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The Canberra Business Podcast
A podcast about all things Canberra Business.
The Canberra Business Podcast
Mastering Event Hosting, Broadcasting and Entrepreneurial Success
Join us for an inspiring conversation with Canberra's broadcasting icon, Cam Sullings, as we trace his journey from a budding news cameraman to an influential radio personality and successful entrepreneur. Cam takes us through his adventurous career, detailing his experiences from Broken Hill to Canberra, and sharing unforgettable stories from the vibrant pub rock scene in Sydney. We dive into his transition from radio to launching his own business, Present with Impact PTY Limited, where he reveals his passion for creating meaningful experiences and his aspirations in the business realm. This episode is a captivating exploration of Cam's resilience and adaptability, offering valuable insights into the art of reinvention.
This episode is supported by CareSuper.
I'm Greg Harford from the Canberra Business Chamber and this is the Canberra Business Podcast. Today I'm a little starstruck because we have in the studio none other than Canberra broadcasting legend Cam Sullings. Now, if you're living here in the nation's capital, you will know Cam. He's hosted Breakfast on our leading commercial radio station. He's still on air on Saturday mornings for Mix 106.3. He's a ground announcer and on-screen host for the Canberra Raiders and, more importantly, he's the founder and managing director of his own business, present with Impact PTY Limited. Cam, it's great having you here. Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much. And when you use words like legend and starstruck, I tend to look over my shoulder and say, right, who's he speaking about? I mean, come on.
Speaker 1:Those are very kind words though, but certainly you're really well known in Canberra and it's great to have the opportunity to have you here and have a bit more of a chat and learn a bit more about what you do.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you for having me. I've been here since the year 2000 and, as you know, worked on 104.7, mix 106.3,. Continue to do the real estate show and the event show on Mix each Saturday, so I just love it.
Speaker 1:So how did you get into radio in the first place? I mean, you've basically spent your career in radio before branching out into business, but how did it all get started?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I grew up in the southern suburbs of Sydney. Originally, when I was at school, I wanted to be a news cameraman and I was lucky enough to go off and do work experience at Channel 7 in Sydney for a couple of weeks. Sadly, my talent never allowed me to realise that goal, but what it did give me the opportunity to do was then continue on to do work experience at Channel 7 through years 11 and 12, and then come out of school and I was able to get a job at a small production house and I did assistant camera, I did sound and assistant sound, I did videotape editing, I did producing. I did all sorts of amazing things as a youngster. So I did that for two or three years.
Speaker 2:I'd always been able to stand in front of people and I enjoyed doing that and always enjoyed trying to provide and create great experiences for people and audience, if you like. And so I decided that I was going to do a radio course, the very famous Max Rowley Media Academy, and I was there for 12 months and then I was offered a job, my first job after again going out to Broken Hill in the very west of New South Wales. I went out, did two weeks of work experience out there and then a week later they offered me a job. So I packed my whole life up and off. I went to do nights at Broken.
Speaker 1:Hill. Fantastic, and look for those who might not be familiar with Broken Hill. Obviously it's a fairly remote place, but what was it like living there? It was an incredible place.
Speaker 2:I mean it was very different from where I grew up in the surf, I can tell you that much. It was a real time of change out there. When I was there as well, the Pasminco mine, which was the main mine, they put off around 500 people in one day. And so it was a time then when the town decided it almost grew up, or decided to grow up. It decided that it needed to change the focus from mining into tourism. And so that's the very early stages of when Broken Hill became a tourist destination.
Speaker 2:And I haven't been back, I've flown over it on the way to Adelaide. But I mean, you know, I still speak to people out there. I know a Canberra local who's gone to be a police officer out there, work in the New South Wales Police Force, and I have really fond memories of Broken Hill. I'll give you my radio career from there. I came in from Broken Hill and went to Port Macquarie. So back on the coast and in the surf, absolutely love it. Port Macquarie down to Lithgow, lithgow up to Darwin, darwin down to Newcastle, newcastle, up to Mackay and then, as I mentioned, mackay down to Canberra in the youth 2000. And there was at one point. We always laugh about this. You could map out my radio career simply by looking at the bumper stickers on my parents' car. All the radio stickers were littered around, brilliant brilliant.
