The Mindset You Need To Create A Successful Business | Marketing Talks

"The only way you're going to stay happy is if you build your business around your lifestyle and not your lifestyle around your business."

I caught up with Bryan Mills this week who is an accomplished agency owner and marketing professional to discuss why so many business owners fail in their journey and how you can build a business that works around you - and not the other way around.

We also explore 3 actionable steps to take to ensure success with your business.

Read the transcript:

Greg Beazley: Welcome Brian. Thanks for, thanks for joining the show on the marketing talks.

So let's just jump straight into it. Bryan, can you give us a quick overview of your background and experience as a business coach and what you help your clients with on a daily basis? And maybe you can tell us a little bit about the step-back system as well.

Bryan Mills: Yeah, no worries, mate. First off, mate. Thank you so much for having me. It's obviously it's always getting to come on and just talk. The misses does say that I love to talk and I think we were chatting about it before and I actually liked some of the stuff and it really is like the focus in terms of the step back system is really about what you're getting people out of their business.

So in terms of my experiences, and working with other the businesses was the amount of times that people get sucked into their business. They can never, they can never get out. Like I gotta remember at one stage it was a case that my Misses was like, right. Can we go somewhere? I can't, I can't leave my laptop. I needs to do something on.

I always need the two people working. And then he was like, well, why have you started a business? So this is the freedom. Like everyone starts as a business to come free now. Like, no matter how much you like, they have a different answer, you drill that answer down it's to be free. What we're finding is when a lot of people will go in through different markets and in courses and stuff like that, to be a coach, all the tricks and tips and tactics.

We're all time heavy or very much like hustle like the hustle mentality. And when I went yeah, through that, journey and I went through the hustle, hustle, hustle, hustle, I was like, how do people do this? I was like, I'm following, I'm following all of the 10 K courses and all the gurus and I'm hustling and hustling and that it it got me some results. Put the quickest result I got with burnt out. So here it's time to step back. And that's where the step back system come from. It was like, how do I get in or start a business, get in a business and get out. Because at the end of the day, business should be working for you. You shouldn't be working for your business.

And then, so then we come up with the three phases of the step back system too, to help business coaches and online entrepreneurs actually come up with their business and enjoy what they actually built rather than stress over it.

Greg Beazley: Right. And so is the freedom really what made you become a business coach or was it more like the frustration of what you were seeing in the market?

Bryan Mills: I've always been a coach and a face. It wasn't business. It was, it was football. I was a football coach for years, like ever since I was 13 or soccer, depending on who I'm talking to. Like I was from 13 years old. I, I was, I was a soccer coach. So coach has just always been in me. Surprise the link, unless you end up making it big, like there's no money in coaching wall.

So I bet not even like a good micro level, there, there was no money in it. And so the journey was I actually, I. I had the feeling like maybe I should have been together a few years and I had a feeling it's gut wrenching feeling that I was going to be a dad, even though she wasn't pregnant and we weren't planning on it.

So I ended up jumping into corporate and just to ask you to bring the finances or sort out the finances. And then the, the backend of that story is basically corporate taught me they don't care. They don't care about you whatsoever. And then I went back into business and started helping other businesses.

But this time I had a lot more business knowledge and a lot more marketing knowledge events, knowledge, et cetera. And then from there, I decided to coach because that's what I fell in love with. I remember one client came on through the agency and I hadn't coached for ages and they're like, Oh, you want me to like, do some one-on-one sessions?

And she helped me out. So yeah, sure. Everybody's on a fast buck in love with it as if I've never been away. She was this time I was teaching something different and that was, I came back to coaching because I love it businesses. Just what I coach now. Right.

Greg Beazley: Yeah. And you were talking a little bit before about businesses not really knowing, or maybe taking the wrong approach to the whole business formula.

Can you explore a little further into the most common challenges that you see businesses facing today?

Bryan Mills: Okay. No problem. So a lot of, a lot of businesses are, they've got a couple of things wrong. The, they don't want to let go of control.

That is a hard thing for people to release is control. And by doing that, yeah. They just constantly bring on more tasks. So when it's time to try and scale and try and step out your business, they can't because they're too busy delivering absolutely everything. So that's a, that's a major, major problem is the ability to.

