In professional speaking, charismatic and captivating individuals have long dominated the stage, captivating audiences with their powerful words and magnetic presence. These eloquent speakers have inspired countless individuals, shared valuable knowledge, and motivated change.
However, what if the secret to building a successful speaking business lies not in the hands of the speaker alone but in the ability to empower and train others to become influential voices themselves?
In this episode, we talk about how to make a speaking business work without the speaker with Brent Williams. Brent is one of Australia’s leading authorities on success strategies for teenagers. He received the “Gen Y Leader of the Year” award and has been nominated 3 times for the Young Australian of the Year.
Brent shares his insights on how to build a speaking business that transcends the limitations of a single individual and empowers others to become influential voices in their own right.
Brent Williams believes that the true measure of success for professional speakers lies in their ability to deliver impactful speeches and their capacity to create a lasting impact beyond their presence on the stage.
He emphasizes the importance of empowering and training others to become influential speakers, multiplying the speaking business’s reach and impact. Join us in this episode as we delve into building a speaking business that goes beyond the individual speaker with the insightful Brent Williams.
IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL FIND OUT…
- Brent’s personal development life skills programs (03:50)
- Running the program without Brent – was it successful? (06:48)
- Finding the right timing to launch a program (10:15)
- The challenge of stepping back from being the face of your business (12:15)
- The importance of holding your audience accountable (and how to do it) (15:10)
- Paying people to train for free (18:03)
- Train your people to be leaders (24:30)
- Techniques to building a strategic business (28:50)
- Byron Dempsey’s Driven Young Program For Youth (30:45)
- How to mentally prepare when pitching (34:32)
- The importance of being comfortable with change (36:40)
- Five key lessons from Brent (45:15)
- Investing in the future vs. investing in the present (48:32)
QUOTES
- “Being forced to make changes created the space for making more changes, which has allowed me to be much more fluid with the program.” -Brent Williams
- “Speaking business is one of the most difficult ones to do because of the work that we do, there’s an ego in that.” -Brent Williams
- “When you start putting other people on stage, not only do other people start to see them differently, but they start to see themselves differently.” -Carl Taylor
- “The biggest challenge as an entrepreneur is our mindset.” -Carl Taylor
Get In Touch With Brent Williams
Website: www.empoweru.com.au
Instagram: @empower_u_program
TikTok: @empower_u
Facebook: @empowerouryouth
ABOUT BRENT WILLIAMS
Brent Williams is one of Australia’s leading authorities on success strategies for teenagers. He has been featured on programs such as: the Today Show, Sunrise, Cheez TV, Mornings with Kerri-Anne, Channel 10 News, on radio such as: 2UE, NOVA 969, in the press such as: The Sun Herald, The Daily Telegraph, My Business Magazine, Dolly, New Idea, Woman’s Day, and countless other radio shows and dozens of newspapers.
At just 19, he wrote his first book titled, “The World At Your Feet”, which has been on the best sellers list both here and overseas. Several months later, he co-founded Tomorrow’s Youth International Pty Ltd, which today runs personal development seminars for teenagers in six countries; including Australia, New Zealand, Singapore Hong kong, Malaysia and Indonesia.
He was the recipient of the “Gen Y leader of the year” award and was nominated 3 times for the young Australian of the year. Brent has taught and mentored tens of thousands of students of all ages, cultures and backgrounds, and his messages have found universal appeal.
TRANSCRIPTION (AI-Generated and may contain inaccuracies)
Brent Williams Snippet (00:00):
Once again, for any business owner validating the importance and power of Systemising what you do, I mean creating processes, so that it’s really clear for anyone else to come in and do it.
Carl Taylor (00:23):
Welcome to another episode of Entrepreneurs Rising. I’m your host, Carl Taylor. And today we are joined by the incredible Brent Williams. And before I introduce him, I just want to remind you that the purpose of this show is about helping you build a business and a life that you love, something that can work without you and ultimately build wealth, both inside and outside your business. And if you’ve been listening to previous episodes, and you’re loving the podcast, we’d love for you to leave a rating on your favorite podcast listening app, and also share the podcast with your friends so that they can get exposure to the same information that you have as well.
So let’s get straight into today’s episode because I’ve known Brent for a number of years, but let me give you kind of a bit of the official rundown. Brent Williams is one of Australia’s leading authorities on success strategies for teenagers. He has been featured on programs such as the Today Show sunrise cheese TV, mornings with Carrie and I remember cheese TV is to love cheese TV, Channel 10 News, radio to UE NOVA 969. And the press the sun the Herald, The Daily Telegraph, my business magazine, Dolly new idea, woman today countless other radio shows and dozens of newspapers. And the reason he’s so well placed to be supporting these teams is it just 19 he wrote his first book titled the world at your feet, which has been a best seller list, both here in Australia and overseas. Several months later, he then co founded empower you which today runs personal development seminars for teenagers in six countries, including Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Indonesia. bread’s also delivered highly impactful keynote presentations and workshops to high schools right across the country. With his messages and fighting universal appeal. He was the recipient of the Gen Y Leader of the Year Award, and was nominated three times for the Young Australian of the Year. Pretty impressive. And Brent has taught and mentored 10s of 1000s of students of all ages, cultures and backgrounds, and his messages have found universal appeal. And I’ve also had the privilege of being able to present at some of his programs as well, which is absolutely amazing. So Brent, say, Hey,
Brent Williams (02:33):
thank you. Yeah, hello, thank you for having me. And I have to say, of all the people that have done an intro for me that energy was fantastic. I wish more high school teachers delivered it with a gusto you did. So thanks for having me on the show.
Carl Taylor (02:45):
My pleasure, dude, it’s so good to have you because I want to talk about obviously, I want to talk about what you do and how you help these teams and have done for so many years. But you know, obviously, for our listeners in particular, all of this has been a business journey for you. And I know little bits of your your personal journey that may or may not have been shared publicly. But I know in recent times, one of the key reasons I reached out to you man was you have for a long time been the only person really who got on stage specialists in the Australian market got on stage and presented. And you’ve recently been taking those steps to moving back just a little bit empowering other people to take the face of it. And we talk a lot about that on this podcast, like you just skate can be a scary leap. And I just really want to lean in on that. And here’s some of your experience in that business journey of doing that. So maybe before we get into that, though, just I know you just come off the back of a big program. Just give us a little bit of rundown of what’s been happening and and then let’s just see how the compensation box.