Speaker 1:So back in Canberra since the year 2000,. You obviously you're almost local now at this point. Not a lot of surf here, though. Are you coping with that?
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I mean, I get back to the water. I grew up in the surf, playing water polo, swimming, just having that amazing beach culture style life. I was amazingly fortunate to be in Sydney at a time when pub rock great bands that went on to be international superstars. They were playing to audiences of 500 and we were in those audiences. And so I look back on that and I've had the opportunity then through my radio career to go on and interview some of those amazing popular superstars, rock legends of Australia, and being in rooms with just one or two people when they're warming up with an acoustic guitar and it's like oh my God, I can't believe I'm here experiencing this Little moments of clarity like that, yeah, and those are amazing experiences to have, I'm sure.
Speaker 1:Now, look, let's talk a little bit about Present with Impact. Now, everyone, I think, in Canberra knows Cam Sullings or has certainly heard you on air or at an event, but people possibly know a little bit less about the business that you run. So what is it that you actually do?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I decided at the end of 2012 that I would leave radio full time, with the plan of going out and, in a five year space, learning how to run and operate a business. Now I didn't know what that business was going to be like, so I left radio, I went down, worked at Actuagel in their sponsorship and events team, over at a federal golf club, and I was the assistant general manager, where I got really great marketing and communications sponsorship experience. I got to experience a lot of board-level activity as well, and then into, as you well know, the Canberra Business Chamber, where I ran a couple of programs as well, which I absolutely loved doing, where I ran a couple of programs as well, which I absolutely loved doing. While that was going on, in the background, I was developing the business what it was going to look like, what could I do, what could the business be? So presenting was always going to be one part of it. And then the idea of training came along and it's like, okay, so can I show people how to speak and present? Well, I don't know. So I developed some programs and I got some people in, unpaying customers and unaware of what they were getting into as well, and so we ran some programs and it's like, oh, I can do that and you know what I really like and enjoy doing that. So we got everything organized in the background business plan, marketing plan, mapped out what we thought might happen. It was all ready to go.
Speaker 2:A couple of events in 2018 meant we hit the go button for the very early part of 2019 and we were off. And so I like to talk about the key services of the business. So, number one, service number one presenter for hire. And so that's all the things you've mentioned, the stuff that I do, the amazing stuff that I do at the Raiders that's so great. I think I'm into season number 15 this year. Fantastic, the work that I do on the weekends and periodically with the breakfast show on Mix 106.3, plus then conferences, awards nights, anything that you see me doing that's under that umbrella.
Speaker 2:Then there is the training of speaking with impact. So I show CEOs and executives and anyone how to stand in front of a group of people, an audience or a lens, speak and communicate well. And then service number three is the media training, and so that's where we show CEOs and executives how to stand in front of the media and either state the case or tell their story. And, interestingly, when we were setting the business up, media training was never really on the horizon, it wasn't on the radar. But it became very, very apparent very quickly that it was going to be something. And so I went out, purchased a news camera, so I did get to be a news camera operator of sorts.
Speaker 2:And then we develop the programs and we have a crisis media strategy with an operations manual that I created and developed. And then we come in and we do a gap analysis. So you know, media crisis management is something that you hope you never have to use, but it's like an insurance policy. You do the training, you put everything in place in the background and then, if you do need to use it, you're you hit the go button and it just all rolls out and then you navigate it, and so we come in and do a gap analysis. And then the third part, and it's the most fun part that's where we get the CEOs and the executives, the spokespeople, and we put them in front of cameras and we come up with hypotheticals and then we absolutely torture them, we break them down so badly and then it's all recorded and then we build them back up.