It's just, just let go. And it's crazy. It's like for instance, like my dad runs a, a million dollar rail company in the UK. It's it's, you know what, he's going to hate me for saying this, but I think those absolutely haven't hit those as much as he can and it keeps it nice and close. And when you take him out of the equation, the literally the business cannot run.

If it, if he died tomorrow, like touch wood he doesn't. And, but if he died tomorrow, The company would be in a a bit of a shock and state because he's not built the processes.

He's not documented that he's not recorded them. Nobody would know where to, where to go on what to do and how to do it. And a lot of people run their business and build as the go, which is natural, but a lot of businesses don't step back.

And then build the pro wait, what is it? Actually, they're doing the processes and then build back up again from there. So it's like letting go and not building the correct foundations as you go to scale, you're just going to crumble. And I've done that a few times. I've gone to scale because if you were doing well and I'm bringing on staff, like I were saying before it was just crumbling every single time because the foundation just wasn't there.

If you don't, we'll that bottom part of the pyramid you're screwed.

Greg Beazley: And when you say foundations, what does that include? Does that mean like a sort of business structure, like taxes and you know, templates and things like that? Or is it more like you know, step one, I'm going to do an audit step two do the next part...

Bryan Mills: It's your operational foundations.

Like you can always, like, if you, you can always go get in the car when you can do your accounts, there's always someone you can, you can do it. And you'll probably pay for them to come in with all their processes. You'll pay top dollar for that. Right. But nine times out of 10, when you bring someone in, like who's got a process, it always needs mold into your business when it's like, if.

Operationally, you need to have your processes in place. What are daily tasks? What's a weekly task. What's a monthly task. How do you do that task? And then who can do that task? As a business owner, my mentor said, as a business owner, you've got two different types of tasks. You've got a $30,000 task, or you've got a $3 task.

And as a director and as an owner of your company, you should only have to be doing the $30,000 tasks. Everything else needs to be outsourced. It also means, but you can't do that if your processes aren't there.

Greg Beazley: Right. Right. And do you find that a lot of business owners struggle to sort of letting go, actually taking that first step to outsourcing their things.

Bryan Mills: Yeah. Who do you trust? How did you find them? And what's it going to be like? And the one is, there's an, there's a massive internal fear. It's like, if, if a let go. Like, can it be done? And the reason they know that task can't be done, if they let it go it's because they haven't built the right foundations.

It's like, how could, how can you give someone a task today? If there's no documentation there's no, I'm not saying sit there and write loads of standard operating procedures, not whatsoever, but as you go record them, Right, right. W we've literally got the way we build our project management software is we do, I just got Loom video after loom video after loom video, because when you're doing it, if you talk at time to press record and talk, as you do it, they should, they should procedure done.

They should protest. Yeah. Yeah. As you're doing it instead of sitting down and go, well, how did it do that? And how did it do that? You record as you go, you build on those processes. And then now it's like, just watch the video. So much easier and especially, yeah, cause pick pictures paint a thousand words.

Don't me. So it's 10 times easier to watch a video. How are you going to learn something? Are you going to learn it? What's your preferred choice? Is it YouTube or a blog? Right? Nine times out of 10 people are going to pick YouTube only. Yeah. So we should build our procedure the exact same way.

Greg Beazley: Yeah. Yeah.

That's that's I think that's really good advice and I've certainly come across that challenge myself and gotten into the followed the wrong direction sometimes, but recently having, having explored more loom type videos I've recognized that man, it's so much easier to get your message across and to share the message at scale, you know, you can teach a whole company how to do something within a minute, you know, as opposed to having several meetings several different times of the day. So yeah, I think that's really good advice.

Bryan Mills: I hate meetings. Hate them. Yeah.

Greg Beazley: Yeah.

Bryan Mills: My business partner hates me forward cause he's like, right.

We need a meeting for this. Why? I don't want to be on that, man, but don't waste my son. It's like, can we do this in a different way? Can you tell me what you want to tell me in a different formats? I was like, yep. Because if she times the one thing you can't buy back, so it was that biggest thing you should.

Greg Beazley: Yeah. Yeah. That's a, that's fascinating. And so I actually a little bit of a sidestep here, so have the challenges changed for business owners with the impact of COVID?