Brent Williams (03:50):
Yeah, sure. So I’ll give a quick context to the work that I do as short as possible. And then we can unpack where we’re at now. So I wrote a personal development life skills programs for teenagers, the main programs of power you it’s a two day events run over a weekend, covering life’s skills, not always focus on schools, things like emotional intelligence, creativity, goal setting money in finance, his communication skills, gratitude, so on and so forth. And we do it in very fun in an interactive way. Think of being a crack at Tony Robbins event for 30 to 21 year olds. That’s what I do. And I’ve been doing it now for 22 years 30,000 graduates and while a lot of the students that attend are forced along by the parents, you know, they finish it with hearts full of gratitude, wanting to do it again and again. Many of them describing is life changing. And yeah, look, that’s that’s the work that I’ve been doing for 22 years. And I think especially, you know, to your listeners, having a business that you want to leverage out on. I mean, I think that’s the goal for every business owner is that she had the business you can step back from and still still works without you and I think their speaking business is one of the most difficult ones to do because as sort of doing the work that we do, there’s an ego in that. You need to have ego to get up on stage and do this stuff.
So I think that’s made it an extra challenge. So we can, we can certainly unpack as this conversation unfolds. But, you know, it’s been a bit of a big shift this year for me. Lots of transition internally with my staff. I’ve got a general manager of six years that’s moving on, in two weeks, bringing in some new salespeople looking earmarking new general manager, so the whole company is very much in flux right now. And I feel like it’s gearing up for this new phase of the company where we’re looking to, you know, probably between two and 5x, the company in the next two or three years, so it’s I haven’t been this involved in a business in a long time, I have to say. And it’s been quite revealing. For me, there’s been some really good things in getting back into business. But there’s also been some really big shops, some things that I Yeah, I’m a little bit embarrassed about, I think, at the end of the day, as a business owner, the buck stops with you.
Carl Taylor (06:03):
So, dude, I think I think though, because I know exactly what you’re talking about you and I’m sure that you’re listening, you probably have had these experiences at various stages, you step back a bit, or you delegate a certain role, if it’s not a big part of your business, and you go off and you focus on other areas. And and then one day, for whatever reason, you find yourself looking a little more closely at what’s going on, and you start to cringe and go oh, because it’s not being done the way you would want it or quite to the standard that you would like it done. I know I can definitely relate to that. And so let’s, let’s talk a little bit about this. You know, obviously, I didn’t know about these flux changes. So this is perfect timing, you’re clearly in a big stage of leveling up. So what has been, let’s backtrack a little bit, maybe like when was the first time that you had an event run without you being the speaker? When was the first time that happened?
Brent Williams (06:58):
Well, there’s a couple stages in the history of the business. I mean, I originally co founded the company with Dale Beaumont, who some listeners may have heard of, and we were the CO presenters of the program. He went on to set up a another business called business blueprint, and pursued those interests. And I started running the program myself, I originally trained a presenter named Taki, more taki more was my first presenter that I trained back into you, we both know, who I’d trade back in probably 2009 2005 2006. And he would come over to Singapore with me, and he’d be my co presenter. And that lasts about a year. So that was my first experience in training up somebody else. The unique thing about hockey more, though, was he was highly skilled already. So he wasn’t a presenter per se. But he had that natural ability, which now you know, he He’s a phenomenal presenter, you know, commands audiences, incredible talent, but he was the first experience that I had. But the first one, were really I’d step back as a business owner and let the program run without me and an upsell. Most importantly, most importantly, and I’ll let me clarify this, there’s two parts to the presenting for what I do. There’s the weekend delivering to the teenagers, which is 90% of the time over the course of the weekend. Then, crucially, the last three hours is with parents as well. And that’s an upsell into ongoing education, which you know how front end business is pretty much a breakeven. And it’s really an our back end where the business thrives. And so there’s the there’s the deliver to the teenagers. But then there’s that mammoth task of sentiments of the teenagers and the parents at the same time and being able to manage the two audiences selling one thing by catering to different years. For example, a teenager wants to hear how you’re going to teach him how to become rich and apparent wants to hear how you’re going to give them good money habits. It’s the same kind of idea but the frame languaging Yeah, yeah. So the first time where I let it go completely where theoretically, if I was traveling overseas, the business is now running without me was January of this year, was the first time it was a Sydney empower you. That was run with our money.
Carl Taylor (09:15):
So all right, let’s let’s go back to that January, the night before it was happening. How were you feeling?
Brent Williams (09:19):
These are good questions. I was excited more than nervous. I was very confident in them delivering the weekend I was extremely nervous of the pitch. So on the Friday night, I was only thinking about the weekends experience. And I was I was excited was the probably the main feeling like this is finally here. You know, this, like made it work without me. Yeah, I see you later. And as you know, my dream is filmmaking. So this was all a big title. This was leveraging my time to go and direct a feature film. So excitement was the main feeling for sure.
Carl Taylor (09:55):
Yeah, I think I think it’s really good to talk about too is that the amount of training time I’m curious it now in hindsight, because it’s gone, we’re a few months past January now we’re in we’re in April right now, while recording this, the amount of time that he had to train before you felt he was ready or before it became ready for you to pull pull the trigger hindsight. Do you think you waited longer than he needed to? Could you pull the trigger earlier? Or was it right?
