Episode 51 - Scott McDouall on coaching Ag businesses to thrive

Scott McDouall had a unique start in life, where his father was an educator and facilitator with RCS and his mother was a psychologist. And, funnily enough, all these years later, he has started a business that has tapped into and combined the skills his mother and father both had. 

Scott runs Swiften, which is essentially a business that provides coaching to a wide range of Rural businesses. Scott started out drinking the corporate juices, mainly with Elders and later with Mort and Co, and was seen as an ambitious knowledge seeker who climbed the ladder. And like some who get heavily involved in corporate, there comes a time where they get that itch to combine all their knowledge and go out and do it on their own. 

Scott did that, and his business is rapidly gaining a reputation for helping businesses reach places they only ever dreamed of. In this podcast, Scott gives us a rundown on how Swiften goes about helping these businesses become wildly profitable and cash flow positive. 

And what I find very refreshing is that they celebrate and talk about monetary success opening. There are some very profound learnings in this podcast, many of which we will write about in the next week or two.

There’s no intro to this one, just a little bit of our favourite music and into it. Take a listen here. I hope you enjoy. End of message.

The Farmers Club podcast is now only available to our paid newsletter subscribers. 

Our partner in this podcast is our sister business, Farm Tender. We are an online buying and selling marketplace for Farmers and anyone else associated with Agriculture. Go to www.farmtender.com.au and sign up from there.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:23

Welcome along, Scott. Thank you for having me, mate. Great to be here.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

Looking forward to this one. I've been following you on LinkedIn a while and um you make some pretty good statements. So I'm looking forward to sort of uh finding out what you do. Now we asked this question with everyone first up. Just tell us where you grew up and what your parents did.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

Sure. Uh so I grew up in a little place called the Upper Horton, um, little valley between Bingra Baraba, a couple hours north of north of Tamworth. Uh we had a cattle breeding trading operation there, five and a half thousand acres. So uh majority of mum and dad's time was spent on the farm, but dad was also an educator and a facilitator for RCS, amongst other things. And uh and my mother uh was a psychologist, um, so she used to do a day a week in in Baraba.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

So you're combining those two now with your own business, aren't you? Who who would have thought? That's it. That's it. Um and where did you go to school? And have you always been interested in agriculture?

SPEAKER_01 1:36

Uh so I did my early schooling at at Bingra Central, uh, then had the opportunity, a fortunate opportunity, to go down to King's in Sydney. So did year six to year 12 down there. Um, definitely always interested in in ag even through even through those schooling years, any opportunity to take an ag subject, to be on the uh cattle showing team, to go and do AI courses, and and pretty much all holidays were spent back at the farm, um, just being a farm kid. So always been passionate about agriculture.

SPEAKER_00 2:14

Ah, good one. Um, and just tell us a bit about your your life after school and sort of that period in between then and starting your own business. You're in corporate, I believe.

SPEAKER_01 2:26

Yeah, so after after school, I had a year down at Hay, um, spent a year down there with um with Jumbuck Pastoral, um, mixed farming, place cattle, sheep, irrigation, um, which was great. I'd never done any sort of sheep or irrigation, so it was good to get a bit of a mix. Uh, went away to Orange Ag College, uh, did business, had commerce there for three years. Um, fortunately, was able to secure a cadet chip with elders into uh with elders when I left the uni. Basically spent two years just really focused on every aspect of livestock from that was uh that elders were involved in. So did agency feed lots, live export, um, meat trading, processing. Um, so was able to get a really good foundation um over those couple of years. Then finished my cadet ship, uh moved down to Warnable in Western Victoria, managed a dairy bull um beef operation down there. So Elders International had 15,000 black and white bulls spread over 70 properties in three states in the middle of a drought. So went down there, spent a couple of years um cleaning that up, went back to Melbourne uh and really started to learn how to trade cattle through a feedlot environment, learnt how to sell really effectively. Then went to Charlton feedlot um as a system manager, had a couple of years on the ground there, sort of doing a lot of capex, a lot of development, a lot of cultural change. Uh, and then basically finished my career with Elders International back in Melbourne, so uh in breeding live export. So Elders International, we uh exported breeding cattle from Australia, New Zealand, Uruguay, and the US to pretty much anywhere you can think of on the planet. So I did that for a few years, was operations manager there, and then decided it was time for a change. So um we didn't have anywhere to go or anything to do. We just uh knew that that was probably time after 12 years with with elders to go and do something else. So we shifted up here to to Womba. Yep. Uh I just did a bit of general consulting work for Pfizer and Live Corp and Sanger for a couple of years, then met Charlie Mort here over lunch one day. He was interested in setting up a live export business, talked him out of that over over lunch, and then the more we spoke, the more we sort of had similar philosophies and and saw similar opportunities and uh swore I would never go back to corporate. Um uh, but that business had a very good, um, very good reputation at the time and and felt it was a good cultural fit. So uh jumped back into corporate um and then over the next, I think it was probably eight years, started as GMA livestock there. So um in that business we sort of traded 200,000 cattle a year. Um then over time that sort of role grew. It grew from GMA livestock to then taking on the meat business as well, taking on marketing, uh, then strategy, and then in the later years, sort of more involved in some of the aligned and complementary businesses like stock feeds, um bit of sales strategy around fertilizer and stuff like that. So uh, and then we've been doing this for this will be our fifth year, I think, coming up, um, coming up at the end of this year in Swifton.