Bryan Mills: So it depends on where the business was. So if you were solely a brick and mortar business, yes. You have, you've come into a whole new world.

And we have clients who have gone Bryan, like my whole business has to move online. How do we do it? And literally, so some people have had a rough 12 months. Some people have already been online and know she doing stuff. And it's now just riding that ride in that increased traffic wave. Some people are like, thankfully.

There has been people who have benefited from COVID in a good way, because it was such a negative 12 homes and fingers crossed. We are coming out of the back of it. And some people have benefited. Their businesses have grown. They've scaled. They survived. Obviously some people not so much for the people who've been online and not the right online foundations, whether it's a funnel or a website or marketing, like.

If they've gone through it and really pushed online, a lot of people have done really well, obviously out of COVID. So as you say, like there's just been a mass amount of traffic that has hit the internet because obviously everyone was on, especially in the UK. Everyone was on Ferlow. So let you make the roads with that.

There was nobody out on the roads cause everyone was at home. So it was like, right. Okay. So the traffic volumes, maybe Facebook, Instagram, Ballooned. So it was like, as long as you could, if you add your marketing strategy and your systems, you could capitalize on that. No end.

Greg Beazley: Yeah. So, okay, so let's, I wanted to ask a question for the beginners. So, if I was to start my journey to become an online coach or just to start an online business of some sort, what would you say are some of the key tips that you would recommend to focus on first?

Bryan Mills: So my first one I will tell this to absolutely everybody is, build your lifestyle first map out your lifestyle and how you want to live.

If you only want to work two hours a day or four hours a day, or if you want to be able to. Make travel the whole world as your, as your businesses happening, then that is what it needs a map out first because you should always, and the only way you're going to stay happy is if you build your business around your lifestyle and not your lifestyle around your business.

Yep. So that is key tip number one. And that's about where can you help people? Because the old days of selling and hard sells, like people will still say that there are, but they're dying out rapidly. So it's not a case of just like throwing something down people's throat. You've got to enjoy what you do. So now the case of find something that's interesting, like you like to create videos for instance, or she, whether you like to.

Create content or help people create content. Like you've got to find something that works for you and something that, you know, you can stick at. Like my Mrs tells me all the time. Brian, alls you do is talk about work. Well. Yeah, of course I do, because I actually love it. Yeah. And let's face it. I'm locked down.

So there's nothing else I can do and show, I actually love what I do so I can stay here till I can stay here until midnight and stay working until 2:00 AM. The baby. Probably won't let me, but. If you find something you're passionate about, Oh my God. Run with that. And that is one of your next steps. And then the third one is, plan your business with the end in mind now, I mean, not like the end is in like how you're gonna fail or like selling the company, but it says it's a mindset, lifestyle. Plan obviously your end goal. Right. So when I set up my agency, for instance One of the things I've always said, this sounds lazy. I don't want to do any work. And like my business partner said, well, is that well? What about like, obviously salary that you'll go. I don't want to do any work yeah. I was like, I don't have a business to work in it. I say, if I wanted a job, I'd go get a job. I want my business to be earning money where I don't have to do much. I was like, okay, I'll, I'll change it. I won't do much. Yeah. Cause honestly, at first when we first started, we were cons find it like, well, obviously pair out or what, what's the trade off.

Right. Directors and owners don't work like that. It's. No. So it was a case that I build my agency with the end in mind, but I don't want to be in sales. I don't want to be in delivery. I want to be seen in the pilot when it shoots and I want to be in markets where, Oh, I keep my hand hands fresh. But my market to me is all done by someone else.

My operations is all done by what else? It's a case of where I jump in. Say hello, tell them what to do. Wow. And that is what a lot of people don't do. People build their businesses as they go and just roll and stumble from like obstacles to obstacle. And it's like six months down the line, the tired, and it's how to, how to change it, how to get out and not is by stepping back, implementing the step back system knowing where your goal is at all times.

The amount of times I've heard people say meetings, like, right. Okay. Let's let's start me. Can we meet at four o'clock in the afternoon? No way it doesn't fit my lifestyle. Yeah. Yeah. But this is a high paying client. Don't care me. Wasn't doesn't incorporate, they couldn't get me to where past three, four o'clock because obviously the minute four o'clock comes, it's my kids and no one else.