Brent Williams (10:22):
What a great question. He would say, if you asked him that question that I waited too long. And what would you say? I would say he wasn’t really, really interesting. Yeah. And the reason the reason I’d say it, and this is really important to recognize, you know, my audience doesn’t want to be there. teenagers aren’t signing themselves up. There’s one thing of getting up on stage, once I’ve warmed up the audience, you know, they’re ready to go versus a cold audience that you hear that that first three hours of my weekends is so crucial, it is so crucial, it’s so difficult, you set a tone. And the other thing I would say is holding this space for two hours is one thing, holding the space for a 12 hour day is a completely other beast. Yeah, there’s such a craft to the what I do. I’m again, highlighting for an audience that doesn’t want to be there. But can’t stress that enough to hold the space to keep the energy like that, that high, sustained 24 hours of those two days and getting that set up. Correct. There’s a lot to it. It’s there’s a lot to it. So I and this is the thing, I’d also say, I guess on a personal level, maybe there’s some liberal media’s, like, you know, this is, it’s probably done for 20 years, you know, certain there is that ego, and it’s go, Oh, my God, I’m letting go this thing and giving the keys to someone else, you know, who then becomes the guy, you know, who becomes the guru who becomes the person? Which I was fine with? But yeah, I think maybe there was maybe on a subconscious level, there might have been a little while back. But I still feel in spite of that, that there was some elements that he didn’t understand that, from my experience, notes hold a space for that length of time, isn’t it? It’s a big thing to do.
Carl Taylor (12:07):
Absolutely. And I think you know, the lesson I hear in this, and it resonates with my experience, and see helping others, you know, step back from their businesses to is, firstly, the biggest challenge, usually in the whole process is our own mindset, giving ourselves permission working with that ego and all those pieces of Lego, but it’s my baby, it’s my thing, they won’t do it quite that. And then there’s an acceptance that kind of has to happen that no matter how well trained you are, you’re talking about you train for two years, no matter how well trained, all that training will not prepare them for or you for what it’s been like, in the real.
The only way to really test it and to see what gaps and what extra training is to happen is to pull the trigger and do it. Yeah, you pull the god bet you all, I mean, we can talk about this way what you’ve done since but I’m sure that as soon as you start to see, here’s the things that could be done better. That gave you focused areas of where to focus, his development, where to focus on improving systems processes, whatever to to to address those issues, which you may not have ever found out. What could have taken you two years to find out if you’d waited another two years to try. Yeah. Would you say that’s accurate?
Brent Williams (13:19):
Yeah, look, definitely. And I think we can even take some more steps back actually, for real clarity on this journey. Because, you know, I for years was like, Well, I’m running this myself. And of course, I like a success, certain wind down, I started it, we always had a vision to have somebody else run it at some point. And but I was never sold out to doing that. Until about four or five years ago, it was five years ago that I made the decision, okay. I’m not getting any younger, I want to grow this business legacy. I’ve got kids now I want to pursue my dream of filmmaking. I’m at a point now where I’d like to train someone. And the moment I made that decision, somebody showed up, and then another person shown up, and then another person showed up, and then another one. And so just from a space of making the decision. I don’t want to get woohoo too much on you here. But I think there’s something energetically about when I made that decision, how people just showed up. And that sense of law of attraction. And yeah, you know, so that was a really interesting thing. And I think that in the training of the presenters, this was another point that was really interesting for me, in training the presenters, and it started off as weekly zoom calls. So we do very near stage just coming up with questions. There’s two or three of them. We’re on Zoom every Friday 730 We just, we just unpack and I didn’t realize how much I knew. Until I had to teach it. I did not the people who asked me to present a training for years, like how much could I teach them I just do it. Like I get up early. But now that I’ve had to teach people I’ve actually like unpacked this whole training process about pre framing, managing expectations, handling difficult participants in anchoring, you know, setups and payoffs and like, you know, arc of the arc of the event and You know, peaks and troughs just really, really fascinating that when I started to teach it that all this stuff came out was like, God. For instance, I’ll say something like who’s find my conversation. And it’s just a way of holding the audience accountable to listening and teaching what would be most people would say something like whose phone or conversation with the hand up, they put up really briefly. That’s no good.
That a hold your arm up, like you’re trying to grab something for the roof, and hold it up for a good three or four seconds. Like, you need to do that. Because your audience will only do they won’t do as much as you but they’ll go as close as possible. So if you do really quickly, people tend to be sheepish, you hold it up there, they feel obliged to put their hand up. So simple thing by teaching, you got to hold for three seconds. And it’s got to be right up in the air, like you’re grabbing something is everything. And it was that subtleties of things that I had learned over 22 years of doing this, that I realized they’re all the character, the masterclass and stuff that I could impart.
Carl Taylor (16:00):
It’s so can I ask a question here, with these zoom calls that you were running, like, was this unpacking in these teaching elements after they had done a presentation, or is this before they even took any stage with you at all, this was purely pure theory.
Brent Williams (16:13):
They had, they’d been assisting in my events. So they’d watched it, they’d, they’d all experienced it. So they’ve gone through it as a student, then they’d started to be assists. And so that helped support me over the weekends. And then we would, we would then run through the content so that they had to learn the content. So they’d have to go through, they’d watch countless hours of videos. So I was used to live and they’d have to watch recordings of me at the seminar to learn the content. And I was pretty flexible, then changing stuff. Like there was certain things I was very rigid with, these are things you have to do. And here’s some other areas where you can kind of bring your own flavor to it. I didn’t want it to just be a Brent copy. I wanted them to bring their own style to it.
But yeah, it was it was unpacking it made me realize there’s so much more depth to what we do, that I didn’t even necessarily give credit to. But yeah, it was all of that before they’d even presented. And then the strategy was to just give the one section, I knew I could risk an hour and a half. And I’d be there. If things weren’t working out, I could jump up we’d have little hand signals about different get up and, you know, get the energy up or what have you. But yeah, and lots of lots of work before they even got up on stage. Absolutely.
Carl Taylor (17:19):
Got it. Got it. And, and so you said you said like, once you made the decision, it was a big energetic shift, all of a sudden, people were everywhere. And as you as you’d like, we know they probably were always there, but your your mind your reticular activating system, you’re more aware and open. Well, there could be a person that could be a person. And so you then what, let’s let’s what Bob just thinking, like for someone else listening who’s going, Okay, well, maybe I don’t have a speaking business like Brent, but I’m going, I’ve made the decision. Even maybe you’ve just made the decision right now I listen to this show. Like, that’s great.