SPEAKER_00 6:04

No, excellent. And it's like especially in those early elders days, it looked as though you you know, you jumped in, there's lots of learnings, you jumped into another thing that where you learn a lot and learn a lot more. What were the some of the big things you took away from the corporate ag side of things?

SPEAKER_01 6:22

Um oh look, I I've I've had I've been very, very fortunate, Dwayne. I've had um wonderful mentors through my whole career and have been presented opportunities um, you know, to go and follow my passion and grow my grow my education along the along the way. I think um I still remember Jack Gleason, who was you know one of the one of the national sort of livestock managers or managers of Elders International back in the day, pulling me aside one day and saying, Scott, there's not too many people out there that understand, you know, there's a lot of specialists, they're feedlotters or they're live exporters. There's not many people in this industry that understand everything from agency to processing to feed lots to live export and all the different aspects. And he said, if you can if you can go and understand how all of those industries operate, and you've got a good work ethic, and you can turn a computer on, you'll never go a day without um without a job in your life. And so I pretty much spent my career sort of modeling, modelling that I really wanted to um, yeah, sort of get across a number of different industries and know enough about it um that I could step in and make a make an impact on on a lot of different types of businesses.

SPEAKER_00 7:46

So he sort of set out a plan for you and and you execute it. Is that how it went?

SPEAKER_01 7:52

Um look, I don't I don't know that there was a formal plan, but but he was very much, he was a great advocate for me, he was a great mentor um for me and and opened up a lot of doors for me, you know, through that elder's time from dairy bulls to wanting to learn about trading and selling to how to run a feedlot all the way through to how to run um run a live export business. You know, he was a he was a great advocate and mentor and and allowed me to follow that that pathway, um, which was incredible opportunity.

SPEAKER_00 8:27

And are elders still in the live export game or is that sort of something that's been wound up?

SPEAKER_01 8:33

No, all out of it now. So there was uh there was quite a few changes, staff changes through uh through my um through my time there, but but shortly after I left a lot of those businesses, there was NACC in the North and Elders International uh based out of Melbourne and around the globe and and uh NACC is no longer part of um of Elders, um, but still still going, I believe. Um but Elders International as it um existed back in those days, it was just wound up.

SPEAKER_00 9:07

No, fair enough. Um let's get on and talk about Swift and obviously your passion. Now, did you see the gap in the market, or sometimes it works in reverse where you might be you know working along in corporate and people come to you saying, I think you should be doing this, Scott, I need need you to do this. How did Swifton come about?

SPEAKER_01 9:28

Um the the backstory of it, Dwayne, is when I um when I left Elders International, I swore I'd never go back to back to corporate. And there was only two businesses though I was like, if they ever asked me, I would uh I'd go and have a conversation. And the one commonality between those two businesses, so they were uh in different industries, but they were just kicking ass. They just had great people, great cultures, they were growing like crazy, their profits were huge, they were winning all the awards. And the one commonality between both of those businesses that I'd sort of watched from afar was they had coaches involved and they were running an element of strategy. So back in those days, it was probably primarily like a Rockefeller habits. Um, and so I had mates in both of those businesses, and so I was always asking them what was a commonality, and and when I shifted into Mort, that was something that I really wanted to do was to get a coach involved, was to understand um the Rockefeller habits. So I went and bought all the executive team, the Mastering the Rockefeller Habits book, and it took me took me a minute to convince them all. Um, but we went and uh engaged a guy after a fair bit of research called Andrew Roberts. Robbo's sort of great mate and mentor of mine over the years and went on to set up farm owners. So we got Robbo in for a year, um, and he sort of facilitated our first year of strategy and trained and mentored and coached me up to learn how to facilitate. And then I had the opportunity to keep Robbo on just as a personal mentor for years after that, and just really learnt how to not just do the strategy piece but to do the execution bit, how to build strong foundations in businesses. And um, so when the opportunity came um after leaving Moore, that strategy work, that building foundations in business, it was just the best use of time, energy, and money I've ever seen in my life. And I love building businesses and I love helping people. So it was just an absolute no-brainer to go and help as many people, particularly in regional Australia and in agriculture, as I could using those same tools, you know, those tools that at Mort, we basically think we sort of tripled, tripled revenue and probably quadrupled profit in a very, very short period of time. And that was absolutely the background, uh, the backbone of of that work. And you know, we've been fortunate enough to be able to put those same practices and principles into place in in a lot of businesses now, which is um which is a wonderful privilege.

SPEAKER_00 12:32

It was interesting. Andrew coached us for a year with our with our farm tender business, and he like he talked about the mort experience a lot and how you know he learned a lot from that business as well. So um you've done well there. So, what were the some of the issues you faced when starting the business? Or did you did you have a ready-made clientele ready to go, or was it just cold turkey stuff?