Speaker 1:It's all recorded and then we build them back up. Now, speaking in front of an audience and indeed, speaking in front of the media, two sides of the same coin, potentially, you know, come easily to a lot of people, or seem to come easily to a lot of people, but some people are really nervous about it. Do you think it's a skill? And I guess your whole business is revolving around this but is it a skill that can be easily learned if you're not used to it or you're a bit nervous?
Speaker 2:So it can't be easily learned, but it can be learned. And this is what we do. We put a whole range and we have a whole range of exercises and different modules that we go through. Number one we look at why people don't like standing in front of an audience or don't like standing in front of a lens, and there's a lot of science behind that. So we've done a lot of research into the science behind the speaking anxiety. So we have a look at that and then we start to give you some tools to help you begin to manage that anxiety. And so that's the very first part. And then from there we go into what we call effective practice and rehearsal. And so there is practice and rehearsal, and that's amazing. But I have an effective practice and rehearsal method that if you do on a regular basis, you will gain that confidence very, very quickly.
Speaker 1:So a lot of it is about confidence and just your general self-belief. Yeah, so 100% self-belief.
Speaker 2:What do they say? Attitude and self-belief outweigh everything. But we also talk about the exposure hierarchy, and so the more times you expose yourself to these situations whether it's sitting here doing a podcast, whether it is standing in front of a small group, larger group audience, large audience or in front of the media the more times you do it, the quicker that your body will feel as though it's in a safe place, and then all the result of that anxiety, those mental and physical effects of that, all start to go away. They'll still be there a little bit, and that's a good thing that they're there, because that means it matters, but you'll be able to manage it a lot better. It won't get in the way of what you're doing.
Speaker 1:So what kind of customers do you have? Are they small businesses, large businesses or a mix?
Speaker 2:When we hit the go button in 2019, if you had have said you're going to be training this person or that person or this group of people, I would have said no way. And so it starts. I have a federal politician who I provide media advice to and media training to, so she was a first-termer this time around. I've helped people with disability be able to go into the media and talk about their very important causes. I've helped one-star brigadier generals with their media and talk about their very important causes. I've helped one-star brigadier generals with their media and also speaking training into government officials who are going overseas on mission right into then.
Speaker 2:I talk about one particular startup who I helped last year in 2024. And so they have this incredible product that they've been spending a huge amount of time on developing and they were then seeking venture capital. So they came to me and they had the makings of a pretty strong pitch, but they came to me at the last second and said we don't know how to present it. We don't know how to do this. So in after hour sessions about a week and a half out, we did a whole range of training. We tweaked the, the, the pack a little bit, and so off they went and they came back with three million dollars that's a pretty good return on a couple of nights training right, and I wouldn't.
Speaker 2:I sit here and I still get goosebumps when I talk about those sorts of situations, because I'm making a difference in people's lives and this product that they have will make a huge difference. It can save people tens of millions of dollars and that's really important for all businesses to be thinking about right.
Speaker 1:Yes yes, yes, so without giving too much away. I mean, what's the sort of the top trick of the trade that you're offering?
Speaker 2:No, no, no, no. So a lot of people say what's the one thing that you tell people? And so there's many, many things that I tell people, but the number one piece of advice I like to offer is don't overthink it, don't overthink it. And so then we go into the idea of developing patterns and routines of effective practice and rehearsal, and then we're back to self-belief. You know belief and attitude. Self-belief and attitude outweigh everything. So, number one don't overthink it. Number two create yourself an opportunity and a routine of effective practice and rehearsal. And then, number three, self-belief. Have a crack, just go out and do it.
Speaker 1:Because what's the worst that can happen, right?
Speaker 2:Well, the yes, you say that with a smile on your face. Plenty can happen, but it is all about the work in the background. A lot of you know with the TED Talks, right? So the huge, amazing, beautiful presentations that they do at their annual conferences every 12 months. So you, let's have this conversation. You give me what's the timeline that you think that someone from signing on the piece of paper to say, yes, I'm going to present at TED, to walking on the stage and delivering the 18-minute presentation, have a crack. What do you think? That might be Three months.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, six months.