What what did you do when you were like, Oh, I see these people who might be potential? Did you approach them, tap them on the shoulder and say, Hey, are you interested in this? Hey, this is how this is what we’re going to do? Did you pay them for the training? Like, how did you go about going? I’ve got an idea. Let’s pitch it to you to see if you want to learn to become a mini me?
Brent Williams (18:10):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I’m going to make some comments here, I’m going to leave names out for their, for their privacy, and as far as who these conversations with, but with each of them. It was a big deal that I would offer them this opportunity. That’s how I saw like, this is a huge honor to actually say, Hey, would you like to do what I do. And so it’s important that you know, I put weight on that offer, I also knew that my business, we don’t charge astronomical fees for the work that we do. And so there was never going to be huge amount of money in it. And so I knew that they had to be in it’s not for the money should they be compensation will I’ll comment on that, and total transparency on that happy to have that conversation. But it’s very much the, you know, you’re gonna be a rock star, you’re going to be given the gift to change lives. I mean, you know, people say, I’d love to change lives like we do it every weekend, like kids will cry tears of joy, saying you’ve changed my life. Like just, I just finished the campus. I’ve mentioned you before we started this. Two days ago, I had 50 teenagers in a room. And I’ve got, you know, in this drawer, I’ve got like 20 Gratitude letters from them. Students just saying this has been the most impactful thing in their life. So it’s a huge honor to do it. And so I’m wanting to make sure their motivations are right. It couldn’t just be about the money. It had to be about contribution, and also their understanding. But I was going to help them develop a skill set that would be super unique that they could use in every year of their life. And as far as presenting goes, I know that there’s such a difference between presenting for teenagers and adults.
I knew that in the offering that I was presenting them with a skill set that would upskill them as presenters and give them the hope there’ll be a cut above the rest of their lives out there. Yeah, so that was the pitch as far as paying them to train. Well, at first No. By I didn’t pay them until they started to run at least three sections of a weekend. So once they started presenting about six hours worth, I paid them a present apprenticeship was kind of like, probably around about 500 bucks weekend, something like that. And then eventually, what even even when I was presenting, maybe 60 70%, I started paying them like a base plus commission. So they were attached to the outcome of the events.
You just think, interestingly, I had a conversation with one of the presenters. And they said to me, and this is this, to me is a my mindset thing. And it’d be interesting to know what the listeners think of what I’m about to share. One of the presenters said to me, Brent, people say to me, like, why don’t you travel around the country, on your own dime, like he didn’t pay you, this person would say, you know, I trained under you for free. That’s what he said to me, almost like he was doing me a favor. And I just said the same words back to him, but I changed the tone. And I said to him, I trained you for free. And I think that’s been an interesting experience with me, in this, you know, this transition is the mentality of people. And, you know, my perception is I’m giving a gift. But some people’s perception is I’m doing, they’re doing me a favor. And so I think there’s somewhere in the middle. That has been an interesting thing for me to deal with.
Carl Taylor (21:25):
There’s yeah, there’s a lot in that, you know, moment, I want to, I want to backtrack to an earlier part of our conversation and start talking about the upsell bit where I know you said you’re most nervous about, and that’s the money and, but before we get to that, that what you just said, because it’s true, like, as you mentioned, you’re, especially with your particular business, and what you’re teaching, you are providing a life skill, you know, I can, I can hand on heart say that when I learned to present and sell from stage that that is a skill set that, you know, whether I’m on stage or not those same skills, they just changed their life changing, they were life changing for me. And that’s, you know, the ability to hold a room, even though subtle things of knowing, like, I’m the same, like, if I raise my hand, it’s, I’ll hold it, if not enough people raising their hand, you call it out, like, because you get what you tolerate, you know, you can’t create the awkwardness till they they’re willing to do something.
But those little subtle things, they make a huge difference. But you’re right, in that there is a segment even when you were talking about all the things that you started to unpack in my mind, I was like, So Brent, is there going to be a Brent Williams speaking Academy certification coming soon, where you’ve taken all of that, and then you start charging people to learn those same skills from you.
Because what you said that I trained you for free, what you gave them was potentially. And I think that’s really important. I’m not at the stage where I’ve put another CEO in place in automation agency, right? Well, but I think it could be a similar approach. Like, if there was a young upcoming person to be able to go, Well, I’m going to train you. Rather than you know, I can train you to go and build a competitor, I’m going to train you to come and run this business. Now. At the moment, I’ve got this amazing ops manager, she’s probably most likely to end up in that role. But if I wasn’t, there is something in that if you’ve got an ability to go, Hey, you could have paid me to learn these skills, or I can help get you there.
It’s definitely an interesting mindset to have that I think, as business owners, it can be very easy to go, Well, I’ve gotta hire them, I got to train them. I got to pay for all that. What if it doesn’t work out? And so to have that mindset, obviously, that you got to legally, there are certain laws you got to meet in terms of paying people and all of that. So I’m not condoning getting free workers.
But it is an interesting mindset shift. But also the awareness that you said there is that they think one helping you out. And the truth lies somewhere in the middle. It’s like well, you kind of both helping each other. There’s a fair mutual exchange happening ideally.
Brent Williams (23:53):
Yeah, and I think I paid in the moment I felt they could do the job. And this is another thing I jumped around a bit when before I ever had any presenters on on stage, all people always wanted to do is become an assist. Once they saw students becoming presenters, anyone who assist they weren’t present now. And I have bought teenagers come up to me going off, what would it take to be a presenter? Whereas they never asked that before? Because there was never a runway for it. That’s a little side comment. Well,
Carl Taylor (24:25):
this could be this could be interesting. Firstly for you, but for others, you know what you just described there reminds me of T Harv Eker is you know, he doesn’t have any more but he is what he had before he sold to peak potentials you know, he had the this process when he came in did Millionaire Mind intensive you then had to become a speaker or even to become an assist you had to do is
I can’t believe I did this training was run by Blair singer he was the one who taught me how to play from stage. So Blair, Blair run that and then there was after that I come up with the next program was but there was a there was a more advanced one you had to do if you were then wanting to be out gonna do an assist, and you did little basic bits. And eventually though, you effectively paid your own way to then become a presenter who could could present harp stuff at his program. So, you know, there could be at Empower you process there where comes through the program. And then there’s another back end product of come and learn to become a speaker assist to all the adults who want to learn.