SPEAKER_01 12:57

It was um it was an interesting one. I I think anyone who starts a business, and we talk about this with clients about this entrepreneur's journey, you start as a student, and then you go and get a job, and ultimately, you know, if you're lucky enough, you get to start your own business and you start as self-employed. And and I think anyone in that first stage, it's just if I can just get back to making what I was making in in corporate land, that's that's step number one. And so for I think in that stage, most people in that stage would say that it's all about marketing and sales. Um, I think reflecting back now, um Robbo um was coaching me at the time, and he had built an incredible business in farm owners around uh social media, um, and so really encouraged me to go down that path. And and to be honest, I really wasn't enjoying it, and and I think probably because of that, I wasn't getting a lot of traction with it. And so for me, it just came back to what's the quickest, simplest, easiest way to build a client base. And I was old enough and ugly enough, and I'd been around AG for long enough, I knew enough people. So I think I wrote a wrote a top hundred list of people that I'd love to work with. I contacted the first 30, and basically the book was book was full. So I think that was sort of a big learning for us, and that's something we always carry through now in our marketing strategy is out of all these hundreds of different things that we can do to go and market and build your business, let's just start with do we know any of these people already? So that was um that was an interesting reflection looking back on that first year in in business. But definitely having Robbo having a coach, I reckon what would have taken me 12 months to build on my own, just having that network, that support around me, helped me get to that what was I making in corporate in sort of three to six months instead of 12. So that was another great learning as well.

SPEAKER_00 15:10

It's a great lesson for young people, Scott. Like you identified, you know, your top hundred and got to the first 30 and filled your book. Most people wouldn't do that, they expect the clients to come to them. You went net you went out and and got them. We talk, we write about it a bit, we call it the F off email, you know, where you send out an email to someone and you know, explaining a bit about what you do and and striking up a conversation. Um there's a real lesson there for young people, isn't there? If they want to go or get somewhere in ag quickly or in business quickly, to go and do that as early as possible. Yeah, go and start a conversation. How you you're five years in with your business at the very start, and you look back, do you think is it the same business now as it was back then, or has it changed because you know we all do pivots and we all see things when we get into business that we didn't see at the start? How has it worked for you?

SPEAKER_01 16:09

Um look, we've definitely taken uh a few steps along that entrepreneur's journey. You know, it it started in the first first year just with uh just with me in that sort of self-employed space, and then you know, you start to make a little bit of extra, extra profit, and you start to have a look at what are these other tasks, what's the stuff that I'm doing that isn't in my zone of genius, the stuff that I'm not good at or that I don't I don't love or are lower value tasks, and so started to build a team over time. So there's uh including um including Sim, my wife, there's four of us in the in the team now. So that's been a a wonderful um sort of progression, I guess, of um of the business. I think the other the other real I don't think our purpose has really changed. So our purpose remains the same as what it was on day one, which is we want to have a measurable positive impact on rural and regional Australia, and ultimately our end goal is to be working with you know 300 different uh regional businesses in a hundred regional towns, and we've got a belief if we can be playing with that many people across that sort of diversity of geographical region that we will be having a really positive impact. So I don't know that that has changed, but I think along the way we you know we practice what we preach, right? So I always make sure I have a have a coach, and um, so over the this is the fifth year, so we're now on to our third um different business coach, and every one of those coaches has just opened my eyes up and really challenged the limiting beliefs um or the status quo I've had about what a business uh in this industry looks like and what is what is possible. And I think that's probably the biggest thing that has changed from you know a one-man band back just trying to make what he used to make in corporate through to this whole other world that's out there that I had no idea about. Um and so it's been great to just be challenged along the way to surround myself with incredible people doing incredible things and just continuously thinking what else are people doing out there that's having a lot of success and what out of that resonates with us that we can incorporate.

SPEAKER_00 18:53

Do you reckon it it should be like a football team where you turn over coaches uh after a period of time? Do you see it that way, or or do you reckon people should just stick with the one coach all the way through?

SPEAKER_01 19:07

Um look, uh my my personal opinion is is as a coach, I never want to build myself in as someone that they have to have to rely on. You know, there is a there's an element of self-sufficiency in systems, process, team knowledge, and education. Um, and equally, um, you know, my clients will get to a level of sophistication and they will have learnt everything that I know, even even though I'm learning every single day. And it'll be a good idea for them at some point to go and experience someone with different knowledge, different experience, different background, or you know, if we've taken them to here and they want to go go there, um, just to go and go and do that. And we've we've done that, we've we've had incredible coaches, mentors, still stay in touch with um with all of them. Have learned an incredible amount from every single one of them. Um and they've always helped us level up, but there's got to a point where we've felt like we've got to hear, and now we're looking for something slightly, slightly different, particularly because I'm a coach, right? So I'm always looking for what are what are other different models and um how people educating differently. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:32

You're you're evolving as well, though, wouldn't you? Like you'd be the sort of guy wouldn't sit still, you'd be want to want to be finding out all these different new things.

SPEAKER_01 20:40

Oh, look, I I think you've got to. I I've I've got a very fortunate um role at the moment where I get to look at totally different businesses in totally different industries with totally different economic drivers every single day. So there's there's not a day where I'm not learning, learning on the on the job, but um, you know, we're constantly out there looking as well as to how can we, you know, we need to be growing as coaches every day as well to offer a better service and a better experience for our clients. So you know, I've been off and studied neurolinguistic programming, and my wife and I we were fortunate enough to have a day with Alan Parker or ourselves um last week or the week before, and just surrounding ourselves with amazing epic humans who are just thinking very, very differently. Um, I don't know that we'll ever stop that. That just has to be part of what we do and how we do it.

