. Like they've had to go through the same problems and they've had to do the like the late nights and like cancel birthdays and trips, and but they just stuck at it for whatever reason, whether you're like insane or what. But they kept doing it, and now they are where they are now.

SPEAKER_00 26:14

Yeah, you don't you don't get lucky in business, you you work for it. Like people always say, like, oh how'd you do it? And they get so like amazed by like this accomplish accomplishment of like building a business. And I'm like, anyone, literally anyone can build a business. All you gotta do is just put in the work and like constantly do it. Like everyone wants to make money overnight and build a multi-million dollar business like tomorrow. No, it's just by putting in it's with anything, like even music. Like, you don't you don't become an amazing writer or music producer overnight. Like it takes years of just like constantly, I don't know, rapping on beats.

SPEAKER_02 26:53

Olivia Dean, she I think she won the Grammy for like best emerging artist or new artist. Olivia Dean has dropped like seven albums.

SPEAKER_00 27:00

Yeah, she's been along for a long time.

SPEAKER_02 27:02

She's been around for like a decade, but she just won like best new artists, you know what I mean? So it's the same thing in business. People see you as like an overnight success one day, but they don't see like the seven years of work you put in for like seven years is a lot of time. It is how long I've been doing this. Yeah, and I know people who have been in business seven years, and you know, their business is five times bigger than mine. Like, you know, it's like there's levels to this, and it's just a matter of, you know, like I'm not the most ambitious or driven person. Like, that's why there's people that do ten times better than me. That's all it boils down to. It's like, yeah, who has the most drive? Who is willing to just like endure the most like shit? Like, who is willing to just go through the mud and just get it done and and just keep doing it every single day through thick and thin?

SPEAKER_01 27:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:43

And who can like delay gratification the longest? Because it I I didn't make you know a million dollars in my first year, I didn't even make a hundred thousand in my first year. Yeah. Um, it takes time and you you've got to be willing to stick it out. So yeah. What was I about to say? I was about to say something before we started talking about well.

SPEAKER_00 28:03

I was also just gonna add on to that. Like, if if you're not good in an area, then find someone to be good in that area. Like if you're shocking at marketing, hire someone that's it has to be like one day a week, that's all you need. Just one day a week, then just working in the marketing. If you if you hate doing marketing, then just get somebody in to do it. Like if you hate being I wouldn't say like the boss because you kind of need to be the boss in the business, but if you need someone to like relief that pressure, then just bring somebody on to relief that pressure for you. Like, it doesn't have to be this like big scary thing of building a business. Like, you don't gonna take on all these responsibilities. You just gotta oversee the people that do those responsibilities.

SPEAKER_02 28:43

That's I I tell people that as well. Like, you don't have to be the best marketer, you don't have to you don't have to know how to file a tax return or like do your best. You don't need to know how to even run payroll. You just need to know enough about how it works so that you can oversee someone else doing it. Exactly. Like my my virtual assistant, uh Jessa, she does all our all our accounts, like reconciliation, invoicing, payroll. I don't even really like know some of the ins and outs of what she does, but I know enough that I can see like, oh yeah, that's being done right, that's being done optimally. Same thing with you know my management. Like, I I don't need to know how they're how they're operating. I just need to know enough about like the like what's actually going on so that I can keep my finger on the pole. Same thing with the accounting, like I don't know how to file a BAS or do this or do that, but like I've educated myself to the point where I can at least have an idea of what's going on, having having uh have that understanding.

SPEAKER_00 29:40

Yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_02 29:41

Um so yeah, like you don't need to know exactly how to do things, but if you just learn enough about it and then you can delegate it, like you get the same result, and you're able to you're able to get leverage because you're using someone else's time and expertise, and then you can focus on what you're actually good at, which yeah, if and if there's one thing you do need to get good at in business, it's just sales.

SPEAKER_00 30:03

Yeah, pretty much.