Brent Williams (25:21):
Yeah, I’m very open to that. And a lot of people are pushing me to do that, to actually have a more strategic structured, there’s a, there’s a course this training. Now look, I’ve created already a 40 page manual, because I started to record the zooms, I get my VAs to transcribe it, and then we’ll formulate it into a bit of structure. So I’ve created more IP now with that, and it’s definitely something that I’m considering now that I understand how to unpack it. I spent two years training them. So it’s all we’ve cut it into videos now. So definitely something I’d like to look at before coming back to the kind of how this all started was, it has been interesting for me to see, you know, the situation and people’s very differing views of the same situation. And to that point, one of my big fears of doing this, we haven’t even brought it up yet is am I creating competition for myself down the track?
Carl Taylor (26:15):
And this is a big one I you know, I think and this is true, even for a general business owner, who you might be a one man band agency right now, or even just a small team agency, and you train up these great staff members, we’ve done it and then they leave, right? You got some amazing team members on our team who have gone and just become freelances. And I actually know some of my friends actually employ X team members of mine. Like I’ve got a few friends who I know I and full time have team members who used to work for me and were trained by my team. And so yeah, there’s always that risk. But it always comes back to think I don’t know who first said it. But I first heard it from Brad Sugars was like, Brad, what if I train these people and they leave? And he says, and what if you don’t train them? And they stay? I’ve always always come back to that. I’m a big Brad Sugars fan, by the way. Yeah, I’d love to get him on the show, actually.
Brent Williams (27:08):
And that’s invoking this is this comes down to scarcity and abundance, you know, do you have a scarcity mentality was always fear, or abundant mentality. And you know, you just whatever happens, happens. And you you know, it’s, it’s and then and look, I’ve been very fortunate than the last, probably the last 12 months, I’ve, I’ve built a bit of a branch trust around me, we’ve got three or four people that I advise, keep advice from a lot now with decisions that are very invested in the success of the business. A lot of them are highly successful parents of kids in the community, that are very invested in the work that I do, I want to support the kind of position that I’m in knowing that I’m the oldest person hired in the company. And for many years, I hired teenagers and young adults. And that comes with great, maybe a good attitude and excitement but lacks real world experience as well. So I’m just trying to balance that out now. But very much their their mentality is maybe the certain people come in aren’t the right fit long term. But the model still good. Like if you can keep training our presenters and not be so heavier on one or two, if you get 10 of them, then you spread your risk. They don’t feel as entitled because they’re like the only other presenter so they’ve got a bit more ball, I guess, all control influence,
Carl Taylor (28:21):
I think, you know, your business and other coaches and I know we have listened to coaches who listen to this show, like the coaching business in particular, because so much is put on the weight of the person on stage, there is a there is a psychological cloud that gets put just just purely because they’re all of a sudden onstage users and elevated stage which adds to that psychological effect. But like, there is this empowerment that comes to brand built just because they’re on stage. And when you start putting other people on stage and you start putting the focus on other people, it not only do other people start to see them differently, but they start to see themselves differently and that’s where they’re you do run that risk where they start to be like Oh, well I could just make as much money or do more myself and the audience can start to be Oh, I really liked that person really well I really connect with them and I wanted to follow their whatever they’re doing. So you know, it’s I think it is worth that we brought it up you know, I know it’s one of your fears. But it’s a it’s a valid fee. I think for every any coach to have I’ve I’ve seen it in in friends coaching businesses where they’ve had internal coaches come in, they’ve positioned them in a certain way and made them the Rockstar. And if you make them two months of the Rockstar, it evac exactly that happens, they leave they take some clients with them. You got to kind of create a system, you know, where it’s like you’re giving them the limelight, but they’re not the whole show. It’s like they’re a piece of the show and they they need to constant reminder that you know it’s not their magic ability that’s the to bring it it’s the empower you content if they empower you system. It’s the structure I mean T Harv Eker. When he had other people on stage, he was scripted almost word for word. And they were just sections, which is like, here is hard story if you don’t have your own story, otherwise insert your personal story that teaches this principle. But if it was like that way, if you didn’t have a story, he was half story, you could just go in and tell your story. It happened to hop, and it was scripted word for word. And that way, it was a saleable asset. This is a presentation. You’re just getting up there and you’ve got a skill, but it’s it’s still the holodeck process.
Brent Williams (30:30):
Yeah, well, you know, it’s interesting. It’s interesting to that to that point. I’m currently working out a an ongoing, almost like a licensing agreement for empower you. And that’s with Betsy Byron. He has Byron Dempsey has his own community. He’s He’s started up over the last year called the driven young program. It’s a two month program for kind of 18 to 30 year olds, who may struggle through COVID and connecting with friends. And it’s over the two months, you do a bunch of live and online events, things like how to change a car tire to like yoga classes to watch walks. So it’s very much community connection. But what he has in the middle of it is empower you. Yeah, right. And so in two weeks time from when we’re recording this in two weeks time, he’s running an employee program just for his people.
But what I’ve done is this certain, so I’ve said you got to have my banners. So it’s got to be branded empower you the workbooks have got to be empower you and you need to play two clips of me each day.
So I’ve said you’ve got to play like, yeah, so five to 15 minute videos of me from a live event. And that’s what we’ve been doing over the last two years or so when I’m not at a event. If I’m not running like a weekend at Byron, and at around the start of year, there’s at least 40 minutes of me on screen. So there’s an affinity to there’s the founder. And it’s, it’s yes, so there’s always that flavor of me on stage, when I’m not there live. And it’s a bit of quality control. And it also gives them a little break from presenting, which is good. But yeah, that’s something that I’m extremely mindful of, if I’m going to start licensing this out, and he’s going to run my brand for his people by how to kind of keep the integrity of, you know, empower you there, but then also not get the eyes to go well, I’m just gonna take it and do it myself. So what I appreciate Milan is, he seems to have a very much a, a mentality thathe’s been given this wonderful skill set for me.