SPEAKER_00 21:45

And the big, hairy, audacious goal of 300 clients, where roughly where are you at now in in the like five years in?

SPEAKER_01 21:54

Uh to get there, we'll we'll have to double every year for the next for the next five. So um you know we'll um it it's audacious. But we had our um we had our own strategic planning session on um on Monday. We had all the team come out to the farm. And again, with because we're being challenged with different structures and different ways of doing it. I think if um I think if you stayed in that sort of one-to-one type coaching, that would be a very, very audacious goal that would require a lot of people. At some point there'll be a there'll be a bit of a maturity that will always be part of what we do, and boards will always be part of what we do. But I think there'll also be uh the integration of some sort of broader group type stuff that I think we talk about it in a lot of our businesses about this J curve. You know, you do a lot of the grunt work down here, and then you build a scalable platform, and then you just get this big run right at the end. So, yeah, I still believe we are well and truly on track for that. Um, the business will look slightly differently to what it does today. There'll be elements that we keep and there'll be elements that we change, but um, yeah, still believe 100% that it is doable.

SPEAKER_00 23:17

No, good stuff. Um, and for our audience, just explain, you know, what Swifton does and who it supports.

SPEAKER_01 23:26

Um so who we support, uh very, very simply, they're regional businesses. Anyone you would find in a country, country town, there's definitely a heavy flavor of of ag through it. Um but they are menswear stores and homewares and fashion through to accountants, through to your agent, your rural merchandise, or your aerial applicator, your commercial fencer through to your feedlotter or farmer. And so um blue collar, white collar. The thing I always say is the the only commonality between them is they are bloody good humans. We love working um with them. Um they are all growth businesses, so at the bottom end they're looking to double at the top, and they're trying to times 10. And they have all have, and we filter them out on the basis of they have to have a solid engine behind them. They have to have a good work ethic because we know we can do all the planning in the world, uh, but it ultimately comes down to execution and accountability. So that's uh they're sort of the three things that we're looking for when we're out trying to find clients that align with with what we're looking for. In terms of what we do, um generally we're looking to work with businesses for that sort of first 12, 18, 18 months. So typically they have a strong foundation, a good foundation. My job is to take a good business and to make it phenomenal. So we do that through what we sort of call the different pillars. So we want to make sure that we've got the strategy right. So long, medium, short-term plans or map back all the way to 90-day goals. We've got to have an execution mechanism around that. So we run off 90-day sprints, um, uh all the way back to sort of weekly planning, daily planning, and how to get effective around that. And then just building all of those foundational elements out in the business. So always starting with the human, making sure their health's right, their mindsets right, their relationships are really strong. And when we get that bit right, their businesses will be the greatest beneficiaries of that. Um, so focus on the human element, systems, process, team, sales, marketing, profit, cash flow, all those other different aspects, make sure we get them firing and we build that sort of scalable foundation so we can unlock that J curve. And then once we get that foundation of profit, we also want to make sure we are building wealth, we're building passive income for those um for those business owners as well. So when I first set the business up, I thought this would be great. We'll work with people for 12, 18 months, we'll get to the end of that, we'll shake hands and we'll say that was that was a heap of fun. Good luck, get on your way. But the way it sort of panned out is we've got there, and because they're growth businesses, um, we're going to the next site, we're buying another business, um, you know, we're expanding the footprint, whatever it is. And so um, majority of our clients, there's a sort of a long-standing relationship there, just facilitating that next step and that next step.

SPEAKER_00 26:57

They don't want you to leave, do they?

SPEAKER_01 27:01

Well, hopefully not. I mean, that's that's the aim, right? The aim is to be getting for people to enjoy the process so much, and and I always say on day one, I'm very commercial and economically driven. So any dollar you spend with me, I want to make sure that you get it, get it back in spades. And so um, you know, that's never linear, um, but it's certainly a drive on a day-to-day, week-to-week basis for me to make sure that we're continually impacting that bottom line as well.

SPEAKER_00 27:38

And you mentioned before about the onboarding process. So you'll have an interview with someone and you'll, you know, you'll decide whether they pass a pub test. And, you know, you've obviously said no, no to people before. Is that is that how it works?

SPEAKER_01 27:52

Uh yeah, that's that's typically how it works. I always figure the the majority wean themselves out first because of ego, so they don't believe that they believe that they're doing it right, they've got all the answers, and so typically we don't don't chat with a lot of people that that have that big ego, which is which is wonderful for me. Um but yeah, there is an element of it has to be a hell yes for me before before I put a proposal to anyone, it has to be a hell yes on uh values and cultural alignment. Um, you know, at the end of the day, we we love working who we work with, and there's no reason for us to to change that on either on either side. And I always say coaching is a really, really personal thing. Who who gets to support you, who has the privilege of supporting you? Um, and we want to make sure that is a hell yes from both both sides. Um, but I also want to be absolutely convinced in myself that I can get them a great commercial and economic return for every dollar that they spend with me. So we spend the time up front making sure that it's a hell yes on values alignment. What they're looking for is what we do, and that we can get them a great, great return on their investment with us.