SPEAKER_02 30:04

Everything else can be delegated. Sales you can delegate, but I think as a business owner, you should be the face. You should be the face, you should be the one that's closing the deals until it gets too big for you, and then obviously you bring more people in. But that's the one skill every business owner needs, it's the only thing you should focus on, and then everything else is secondary to that. Yeah. Because at the end of the day, like sales is the lifeblood of the business. If you don't have sales, then you don't have accounting, you don't have HR, you don't have any of this stuff. Yeah. So have you have you done um obviously with exterior cleaning, there's like a big, you know, you got like door to door and like all this like hustle, like sales culture. Have you done much of that stuff? Have you gone door to door before?

SPEAKER_00 30:49

I definitely tried it for a period when I was building my business. Um, because you would see all those people on TikTok and be like, oh, I'd like this. They rave about it. Let's try it. They make it seem really easy. Yeah, they make it seem really easy, make it seem like a thing that you need to do. Um, I did I did definitely try door knocking, literally for one day. Uh I cleared about four streets when I did this. Um I think I went up to 200 plus houses and I gained five-ish clients. So I mean, you definitely have to get pretty to the word no. Like you have to be comfortable hearing no, or you just hear the multiple different ways someone can say no. Um, but I mean it did bring on clients.

SPEAKER_02 31:38

And also would have built your skill set as well. Like you would have become so much better at talking and yeah, so much better at handling objections and the word no, which is like the biggest thing. It's one of the toughest things, is we don't want to hear the word no. No. We're conditioned as people, we don't want to like if if we want to get something, like you know, we want to see it through. Yeah, we don't want to be told that we can't have it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I I haven't gone door to door, I haven't had a need to, but it's um I've done cold calling and same thing, like the first you know, 10 cold calls, you're like, oh my god, what am I doing? This is I I have no I don't have a clue how to speak to these people. I don't I don't think this is ever gonna net near client. And then you do like 50 and 100, and you're like, okay, I'm like, I'm still not getting anything out of this, but I feel like I'm I'm getting a bit better. Yeah, and then eventually, you know, you you get to the you know, you might have to dial two, three hundred numbers, but you do get that that one person that says yes, and then all of a sudden the other 299 no's mean nothing.

SPEAKER_00 32:40

Yeah, so because yeah, at the end of the day, door-to-door knocking or even just cold calling, like it's just all it's taking is your time. Yeah, and so if you have so much time in the business, especially when you're starting out, like it realistically is not costing you a thing to go past those people, yeah. And yet, as you said, like you have to warm up to even just talking with these people about the business getting good with your approach, getting good with all these other things, all these other things that you can then use for later cold calls or door knocks, and yeah, you that one no turns into two no's and three no's. And I know one of the yeses that I did did did get speak did get um years ago, I still have them as a client. Yeah, and like she's brought me on so much work, she's a lovely lady, and the house is it's a beautiful house. So when I first started, that one yes was like took me two or two hundred no's to get there, but I mean it sticks with you for a long time and it brings you on so much other things.

SPEAKER_02 33:46

So and every no gets you closer to a yes, yeah, exactly. And so that one client, how much do you think they've spent with you or added to the business with referrals and everything as well?

SPEAKER_00 33:56

With referrals, yeah. Over 10, 20,000.

SPEAKER_02 34:00

Okay, so you had to, you know, you had to knock on 200 doors to make twenty thousand dollars essentially.

SPEAKER_00 34:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:06

So you you divide twenty thousand by two hundred, that's how much you got paid to be told no. It evens out, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:14

Yeah. Like when you think about that, like it's actually pretty good. And I'm not saying that every client that you that you get as a yes is going to lead to a $20,000 yes, you know, like it might not, but that's just the whole point of it.