I’ve mentored him. And so we very much want to help each other out. So we still have that strong connection. And may that continue. But as you know, business things can change.
Carl Taylor (32:45):
Yeah, well, you never know what’s going to happen. But one of the things I’m curious about, like with all this work that’s obviously happening in Australia has that has that then opened up doors to other markets around the world? Or at the moment, you still just focus on Australia, but you can you plan plans that you can take that licensing opportunity? Further?
Brent Williams (33:03):
Well, you know, yeah, I just had a flop just had a woman like two weeks ago, want to start up in Auckland, New Zealand, and she’s flying over in a month’s time to to assist at a weekend to experience in live. And then we’re going to have a conversation about that. And we’re trying a new model have actually decided this was like year 2001. But we’re looking to run live 90 minute information evenings.
We’ve found a really good marketing engine right now. So I’ve been doing live weekly webinars. To sell parents into power you were actually looking to do live events now. Because the difference with our business than most people can sell a webinar is as much as the parents want to say yes, on the webinar, they feel they need to consult the child, no matter how much you say sign your kid up anyway, they still feel they need to talk to them. And that takes the heat out of the actual sales pitch. But coming back to your point, and it’s all connected. I have been asked to go overseas quite a lot in the last five years. And you know, as a parent, as you know, now, as a parent of two kids, I don’t have the same freedom to just travel. But with training up presenters. There’s an appeal to go to America to go to England. I’ve been asked to go to Dubai, I’ve been asked to
Carl Taylor (34:18):
it just seemed like a natural progression for your business. I like I’m genuinely excited for where that’s part of why I invited you on the podcast. I could see the evolution I could see the shifts happening wanted us to be able to share that now.
There’s two things I want to achieve before we wrap this up. Firstly, I want to go back to the pitch. You said you were really nervous about the pitch. So yeah, what did you firstly what did you do mentally to alleviate your anxiety not not go in and fiddle like just trust and let them do so what did you do there?
Brent Williams (34:53):
Well, I accepted that the weekend I gave them could be a total flop. So I until he said, if if they get up there and make zero sales, and it’s a disaster. That’s okay. I just had to get to that. What is the worst case scenario here? It is like, it doesn’t work out. And then the question would be well, is that is that upon the program I can leverage? Or is there a program pilot program always have to do. And if it was something I had to do, it’s okay. It still gives me back time, not completely leveraged out. But instead of, you know, flying safe flying to Byron Bay on a Friday, flying out on a Monday, I could fly in on a Sunday afternoon, and get the red eye on Sunday night. So I looked at that as a worst case scenario. And I accepted that whatever they did, I ensure and confident we could we could work through it. I think there were COVID gave me as a lot of business owners that pivoted in that time, some just throw their hands ago, this is terrible, poor me. Or you go, what am I going to do about it? You know, what am I going to do in this situation? I remember typing more. When we first week of lockdown. He was extremely active in black belt. And I remember messaging him saying, dude, it’s really cool what you’re doing in black belt. And he replied to me something I don’t even know if I’m told him how much it impacted me. He replied to me. And he said, you know, Brent, I’ve never felt a greater calling to lead my my tribe. And I was like, I’m gonna do that, too. And so I went aggressively did online education. I then looked at my weekend, and I was at Friday night, Saturday, Sunday, then a Monday night graduation. So it’s a four day experience. I shaved off the Friday night. So for 20 years, I’ve been running this program one way, and sort of kind of four hours is a huge change for me. And I realized at that point, I was very much in a cover zone. And I was so used to the certainty of how I did something. I cut that out. And then the presenters as I was training them, they said to me, Brett, I don’t know if I can commit a Friday or Saturday, Sunday, and this Monday night grad, because I had jobs that other commitments. And so I’ve said shit, well, could I get rid of that Monday night and sell a wall on the Sunday night, I had reservations for years about doing that, because parents are coming to the room, they pick up their kids in our spelling them again, like is that too much is it on the nose, they haven’t had time to chat with their kids. But because the presenters said they needed the time, it kind of forced my hand. So I changed so much in my business and my program, we went from one camp to camps. All these changes started to make me feel comfortable with adapting and changing, which is a beautiful thing, like COVID forced me to make all these changes that are all by the way, every change I’ve made has absolutely benefited the business. Yeah. And so I can’t remember where this question led me to go on these, these points. Like, you know, I think that that’s been a huge, I think for anyone listening, the gratitude, I have my hand being forced to make changes, created the space for making more changes, which has allowed me to be much more fluid with the program, which will allow it to grow and for me to not feel so controlling over how things need to play out, which I think will then enable me to grow far more effectively. I think business owners, we can get in the way of ourselves, so I can give away the business 100
Carl Taylor (38:03):
The biggest thing I’ve heard you say in just now really is you were afraid to change, you have kind of got this comfort zone, or this is how it is. And I think I think you’d have two extremes in business owners that I’ve seen at least even in my own behavior at certain stages, where you’re too eager to change, and you’re changing things that probably you didn’t give enough time to actually figure out to work. So there’s that extreme where it’s like, you’re just change, change, change, and you’re never actually letting anything bad in. And that’s that’s to an extreme, it’s not going to serve you and then there’s also the Okay, we’ve been doing it this way for years, this is the way we do it. And then you become afraid to make the change because what if it all breaks as something like COVID came along, it forced your hand, which gave you the courage to go okay, what if I tweak some of these things? And then you found that ultimately, it’s all it’s all worked out for the better. And you know, I’m not gonna put words in your mouth, but I can imagine if it was someone like me, I know I’ve had these experiences on my car. I should have done it early. Like when I when I took eight months out.