Yeah. I was like, shut up. I was like, I don't care how much you pay me. You're getting the same. Yeah, it was that. And that's literally how, how you've got to live. You've got to be right. Nope. My lifestyle is this. My business will fit around that.

Greg Beazley: What a great mentality to have. I think that's such a great lesson for a lot of people to learn.

And I think a big reminder to the people who may, they always hear these things being said, but never actually think about it and actually put it into place. So yeah, that's really interesting. Thank you for that.

Bryan Mills: So yeah, , I've been called a diva because I just won't budge on it and it's like making it the same way as my business partner.

He's like, Oh, you're just stupid. You should, you know me, I've got my rules and that is it. I was like, I don't go in business to create a job for yourself. So I bound down to anyone. And tell me you've got to have that possibly comes across as arrogant. You've got to have that backbone or people and clients will walk all over you all day long.

Greg Beazley: That's good advice. So do you have any success stories that you could share that might inspire their listeners today?

Bryan Mills: Yeah, mate. So there's been a, it's been a couple of great ones that really do stand out. I remember receiving a video testimonial from Ian. Ian was stalled on the great wall of China yep.

With his kids. It took him away for the sand Bates or can wait for Christmas. He was going back home to New Zealand. It is where it's where if it wasn't for Brian, I wouldn't be able to do this because we'd create them a business and not a job. So he called let his business go away or he could go away from his business, let the business run as it goes, and he can take his kids to go see the great wall of China.

He took him back to New Zealand because he doesn't live there anymore. So he talked to his kids back home. That was one of my, my proudest ones, especially being a dad as well. Like really those connect when it's like, Oh, she sat there, great wall of China. His kids are there and he's experienced in this full thing because he stepped back from his business and he can actually enjoy it.

And another one that I absolutely loved was a client I've got in America. And so the guy is, he's a spiritual coach. Yep. We were working with them, working with them and he's outsourced this sales. So he doesn't do sales anymore. He's outsourced his marketing suite. Doesn't do his marketing funnels at all at August.

And we launched a accompany for him and I in the marketing side. And we launched the campaign for them. I actually written the emails. Within three days he had me seven and a half grand, so seven and a half thousand dollars in three days. So literally a three-day campaign. I knew he was great. He don't, he don't literally nothing.

Nothing in third, the weekly then up there was a total weekly. Then afterwards the whole, the system was built and we just drove traffic to an audience. We made seven and a half grand for them. I think it was seven 47. So they're my, my two standouts mate. They're the ones that I absolutely love the most because adamant they're working with onsite to start with and he was doing absolutely everything.

Especially as a spectral coach, you can't be doing it within cause you've got to protect the energy around you. You've got to OCI put, give yourself a buffer between you and the universe. Otherwise they will just zap, zap their negative energy. So we had to protect him and basically build a bubble around them.

And the way we've done that is we've built a system, built the system, built a process. Ultimately that's what we can and I will source the rest. And that was nice and chilled.

Greg Beazley: Lovely. Man, that's amazing. And I'm going to say my last question is, do you have any, anything you'd like to offer the audience to help them in their journey?

Bryan Mills: Yeah, show what I've got me is I've got a free Facebook group, like, like most people online marketing and traffic and sales for entrepreneurs. And what we do then is I go into regularly sort of trainings. We've got our own talk show associate with just gave him plenty of value there. If there's anything you ever want to do, whether you want the done for your system, a done with your system, if you're in that group.

You will get the opportunity. We also do networking in that group as well. So we'll try and connect people with other people. So if you're looking at the business as well, there's an opportunity there. So all I would say is join my free Facebook group and all your trainers will be in there. All the opportunities to get, not one freebie, but multiple freebies will be in there.

And it's probably the best central place that goes to

Greg Beazley: wow. Right. Well, Brian, thank you so much for, for joining us today. And I've certainly learned a lot myself and I think a lot of other people will have the same experience.

Bryan Mills: No, thank you. It's been an absolute pleasure. So hopefully it won't be, won't be too long before I'm back again.

Greg Beazley: Great. Thanks. Bye.