SPEAKER_02 34:27

It's interesting how the math works, because like, yeah, you know, let's just say you made $20,000 from this one client, and you had to hear, you know, you have to go through 200 people to get that. That essentially means like you've been paid $100 to be told no by 200 people to make $20,000. Obviously, it's not how it really works, but but girl math it. Yeah, girl math it, exactly exactly. Yeah, yeah. So I I've always like that. Was the biggest mindset shift I had in cold calling was like every no gets you yes closer to a yes, but yeah, but also you get paid for every no. Yeah. Because when you do finally get a client, like pays for it. Yeah, like all those no's were just a necessary step along the way. It's like a prerequisite to get the yes. Yeah, like if we got if we got a client on every cold call, like we'd all be billionaires. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 35:08

That's just not how it works.

SPEAKER_02 35:09

That's that's not the game. Yeah. Um, and we met up with um some some of the guys that read the lunch. Like, they built their entire business on cold call. They're doing about a million dollars a year, all from cold call.

SPEAKER_00 35:22

So it's clearly we it works.

SPEAKER_02 35:23

I mean, it's just it's just like you know, pick your poison. What do you want to do? Do you want to go door to door? Do you want a cold call? Do you want to do social media content? Do you want to do ads? Or do you want to do a bit of everything? Like they all work. It just comes down to you know what you will and won't do for money. I don't really want to go door to door. Um, it's just not something that it really interests me. So I just avoid that. Um, and I do content and I do and I incentivise referral and I've built my SEO, and for me that works. It's it looks different, and then for the next guy, it's gonna look different as well. But everyone just needs to get good at one thing and then just do that consistently over and over again until you've built the business to a point where you can then start to delegate and you can start to automate stuff, and that's really the game.

SPEAKER_00 36:10

Yeah. Yeah. It's a fun little fun little business. I feel like if if you want to build a business, you just gotta get prepared to play the game. Like at the end of the day, it's a game, and you just gotta enjoy playing that game to build a good business.

SPEAKER_02 36:27

It's like it really is a lifestyle, like you do have to love business or you're gonna hate it. Especially in the early days when you know you're doing a hundred-hour weeks and it it genuinely ruins, you know, like weekends and you can't make plans and it takes time away from family and friends if you've got those. Yeah. I didn't have that issue, but um, yeah, like it's you gotta really love it.

SPEAKER_00 36:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:50

It's uh I think it's similar to like, you know, people that go to uni and they do things like med school. Like, if you don't love that, you're gonna hate it and you're gonna you're gonna drop out and you're gonna just go into something else. I think it's the same with business. People there's a lot of people that give it a go. And for whatever reason they drop out, and it's just not for everyone. Like you have to be wired a certain way to really do well in business. Yeah. And I think we all have to be like a little bit every business owner I've met is a bit weird.

SPEAKER_00 37:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:19

Well, they gotta be because they gotta have something different about everybody else that makes them more.

SPEAKER_02 37:24

You gotta have like a little bit of ADHD or whatever. I I watched a video and it was like it was like this case study into um like successful entrepreneurs, and the the bottom line of it was like the most successful people are the ones that manage their ADHD the best. That was like the finding of that. That was the whole case study. I was like, that's interesting. Yeah. So yeah, um, if you don't, if you don't love it, you hate it. Oh yeah. It's definitely uh a way of life business, but it's fun, like it is a game.

SPEAKER_00 37:53

And you just gotta like you gotta get that enjoyment for it. I feel like after the first couple of months, then you start to when you start getting a lot of clients and you start getting this consistent income, you gain that it's almost just dopamine. You get that dopamine in it from it, and you're like, this is I enjoy this, and then you enjoy building it, and you get bigger spikes of dopamine. Like it's it's just this one big fun thing that you just got to enjoy.