Speaker 2:Right, Right. So all the work is done in the background. Yet all we see is that amazing 18 minutes and you go whoa, that person is amazing, they're incredible. It comes so naturally. It's just like no, no, no, no, no, the work is done in the background. It's like the iceberg, right? You only get to see the fancy bit at the top. Everything's underneath.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so obviously you've been running the business now for a number of years. How's business going?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I like to say it's a roller coaster and I'm hanging off the back, being flung around and the ups and the downs and the ebbs and the flows, and when an email comes in from and this only happened this week, it happened twice. Yesterday, in fact, I had a really great training opportunity, a media training opportunity from a national organization that I've worked with here in Canberra. But they have some New South Wales executives that now need some media training as well, and so they've come back to me and they want me to travel to Sydney to do that. And I go, I think to myself that is amazing, because they placed great value on the training. They must have had excellent outcomes and experiences.
Speaker 2:And so when that email pops up and they come along, you know, at a reasonably regular time, I just love that. And then the second part to that is with the presenting, and this same thing happened. We had an external events organisation outside of Canberra came in, recommended through the Canberra Convention Bureau, and so they contacted me directly and now I'm hosting an event it's a national event that's going to be held here in Canberra, and so when those emails come up, you just go wow, all the hard work, all the marketing, all the thought the 4am starts, all of that is just worth it.
Speaker 1:And again, all of that background work is not what we see when we see you proceed.
Speaker 2:No way and that I would put it to you that for most small to medium businesses and you will know this, definitely the work that happens in the background, you know the family and friends around you, the support, those big moments where you've got to go, they're sliding door decisions. You've got to go left or you've got to go right and that can have huge implications. But again you just got to back yourself and go right. I'm doing it this way and if it succeeds, I'll have had a great experience. I'll have made a little bit of money amazing, we get to eat tonight and then I'll be able to use those experiences. Or if it doesn't work, then you still have a lot to draw from and you'll be eating two minute noodles.
Speaker 1:Hopefully not.
Speaker 2:No, no, no.
Speaker 1:Now it's interesting that you're doing work out of state going up to Sydney and I guess you've worked all around.
Speaker 2:Australia right.
Speaker 1:So do you think that there are differences between doing business here in the ACT compared to other places in Australia?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm not sure that I'm in a position to answer that, because while I'm delivering the work outside of Canberra, most of it is developed here in Canberra. I'll just fly in and fly out and what I have found and again, this again is warming out. And what I have found and again, this again is warming. So organizations come into Canberra and they'll host an event or they'll do some training or whatever the piece of work is, and then 12 months later, if they have another conference and it was in Canberra in 2024, but it's on the Gold Coast in 2025, then they ask me to come and do that Now. Again, that's just the sign of a really good service that I've provided. It shows that I've understood what the event is. I've added my little flavor to it as well. So I've got a range of clients now. I mean, I've delivered training in Tasmania, sydney.
Speaker 2:I've been all over Australia delivering events, playing host of conferences and awards nights and all sorts of things, and it's kind of cool. You get to have a plane ride and you roll on in and you get to work with the team that's put so much work in the background and then you get to go and hold it all together. I was only having a conversation yesterday online with a very, very top level speaker from the Professional Speakers Australia Association. So he's an international speaker and he doesn't like doing emceeing. And we're talking about my emceeing role and we both agreed that the emcee, or the conference host, at whatever event, it's the most important role on the day or night, because that is the difference between having the flow and the energy and making it engaging, but not over engaging.
Speaker 2:You've got to be very careful. You're not the star the audience is, so you have to. It's got to be a real mix and there's some speakers will go over time, some speakers will go under time, and there's some speakers will go overtime, some speakers will go under time. You sometimes have to go out into an audience with a microphone and you know, continue on conversations, so you've got to be across the topic as well. So there's all these things that a professional MC knows to do and the ones that do it well. Just it helps. Well, it doesn't help. It makes the event. It really does.