Brent Williams (39:02):
Oh my God, You took the words right out of my mouth. Every change. I was like, I could have done this 10 years ago. Yeah, and then you go, it’s okay, I’ve done it now. But there is this sense of like, oh my god, this is such a good challenge. What was I thinking? But that’s now I remember how they started. How did I feel about them pitching? Yeah. And it was really because it had so much experience in change and adapting and like tweaking the pitch because I’ve gone from the Monday night to the Sunday so I had I had people like Dale go No one’s here what what’s wrong he goes oh, you’ve already you’ve already sold me now giving me all of this. These like dates and logistics, forget the logistics they are still like there’s all these crafting words. So I knew because I’ve gotten so used to changing making mistakes or working through it that I knew that whatever happens, we could we could work it out and it’d be might be some short term pain as in okay, we made $0 versus XML we normally make, but the long term vision and get this right is gonna be so much more important than the short term loss and I think by summarizing all of it, I really think that the years of summits change in the business both forced and by personal choice meant that I was prepared for whatever was going to happen in that pitch, there will be okay long term. And that whatever happened, however it happened, we could all get together, analyze it and unpicking. And I should mention, I did go for the beach. But I went undercover. I went as a parent sitting in the audience, I felt I needed to at least watch them do it. I wasn’t gonna interact, I was going to put my hand up. They didn’t need to say this Brent there. But just to watch them. And I will say this. The first 30 minutes is just for the parents at Barnes doing it. And I thought he did a very poor job.
When I say poor, it was his first time doing it. So I’m comparing him to me. So I totally I was that. But there were things that he feels like, Oh, when I said that. Oh, you know, anyway, we ended up converting 50% of the room in the end. So how does this compare, compared to you? About the same? I was actually was actually a little bit like, it was a great weird, but I was like, What the hell like hang a second. It could be so much better. And he still got the result. There was a little bit of like, where’s the ego there. And even a parent came up to me afterwards and said, Byron’s pitch at the end was so good. It was it was actually clearer. The clearest I’ve ever heard. And there was a there was the ego in me was a bit bruised. But but more importantly, I was like, my sing. Amazing. Yeah, that’s great. That’s such great news that somebody who see me do it a lot said that this one was easy to comprehend. Like, that is a huge one. That was his first one. So funny how life works.
Carl Taylor (41:51):
You see that the thing that thing about that doesn’t surprise me, though, because so much. And I’m glad that you brought it up numerous times already in this episode. I believe not just as business owners just as human beings on this damn planet, our ego. And learning to disconnect and overcome it and let go of what the ego tells us is right about ourselves about other people, is the biggest challenge that we, as humans are here, I believe we’re here on this earth to learn to overcome now on this journey, and we’re all different stages, and you know, but hearing like knowing that, because you’re sitting there listening, going, I know He’s on a roll, it should be like this, because you’re comparing it to how you would do it. Yeah. But we’re not our customers. And we can get so attached to this is the way it should be that as we spoke about before, you’re not willing to try other things. It reminds me of, in the early days of internet marketing and online sales listeners, the web was filled, it was expensive and slow, you didn’t put many images, it was Dan Kennedy style black, the direct response letters, it was big, ugly black writing on a bit of a white background, you’d maybe have a few little copy doodle arrows and underlines. And that would out convert and then came over probably only really in the last 10 years, have we seen the shift to now people want pretty and beautiful landing pages and websites.
And we’ve had the internet to support it. But even today, often a simple Google Doc or an ugly Dan Kennedy style, direct response sales website will out convert a beautiful, pretty polished sales page. And what you just described is like the speaking version of that, you know, there’s a beautifully polished presentation practiced over 20 years, and presented, and then there’s this rough, you know, put together got the right elements, but doesn’t say it as polished, and it converts just as well. And I think there’s a great analogy on that. Before I get into what are your big lessons. So you start thinking about that. I think the big here for anyone else listening is
Brent, it was his experience with selling from stage. Now if you’re a speaker, and a coach that may be very relevant for you too. But if you’re an agency or an accountant, or you know, some other business, service based business or maybe a non service based business, there’ll be true of you in some other area where you’re like, This is the way it should be they’re not doing it the way I want. But here’s the thing, if they’re getting you as good a result, sometimes you might find they get you a better result than you could do it. It’s about letting our egos be okay with maybe their way will be better. Maybe I can learn something from them.
Even if you don’t you know the one thing I really want to tip your hat to Brent being okay with going okay, I know the long term payoff of getting this right is going to be worth more than if I have this whole event convert zero sales like you are able to truly surrender into just be which is amazing.
Because you had the longer term vision, you had the mindset of like, well, this, this is going to be there’s value in this, there’s learning, even if the sales don’t come. And thankfully, it all worked out in the sales game. So huge hat tip to men. Thank you, thank you, I’d love to wrap this up with it can be fired. Five comes to mind, but your as many as you can think of what are some of the key lessons that you’ve learned? Going through this process of trying to take yourself out of the business that you think other business owners that might not have the same business model as you might find useful? What are those biggest lessons?
Carl Taylor (45:36):
Yeah, I mean, the obvious one is, is the rich have just finished up commenting on this is, you know, you got to let go of your ego, it’s never gonna be perfect, it’s not always gonna be the way you want it to be, I think trusting in the process. And by that, I mean, you know that the short term, backward steps or things where it’s like, there were times where I didn’t need them to be at all these events that I was running, I didn’t need, like, I could have run it probably more effectively without them, then I was paying them to be there. But it was because I was investing in the future, not the present. So whenever I got overwhelmed, or felt like, oh, is this really worth the time and energy is I just kept reconnecting to worth I could, in five years time have eight of these presenters, and we’re right around in every city in the country. That’s what I’m going to keep on coming back to. So I think being very coming back to the intention was really important for me, because they come back to the intention, the intention to leverage the legacy for growth for this program to be right around the world, potentially in the next 10 or 20 years.
I think also, probably another big lesson was, I guess, part of the lesson, but in unpacking my, my skill set, realizing how much I actually knew that I didn’t really I wasn’t aware of that I think this comes down to what they would bang on about forever, and why so successfully Systemising what you do. So take what you do up here, and how you unpack that. So I think it’s I think the lesson is, once again, for any business owner validating the importance and power of Systemising what you do, I mean, creating processes, so that it’s really clear for anyone else to come in and do it and which I have now never had before. So yeah, I think they’re the big ones.