SPEAKER_02 38:17

Yeah, and you just you just need to stay consistent. Like, even listening to a podcast, that's you know, there were there were people like Steph who was at the lunch, and she's like she's one of the people that's in my program, and I just keep seeing her growing and growing and growing, and like I I can't take any credit for that. Yes, she listens to my my podcast and she's in the coaching thing. But I look at someone like that and I'm like she's gonna do well regardless of of what program she's in, or if she even has a coach, like regardless of anything, she's gonna figure it out on her own. Um obviously, if she's learning from me, it'll just happen quicker because she won't have to make so many mistakes and whatnot. But you can just look at people and you can tell, like, this this person's gonna do well, like success for them is inevitable because they show up every day, they're consistent, they've just got that mindset. And like yeah, like the the people that I've noticed that have done the best are the ones that um like at least in my little ecosystem, they like listen to all my podcasts, they listen to Q ⁇ A calls, they they just show up and they're just consistent, and like they live and breathe their business, and it pays off. Like I it's what it's what I do, like I lived and breathed my business, I still do. It's like why when everyone meets me and they catch up with me, they're like, You really love cleaning, don't you? And I'm like, Yeah, like this this is my entire life. Like I devote everything to this. Yeah, and even when I'm away on holiday, like we just want to film content, we want to make podcasts, and like this is just how we're why it's like that is the game. Yeah, how are we going for time as well? We got uh almost done, almost done. All right, yeah. We literally had no idea what we were gonna talk about. We just got the camera out and we're like, all right, let's turn this on and just talk. But no, I think it's been good actually.

SPEAKER_00 39:56

Like, I if I would find this pretty helpful if I was listening to this.

SPEAKER_02 39:59

Well, that's good, that's good. So it's even um it's just good to talk. It is like I yeah, like I feel revitalized. Like I woke up feeling sluggish as. Like I did not sleep well last night, but now I'm feeling pumped. I'm ready to seize the day because we're talking business, and this is my thing, this is my jam.

SPEAKER_00 40:15

Yeah, no, I'm ready. Leave some content today as well.

SPEAKER_02 40:18

That's what we were talking about at the lunch as well. I'm like, if anything, like guys, everyone that you've met today, like keep in touch, just keep talking, like build friendships in this community because um, like when you're around like-minded people and we all share that common interest and we all have that same drive, like we can all do like a rising tide raises all ships, you know what I mean? Like, I like that, yeah. Yeah, so that's good. Just have more conversations about business, make more friends in business. Like, you gotta love it. I want you to love it. I want people to do well, I want to see people do well, and I want to see people have fun because business can be a life-changing thing for better or for worse. Like, I've seen the bad side of it. Um, yeah, like I get I get messages from people. I got a message yesterday from someone, I think you heard it, it was like a voice message. And this guy was telling me about how his um his parents they have a cleaning business, and it's just you know, it's doing really bad, and he's he just hates seeing his parents like struggle and they're doing hundred-hour weeks, not making much money, and like, you know, that's the that's the other side of business, and there is there are lots of people that are doing it tough, and yeah, um, like I just I want to see people do well, and but unfortunately at the same time, like not everyone can do well because then you know that's just not how the game works. You've got to have the low end, the high end, the average. Um, but you know, if if you keep doing the right things consistently, if you keep showing up and doing the work, yeah, then uh more likely than not you're gonna be on the other end of the spectrum doing well. So listen to this podcast, listen to all my other podcasts. That's step one, right? Step two is getting as good looking as you. All right, well, thanks for listening to. I think this is episode 116 of Selfmade. Can't believe I've done this many so far. Finally got my guy Hunter on the podcast. Yeah, it's been a long time coming. I've I've known you since before I even started this, so it's cool to cool to get you on.

SPEAKER_00 42:14

I think I actually gave you the name, so I might have to get a cut from this.

SPEAKER_02 42:17

I think that might be a light, but uh, we'll see. No, we'll I'll get you on. We'll do like a like a three-hour one at some point. I reckon me and you could just talk for hours. So I love this stuff. But yeah, hope you hope you enjoyed that. Um, if you are watching the video, obviously it's uh it's not the nicest day in Sydney, but we're in Sydney and we're on the harbour, so how can you complain? Look at that, look at that view. Pretty nice. We've actually got to clean up our B and B and check out, I think in like 30 minutes. So really. Yeah, we gotta hey. Luckily I'm Australia's fast, let's clean it. So let's get this done. All right, thanks for watching, everyone. Cheers, guys.