Speaker 1:So it must be really hard to get your head across all the events and all the details that you might need to know about an industry or an association or whatever it is. How do you go about doing?
Speaker 2:that. Ask me anything about records management, and I can tell you so Rimpa is one of my clients that I do amazing work for year after year, and we're going down to Melbourne at the end of the year. It's the work in the background. So the Festival of Speed in Canberra is a big event, and I'm lucky enough to work at Summonats, but I'm also lucky enough to work at the Festival of Speed as well, and there's a whole range of different cars Now I'm a car guy, and there's a whole range of different cars.
Speaker 2:Now I'm a car guy, but there's a whole range of different cars. I mean, they're going to have one of Mario Andretti's Formula One cars. The Mach 4 is going to be driving around the track. They're going to have one of Kimi Raikkonen's Formula One cars as well, and so I don't need to be an expert on those cars, but I do need to go away and do some research and some reading and then just use my own knowledge. And so it's just that that mix of that and you talk about going on plane rides you. That usually means you're sitting in an airport, for you know an hour, hour and a half as well. So if the time of the day is right, I'll usually sit there with the night's crisp cold class of beer researching and taking everything in. So it again. It's all done in the background and is it just you, kim?
Speaker 1:are you a you effectively a sole trader, or are you? Have you got a team and behind you?
Speaker 2:yeah, so I started the business off as a sole trader, uh, and then after around 18 months or so, I was off the advice of a very, very clever and great accountant. Um, she advised me to change it into a company. So we did the whole big changeover. So it's now a proprietary limited company and all the things that go along with that. Essentially it's me running it, but I have a number of people I surrounded myself with, a group of people that I can draw from.
Speaker 2:So if there's an event organizer who comes to me and says we'd love to have you host this event, but I'm already booked for that, I'll be able to say already booked. Apologies, but I can highly recommend this person to come in and do the job, knowing that, number one, they'll do an amazing job, which my reputation is staked on. But, number two, that these people are close to me. They won't also then white-ant me and get the work from the next time. And same with the speaking and media training as well. There's a couple of people that I can draw on that, if I need to bring them in, I can do that.
Speaker 1:And what's the advantage of being a company compared to being a sole trader?
Speaker 2:Oh well, that's a question for my accountant and it really is Like I was. You know, again in my research sole trader looked like that was going to cover all the boxes and for the first part, for the first 18 months or so, it really really did. But then, off the advice of people who know more than me and I'm very, very happy to lean on experts just by, just like people lean on me as an expert. If someone says, okay, we think we need to do this and they can show me all the reasons why and that that, and answer that question at the top why do we need to do it like that, then I'm all in. So that's my answer and that's how I look at that.
Speaker 1:All right. So what are the big challenges you've encountered running the business over the last couple of years?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so one of the big ones and this sort of reared its head at the end of last financial year was is as a result of the, the big four consultancies and the way that they've treated the Australian taxpayer, and so then the way the Australian government has reacted to that, and so there's a whole range of businesses, not just in Canberra, around Australia who have had to change business models because the work has just dried up.
Speaker 2:And so from those massive big four conglomerates to the ones that sit under just that, and then smaller and smaller and smaller, right down to sort of operators like me, there's training work that has dried up. And so I suppose what I've had to do is, number one, recognize that and recognize why it's happened and how it's happened, and accept it and then putting to plan a process of okay, so how do I get out there and wave the flag a little bit higher so people know what I'm doing, and if they have the conversation or they've been asked to speak in front of others and they're completely terrified, they know to come to me to gain some advice.
Speaker 1:And what's been the highlight for you of being a business person rather than a presenter?