SPEAKER_00 29:24

And do you find that um it's not rigid as in that you're playing different roles with different businesses?

SPEAKER_01 29:33

Oh, absolutely. There's it it is just so tailored. So we don't, you know, when we talk about the nine different modules, if you like, or pillars in those businesses, we never start at pillar one and you finish at pillar nine. It's you know, we'll start with you today, Dwayne, and you'll have a you know, your big folks needs to be on team, and the next business it's profit and cash flow, the next one's marketing or sales, and so there's this constant prioritization. You know, sometimes it'll be the business owner is the greatest roadblock in that business. So I'm constantly on a daily basis, always asking myself, what is the what is the next limiting factor in that business? And if we can just take that that next limiting factor away, we'll go to the next level, and then it'll be you know, it'll be operations or systems or process or marketing or sales, and we're just constantly picking that next highest priority off at a time.

SPEAKER_00 30:37

Good one. Um you said this recently, I'll read it to make sure I get it right. Whether they like it or not, their belief system around money will impact their business and life. So the work that I bring to the table must focus on growing their identity and their beliefs around money. What do you mean by that?

SPEAKER_01 31:02

Um, so I'd probably break that into two different parts the the cause, um, the cause and the effect. And so um we spoke about this, this was sort of one of the pre-frames around um our last lot of board meetings. So we're we're focusing, we're growing these businesses, we're building revenue, we're building, building profit, but at the same time, we need to be building their identity around money. So for some people, everyone's got a different story attached to money, and quite often it'll go back to stuff you heard around the dinner table when you were when you were a kid. Yeah, money doesn't grow on trees, money's hard to find. People that have money aren't good aren't good people, you know. If I if I make it, I'll just give it away anyway. There's a thousand examples of different money stories, and so it's an interesting exercise to reflect on that with our clients around what is their identity associated with money. Because at the end of the day, if we're not growing that, you hit what you call money, money ceilings, and the way that um so that's sort of the the cause, the effect is we tend to play in these bands and think about it as if you're looking at your business bank account, yeah. And typically it would fluctuate from here to here to there. If it got down to the bottom end, you'd hustle and you'd get back into that safe zone. And if you got towards that top end, you'd probably self-sabotage and you'd start to buy some shit, and you know, you get into the dream chart, and we just drop ourselves down. And so essentially, we want to help our business owners grow their identity with money, but also lift that ceiling so that we're not growing these businesses and the team and ultimately doing it for the same amount of profit, profit over here.

SPEAKER_00 33:11

Do you um believe that probably in farming or agriculture in general, that we have the wrong attitude to money? Do you see that a lot?

SPEAKER_01 33:21

Um, yeah, I think one of the one of the interesting things I see frequently is particularly around um the culture that people build in businesses. So there's this sort of misconception that it has to be all about people and fun, and you know, it's got to be a great environment we want to attract people in, and people, you know, no one wants to leave. But there's this sort of misconception that you can't have a culture built around around that, but also that really cares about profitability, that really cares about cash flow. And in my experience, you can have both. And that is that is a really, really powerful culture where you've got fun, enjoyment, great place to be, great place to work, but we make a shitload of money in this in this as well. And that was always my you know, when I was employed back in the day, I always went to work with a real cultural element around team and people, but I wanted to go and make some money too.

SPEAKER_00 34:31

No, that's that's a great attitude, and there should be more of that, I reckon. Um you have just come off your quarterly, or correct me if I'm wrong, quarterly board meetings with your clients. What have you learnt from them this this latest round? You know, the the world's changed a bit for good and not so good. So, what have you learnt from you know discussing with your clients around business?

SPEAKER_01 34:57

Um yeah, these last lot of board meetings were um were really interesting. I I think for us, um, you know, and I we we had a quick chat yesterday, and I thought this was we probably get a bit of a filtered view of the world, right? Because we hand pick very good, very good businesses with great bases in it, um, who have a really good engine behind them and and an appetite for growth. And so uh recruitment is always a massive um uh subject for us, particularly around board. I think you know, on any given day at the moment, we can probably have 35, 36 roles um vacant in these businesses because they're growing. There's pretty much yeah, and I remember back in my mort days, there were there wasn't a quarterly planning that we did where we didn't put on a new role, and quite often that new role had never existed in the business before, and so we're experiencing that with our client base, and um, so that's always a a big topic, but I think the other the other really interesting thing out of this is you know, we start day one with these business and we set these big, hairy, audacious, audacious goals. And when we set that, my uh my frame around that is I don't need you to have any belief or conviction in that in that big hairy audacious goal on day one. I just need you to understand the exercise I've asked you to do. But by the end of year one, I want you to have some some conviction in it, and by the end of year two, I want you to start to think that it's soft and it's just never ceases to amaze me. Um so our orange board, there's businesses there that what they'll be able to do in, so this will be their sixth quarter. So they're just about uh they're just about 18 months in, and I reckon they'll be able to lock down all the foundational elements that will set up their 10-year vision to allow them to do it in two. We've got other businesses. I was just uh down there on farm with them last week, and you know, they're they've hit their 10-year profit goal, you know, things that were just so far beyond what they ever thought was possible in the first 18 months, and we'll be able to hold it there. And and we are nowhere near out of levers to pull to really show what that business is possible, but you know, just that power of writing it down and then also surrounding yourself with a network community that really helps you drive that drive that execution piece. Um, so the only other sort of reflection, I guess, off the back of that is that execution piece is just so powerful. The client so at the end of every quarter we rate how they went against all of their goals.