And I also think probably just being able to manage the highs and the lows, I think not getting used to being Yeah, not getting too excited with wins. And not to design with the losses, just being a little bit less emotional, a little bit more logical. And just just knowing it’s a numbers game. And you know, through time, energy and focus, keep focused on the main prize rather than that the in front of you wins and losses, because I think that can get really disheartening. In my game, we could run out a weekend every week. And I think the with the weekends always great. Okay, that consistently a great outcome, but the sales can be really inconsistent. So one weekend, we might get 70% of the room, the next weekend, we get 15. And then one is 15. It’s very disheartening. It’s like, well, what are we to work? What did I do wrong? All of those things. And then was it because I had other presenters. And I think sometimes getting too caught up in the detail can be so overwhelming. So just really keeping BPHS stuff when you’re going through change. Just think that vision, which I think I kind of said in the first point, but I just slipped back with clearly, but I am emphasizing that one.
Carl Taylor (48:19):
That’s actually a very important one. Your I think, a point worth sharing here, when you talked about, well, you’ve got these inconsistencies. One and we times you run a weekend and 70% Another time you run a weekend, it’s 15%. This is the power of when you build a team. And you start to remove yourself, because now Brent has the ability, whether he chooses to do it or not, he could have every single week in an event running, or even multiple events running around the country in different places of the world. And if some of those events, imagine that imagine there’s 10 events happening on the exact same weekend all around the world. Yeah, some some converts 70%, some converted 50%. But here’s the thing, there is now a huge increase in the leverage and volume that Brent doesn’t that’s only there for those. And that’s the difference. Guys, it’s the same with why, you know, I have a team of 60 doing far more than I could do and serving far more clients and I could personally serve if I was the one doing the work for clients. And this is the same thing that I’m so excited that Brent, we’ve got this formula formulating that’s allowing his business to now do it because as I said at the start of this, I’ve had the privilege to present and meet many of your graduates as well as people who are in the program. It’s a really impactful thing. I didn’t know you existed when I was going to work. So I think you guys started around the time I was kind of finishing high school anyway. But it it was like, if I’d known something like that existed.
I’ll probably you know, if it’s still happening in some form, I’ll probably send my daughter along when she’s old enough. I just think it’s super amazing. So let’s, let’s wrap on that. If someone’s listening to this in their parent, they’re going why? Well, I want to learn more about this for my kid. Where do they go? Let’s start with that.
Brent Williams (50:00):
Yeah, so easiest thing is that website empower you with the letter u dot Comdata. You and our website has the recorded information videos, downloadable mag mag logs, things like that. So heaps a comprehensive information we currently run our weekend in Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, Byron Bay, Gold Coast, Newcastle and Wollongong looking to expand potentially Perth, Adelaide and Brisbane in 2024. So yeah, that’s the best bet. And I would say to parents listening know this, the biggest obstacle you’ll find is is your teenager not wanting to go and my simple answer to that is you know, there’s a lot of resources on the website to help warm them up. Worst case scenario be appear first and a friend second and just make them go. They’ll Thank you after it may not be before it. But does Thank you after it.
Carl Taylor (50:52):
Yeah, very true. So I will make sure that the link to that in the show notes so if you if you’re like you didn’t catch that it was in Pallet you with the letter u.com. Today, you but that also be in the show notes, which you can find, along with all our other episodes at rising dot show. I also want to do a little shout out Brent may not be looking for this, but I’m still gonna say if you’re tuning in from overseas, and you think that what Brent is running sounds really cool. Also, check out his website and potentially reach out maybe you could be the start of some of these licensing deals outside of the New Zealand area. So where you might want to pay to bring one of the presenters over to your country so please also reach out for Brent there that would be great. Brent, any final words or anything else that you’d like to share before we wrap this episode?
Brent Williams (51:30):
Up? Oh my God, I’ll finish with it with a quote. It’s a quote that I heard using years ago in an audience and it stayed with me so much that I used to write it is to be typed out at the bottom of the letters we’d send a graduates it’s now the back of our magazine that we have so long one suicide twice. Do the thing you said you would do? Well after the mood you sit in is gone.
So just repeated do the thing you said you would do well after the mood you sit in as gone. It’s always stayed with me. It’s always easy to love it. We’re feeling energized and excited about our life and our future. We make big commitment to ourselves. Let’s see, as the energy and emotion when you made the decision dissipates a still committed to the course you know, motivation gets started, discipline ceases to. I think that’s the difference. It makes all the difference.
Carl Taylor (52:25):
Yeah, wow. That’s that’s interesting. Like my mind pops with numerous examples of where that pops is true. Maybe I’ll keep some of them for a future episode. That to talk about, but I love that thank you. And you’re gonna quote If you’ve enjoyed today’s episode, guys, please be sure to share it on your socials. Or if you’re not really big into social media, then just grab the little share URL go click the three dots and whatever tool you’re listening to this on. Or if you’re on YouTube, grab the link and share it send a text message, send it to your friends, send it to a parent, send it to a sister or whoever it is who you know would get some value out of this lesson really like to get people to hear what Brent’s got to share and also introduce new people to the podcast. As I said at the start of this if you’ve enjoyed the episode, and our podcasts in general, please leave us a review and a rating. We’d love to get more exposure and more people hearing about the show. You can find all the show notes at rising dot show. That’s a rising dot show. There’s no.com It’s just dot show. And until the next episode, keep up the journey you’ve been listening to entrepreneurs are rising.
Carl Taylor Outro (53:23):
You’ve been listening to Entrepreneurs Rising. Thank you, dear listener for tuning in. I appreciate your time and look forward to connecting in future episodes. If you would like show notes or any resources from today’s episode, you can find them at rising.show rising.show. You can find a show notes for this episode and all other episodes as well as links to socials and or the ability to reach out and connect with me make your suggestions for future episodes. Until next time, keep up the journey.
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