Speaker 2:Yes, well, that's a big question. I suppose the highlight is that satisfaction and, look, I was able to do this on radio as well, and I think the term changing people's lives that's bounced around quite a bit, but I certainly have done that as a presenter on air. We've done all sorts of incredible things that have changed lives. There's no doubt about that, and I get to do that also with some of the services that I provide through my training and my experiences that I provide through my presenting. Just at the idea of standing up in front of others or going and sitting in front of a lens, taking those people and showing them how to actually get up and do it, and when I stand back and watch that play out and then I watch them do it, that's incredible. That's really very satisfying. It's very satisfying.
Speaker 1:And that impact must be really noticeable, to you and to them, I guess.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's very noticeable to them, because before they couldn't do it and now they can. And for me it's just, I suppose, if you like, a vindication, maybe that what I'm doing and what I'm showing people is working. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Do you think that people who go through your training, or indeed people who do this stuff all the time, is there always a degree of self-doubt, do people beat themselves up about how well they did it and do they think they didn't do it well enough when actually they did, and kind of, what's your take on that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, 100%. So self-doubt and fear of being judged are the very basics of fear and anxiety, and so every presenter, including myself, my hand is up so high here in our little podcasting studio when I walk off stage or when I walk away from a screen or when I walk out of a room that I've been doing presenting in, I will walk out of here going oh jeez, I said that, but I probably could have said it a little bit better. I won't worry about the 99 other amazing things that I did. It's just all, and that's human nature to always zero in on that little negative piece. But that just means that's how neuroscience is trying to make us better at something, because it's like, okay, I did it, like this, not quite sure. So, yes, people definitely have that self-doubt and you know there's always going to be that. But we try and make people aware of it and then again give them the tools and show them ways to work around it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and my guess would be that in 99% of cases the audience probably doesn't ever notice anyway.
Speaker 2:They absolutely don't know. And so a very, very famous Sydney radio presenter told me and it was someone who I absolutely based some of the things that I ended up doing on air off this person because I just loved the way that they presented in Sydney and I loved the way that they made me feel about living in Sydney and I love the way that they made me feel about living in Sydney. And so I was able to meet this person sadly now passed meet this person, have some interactions on quite a few occasions, and I talk about being starstruck, right, Like I was definitely starstruck and I've met some pretty famous people in this world, Don't worry about that. But he said, he said, Cam, it's not how many mistakes you make, it's how well you hide them.
Speaker 1:Very good advice.
Speaker 2:I think Best sage advice, best advice ever.
Speaker 1:And I guess Cam. Just to close this off on the subject of advice, if you were talking to someone who was thinking about starting their own business, whatever that business is, what advice would you give them?
Speaker 2:Research, research, research, find out, have a look at the market. So it's interesting. Over Christmas, someone asked me exactly this. They have an interest, they're very passionate about something, and they've watched me develop my business, hit the go button and then roll it out and have a reasonable degree of success. They said how did you do that? And I said there's two main elements.
Speaker 2:Number one you've got to have a passion. You've got to have something that just ignites you on the inside, something that you just want to sing to the world about. So you've got to have that. And number two and this is where the tricky part comes in you've got to work out how to monetize it. And so if you've got that beautiful passion, if you've got that, then you've got to work out how you can put it together and make some coin out of it and then do all the other things that will flow on from whatever you're passionate about. So those are the two things that I talk about. When people ask me how did you start it? Are you enjoying the small business? All those things are like okay, here's where it started.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Some really good advice there, I think. Cam, thank you so much for joining us. That's Cam Sullings, the Managing Director of Present with Impact. It's been great having a chat today. I've really enjoyed our conversation and if you do want to know more about CAM or his business, check out camsullingscomau. Now this podcast has been brought to you by the Canberra Business Chamber with the support of Care Super, an industry super fund with competitive fees and returns, exceptional service and a focus on real care. So thanks Care Super and thanks CAM. Great having you here. And don't forget to follow us on your favourite podcast platform to stay up to date with the latest editions of the Canberra Business Podcast.