SPEAKER_02 38:19

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 38:20

Um and the difference between the clients of ours that get 75% on average versus the ones that get 90 plus is just chalk and cheese. And really, and that comes down to the human, but it comes down to the environment and the community that they put around them as well. And the people that are consistently 90 plus, you know, great businesses, profit, cash flow, just ease, less reliance on themselves, um, you know, building wealth, buying the dream homes, building investments, um, and just that versus you know, the guys that get 75% still great businesses, still really good lives, but the disparity between those two just based on execution is is enormous. So that's always a reflection from me.

SPEAKER_00 39:12

We write about it a lot that in agriculture we sort of, you know, we one and two percenters and we do it incrementally, and we look back in five years and say we've come a long way. But you know, studying the successful ones, they're finding the 25%, you know, as well as the one and two percenters. Are those are those some of the things that you're looking for with your your clients, or are they, you know, are they aiming for those 25 percenters as well as the ones and twos?

SPEAKER_01 39:41

Um look, there there is plenty of 25 percenters that you find, but I always talk about it as three degrees to the left or right of where they're going. Because most of our business owners have a good core foundation. Typically, we're not looking at making massive changes. We're doing small tweaks on a number of, you know, on all of those nine different different pillars, and you know, we don't need to be playing with all of them all the time. We just sort of prioritize that. Um but the culmination of just small little tweaks to the left or right of where those good businesses are going is quite often where the where the greatest success is. And that's typically typically what we find. You know, we love a big 25% shift and a massive, massive change. Um but day to day it'd be three to four percenters.

SPEAKER_00 40:36

Yeah, good. And you advertise that you can, you know, might be the first or second consultation you have with your clients that you can um find 30 grand's worth of savings or or opportunities in their business. What what's some of the the thinking around that? What have you identified that that's pretty consistent in that 30 grand sort of um window?

SPEAKER_01 41:00

Yeah, so it's um we do a quick little session on this. Um, you know, we're running running workshops and stuff and uh regularly, and this is this is a normal normal topic for us because it is such a high value use of use of time and energy. Um so in my whole career I've never seen uh more than seven different ways to impact profit or cash flow. So underneath those seven, there's thousands of different strategies depending on your industry and and what you do, but the foundations still come back to those seven, which is how can we increase volume, how can we increase price, where can we reduce your cost of goods, where can we reduce your overheads, where can we reduce your inventory, can we get your money in quicker and pay it out slower? And so ultimately we use that seven sort of part framework, brainstorm out every um every initiative that that business in that industry could do. So typically uh we'll end up with at least a hundred different initiatives. Some are crazy, big, wild out there, expensive ideas, and some are what we call jam items. We can just walk in, change a price on the computer tomorrow, and and that has an immediate impact. And so all we do then, Duane, is we just take three of the quickest, simplest, easiest, highest paying ones every quarter, turn them into goals, break them down into the logical steps and execute. And that way we're always impacting the bottom line. But I was asked um on Monday off the back of our quarterly planning session for our team, you know, what was one of the most outlandish, sort of wild out there things you've seen. And and we did that exercise once, and I think we got to about $1.4 million worth of just stuff that we could, just jam items, things that we could change today that would have a $1.4 million impact, and we can do that in the next 90 days. Then they get the opportunity to go and do that again and again and again, and so um it's the wonderful thing about businesses with scale is that um there is small things become big things, and that works on the positive side, but it also works on the on the negative side as well. So um it's a great exercise. Normally if we don't do it on day one with our clients, it's generally done first month because we want to really start impacting.

SPEAKER_00 43:37

Sounds very interesting. And since you started your business, what are some of the long held bel or the well held beliefs that you've had that you've had to let go of?

SPEAKER_01 43:50

Um look, I think um as I sort of touched on earlier, from from me. as a as a business owner um just there is so much out there that I just don't know right yes and so I just have to be constantly inquisitive um I have to constantly come at it from a place of of low ego um so that I'm looking for looking for those opportunities and I think that's the biggest thing as I said you know where I was with coach number one versus you know coach number two showing me that this is possible and you're like oh shit I didn't even realize that you could do that and they're like oh yeah like people that are half with half your skills knowledge experience contact list they're doing this and you're like oh shit I didn't realise that was even a thing and then so you build to that and then you're like oh well what else is out there and then you go and meet someone else have another conversation and then just opens up this whole other world you're like oh wow that's four times what I what I've just built which I thought was really really cool and so yeah I think it's just that constant evolution always coming at it from a place of of low ego but just genuine inquisitiveness do you we um as I said we study a lot of businesses and find that um the the better business is there's someone behind or someone in the business or behind the business that's mathematically minded or they're good at financial side discipline on the financial side of things do you think any of those two things a discipline on the financial side or just being naturally mathematical minded is a huge advantage um yeah look absolutely I mean you in any business you just need this beautiful mix of skills knowledge and experience and sometimes it's in that business sometimes it's in the business owner and and other times it's not we've I've worked and and there's no right or wrong answer in that right I work with business owners and the best day for them when they're in their zone of genius the stuff they love the things they're really good at it might be in the backyards with the sheep with their with their dog or up on the back back hill mustering in um and so there's nothing wrong or right about about that it's just we build that business around that business owner and their zone of genius and so in that instance you know that that type human they would need a numbers person in their business they would also need someone who's really good at marketing and selling or trading livestock um and so yeah it's we're always looking at what mix of skills do we need in this in this business and someone yeah definitely economically minded and someone great with numbers and sometimes they exist in the business or out of the business doesn't really matter but yeah you want to make sure you've got that nice balance um across your internal and external teams. Is is that one of the first things you do is try and find that the the person's genius right at the start so you can sort of build around that a hundred percent yeah so it's one again it's one of the earlier exercises we do what is your zoner genius the stuff you love and you're really really good at and in an ideal world that's got a third element they're high value high value tasks and we always you know Robert you always used to say to me is that a $400 an hour task so that's that's always sort of been my benchmark so if it's a $400 an hour task or less can I delegate it and elevate myself up to allow allow more time but typically what we would do in that space is identify that we've got this big goal of where we're going so we actually build a structure over here that this is the ideal org structure that we're working towards in seven to ten years. And typically then we want to have another one which is what are we building to in the next in the next 12 months and and they will typically be a very similar structure except you'll have multiple names in the box. So Dwayne's a CEO and he's the GM and he's the head of sales um in our one year plan but over here in our seven he's he's dressed up as CEO or or MD or you know chief ship kicker depending on what your zonogenius is. But that way what we're always doing is we are building towards a plan yep not the trap typically is is you know Jenny's good at this Bob's good at that and Timmy's good at this and so I now need this type of person in my business as opposed to building towards an ideal structure. Do you find that with your clients that they don't really know their zonogenius or or they've got it but they have to have someone else point it out I think I mean I always say day day one 99% of the time the answers are already in their head um part of my role as a facilitator so I wear different hats at different times teacher coach facilitator but part of that facilitator role is just to give people really good structure and process to get all of those ideas and answers out of their head and and onto paper and say yeah again we've got really effective efficient ways of of pulling that information out of people so that it's not a long arduous sort of process for them to work out things like their zoner genius or their structure that they should should be working towards or any of the other 120 things that we teach on any given day. And you mentioned sales and marketing before do you think um you know sales can be a bit of a dirty word and especially in agriculture do you think it doesn't need to be and you know do you think we all need to have the ability to be able to sell uh at the end of the day if you're in you're in business you're in you're in sales right um I think if you're talking specifically about ag the the biggest sort of um issue I see is you know we just sell a commodity we're just a price taker you know why would I put any energy into it because we're just taking a price on the on the day and it's all bullshit right on any given day there'll be a 30 40 50 cent spread on who's getting the best price in the market on an Engus fetus deer versus the person that's getting the bottom and um there'll be different factors at play that determine whether you're at the bottom the top or somewhere somewhere in the middle and so we spend a lot of time coaching people in ag in particular about how can we make it less about price and subsequently place ourselves up here. And typically that's really about understanding your end customer understanding what their issues what their pain points are asking really really good questions. Yes you know and I've seen it in in in my career we've added millions of dollars to businesses just by going asking those questions building trust building rapport with your clients with your customers understanding their issues pain points and just building programs around things that solve those issues perfectly for them and then you take price off the table to or or make it lesser uh of a factor I'm sure Charlie Mort was a good salesman he was uh he was one of the best um do you do much crystal balling I know you're setting goals and things like that but you know on your way to those goals how far out are you looking at that you know is it grabbable or are you looking out a bit further because you know it's hard to predict what's gonna happen round the track uh you know not a bit down the track how do you go about the sort of crystal balling side of things uh so every business that we work with they would have a sort of seven to ten year vision we'll have that mapped back to a three year target um and back to a one year plan and quarterly quarterly goals so we're we're definitely looking forward but when I'm asking them to look forward and set though the likes of your vision I'm asking them to do it on the basis of everything going in your favour back to back seasons market low interest rates access to people capital raising whatever um and so that's a really challenging exercise for a lot of people to do when they've just walked out of the paddock and fertilizer's doing this and diesel's doing this and markets going down and the forecast is no rain or whatever's going on in their environment around them but typically um that's how we sort of do our crystal balling. Yes. What we find though is um I always come from a from a place of the environment is always perfect and that's an old Trevor Trevor Hendi quote in that on any given day um regardless of whether FERT's up or diesel's up or interest rates are going up or you know what the labor market's doing or who's in government you know any of those external factors are doing uh our business owners have the opportunity to dominate on any given day on any given set of circumstances and so um we are always looking at it through a lens of the environment is perfect. Yes this may not be our greatest profit year and we might miss our growth target this year but can we steal some market share off someone else? Can we still make good profit can we attract good people and typically all of your competitors are over here sitting around the water cooler complaining about how shitty the environment is we're over here talking about how we're gonna steal their clients how we're gonna take their good their good stuff or how we're gonna create this magnetic environment over here you know how we're gonna bring in great great clients whatever it is so that we can dominate regardless of what that in external environment is but we're always pivoting and adjusting right so we set this long medium and short term plan and even through to a quarter we have this bit of a crystal ball of what the next 90 days look like and the reality is the minute we walk out of that room that environment changes the neighboring place comes up for sale that we didn't think was going to be for sale for 10 years or you know interest rates go up whatever you know someone leaves your business whatever and so there are always words on a page right so we the main thing for us is we're pivoting we're adjusting as that environment changes as well but always through a lens of positivity and proactiveness.

SPEAKER_00 55:32

It's interesting we talk about the you know the weather a lot of a lot of our clients talk about the weather and we say well you can't farm to the forecast you just got to get on with it the big picture stuff.

SPEAKER_01 55:43

Yeah yeah and and honestly we've got we've got plenty of clients that you know they would make some of their best money in a in a drought that's right um what sort of aspirations have you got for the business Scott you mentioned uh you know 300 clients before but there's you've got to have other aspirations because what you're doing is something that's um becoming much bigger in agriculture like farmers are very acceptant um of coaches and you know having farming is a complex business and business is very complex so having people around you is important these days what what's what are some of your aspirations um it's to me it still comes back to that just having a measurable impact on regional Australia and and that's I guess always the thing at front and front and centre with us um you know and if that means we need to do things differently if that means we need to build uh you know a team of 12 or a team of twenty or or whether we can do it with five it that you know we're not really driven around that it's more about the end the end point and again we'll go through a dozen different iterations between now and then as we learn things and are challenged by different people externally but I think always with that sort of core purpose it at front of mind.

SPEAKER_00 57:10

And AI are using AI because I recently had a chat with a young farmer he's in his late 20s about he's building a a um management model through Claude and he's a very switched on smart young fellow runs a terrific farm and I've got no like he's gonna he's gonna do it like he'll he'll have he'll have his um his uh farm managed by AI and then he's gonna go out and replicate it and other other operations.

SPEAKER_01 57:40

So he are you using AI and if so where do you see it fitting into agriculture or or into some of the businesses you operate with yeah we so we absolutely use it and I think as coaches we have a responsibility to be at the forefront of of that technology using it working out what it's really good for working out what it's not good for you know you can go on to our online academy and you'll see AI clone of Scott that looks like me talks like me and just reads reads scripts like I'm sitting here right except probably without the blinking and without the the arm movements and so we're we're utilizing some of that stuff you know it'll this is version one of what that'll look like in time that model will be able to tap into your learning style are you visual are you audio audible are you uh kinesthetic it'll it'll pick up on that it'll be able to train and teach you and so we've got a responsibility to to use it um we always say ai's not coming for your business but the people that adopt that utilize it will have a greater opportunity you know they'll be the businesses that come for your for your business so I think it's got a wonderful role in terms of optimizing business owners for time it's got a wonderful uh place for uh doing low value tasks um but it is growing and it is improving at a incredible rate um so yeah you want to you want to be in it but just be be mindful I mean you I think it can save you so much time with where it's at at the moment but it can also take you down rabbit holes and and burn every minute that it saves you saves you as well. So yeah I think just be uh be proactive with it but use it for what it's what it's really good at. And would you recommend like getting someone in to help you who's a bit more experienced or you know got a few runs on the board with AI or do you reckon like just getting on and using it and constantly using it you can pick up those things that you need I think be because it's got so many different um ways that it can help you right from legal advice to analysing your financials to writing a writing a marketing plan for you or you know writing in a speech right so um there'll be applications where someone has done all the grunt work that has built the built the model that you don't have to build from the ground up and so in those in those instances it would make sense potentially to go and find that external expert who's already built what you what you want and in other in other instances having a play round with it yourself will be be perfectly fine right or you know chuck in your chuck in that contract just get a really base understanding of the legalities around it what sort of questions then send it to your solicitor or your expert in that in that space so um yeah I think just be aware of its limitations too there's there is plenty of stuff I've put in there that is a hundred percent inaccurate and totally wrong so um yeah it's uh it's good but it's still not not perfect. No good one last question Scott what are your most profound business lessons that you've learned over the years uh definitely having a plan just the power of of writing down and and I tell this story of so my my parents were obviously big strategic planners back in the day um you know with dad with his background with with RCS so we'd been doing strategic plans since I was a boy and I remember distinctly coming back home probably when I was 21 or something like like that and and mum had dug out and found one of my visions that I'd written from a decade earlier and I'd written this written this vision never looked at it a day day since and it was pretty much word perfect for where I was at 10 years later and so um there is a there is a real power just in terms of writing it down if you can then overlay um that with a with a history of execution what you generally find is instead of it taking you 10 years to do it'll take you take you six years to do so we talk about it you know a great year for us if you're 90 plus percent on your execution we'll be able to do a year's worth of goals in nine months we'll be able to do a three year target in two years and we'll be able to turn a 10 year vision into a into a six or six or seven and so it's just that execution bit building a community or having coaches or mentors or whatever around you but have something in there that helps you drive against that that plan once a planner always a planner we'll leave it there Scott thanks very much for your time and um yeah I'm I'll follow you with great interest it's um been a fantastic chat no absolutely mate and I love spending time with you and um yeah very appreciate the opportunity good one end a message