How Carmen Hornberger is Scaling Benefits to Go Through Education On The Importance of Tax-Free Retirements Plans For Self-Employed Women

[00:00:00] Matt: Hello and welcome to the Eternal Optimist Podcast. I'm your host Matt Rincon, and I am a practitioner of eternal optimism, which means that we have a positive lens over the world that we see and all the hard stuff that comes at us. We take it with the grain salt, learn from it. That's eternal optimism, learning through challenge, and seeing things in a positive lens.

[00:00:20] Matt: I have a quote for you to start today, my friends. Winning doesn't always mean being first. Winning means you're doing better than you've done before. And with eternal optimism as the medicine and a mindset of always making a little bit of progress, we move forward. There is hope that you can do it, my friends.

[00:00:40] Matt: Whatever it is you want in your world, you can do it too. Before we get started with our episode today, I wanna encourage you to connect with me on social media. Follow me at Instagram and Facebook at Eternal Optimist podcast account. And also every morning, Monday through Friday, I do a live stream at 7:00 AM Eastern Time on Instagram and Facebook at that same account.

[00:00:59] Matt: So tune in, uh, for a daily dose of 5, 10, 15 minutes of Wisdom Day in the life of eternal optimism. Thank you. Today's episode is with Mr. Will Wang. Will is the founder of Growth Labs, one of the top internet marketing firms in Australia. His story is amazing. He grew up in a poor area in Australia as a Chinese immigrant.

[00:01:25] Matt: He was a massive introvert with a paralyzing phobia of the phone. So what did he do? He started working at a call center because in his words, problems don't go away. They just change in. We talk about overcoming challenges and fears. We talk about how Will and his wife decided together to risk everything they had to pour into Will's career and business and wow, what a moment will shares then.

[00:01:55] Matt: We can have the discussion into the, the whole hour he keeps talking and focusing on personal development in his people will is simply put. He's humble, he's cool, he's incredibly driven. He's like the duck super cool on the outside, above the water and under the water. He is set to grow and his engine has a lot of energy.

[00:02:14] Matt: He goes, this is just amazing. It is my pleasure to welcome to the show from the Land out under Mr. Will Wang. Enjoy my friends.

[00:02:28] Matt: And with that introduction, I welcome my new friend from way, way, way over the pond. , Mr. Will, Wang will, , I would say good evening where I'm at, but it's good morning where you're at. So good morning Will, how are you today, Good. Thanks Matt. Thank you so much for having me on. And yeah, I'm, as you can probably tell from the accent from, I wouldn't even say halfway across the world, I'd say right around the world, right across the world here in Australia.

[00:02:51] Matt: Yes, sir. If I were to come visit Australia, what would be the first thing I'd want to visit if I wanted to really get the culture, , of where you live? Where should I go and visit?

[00:02:59] Will: Ooh, that's a really good question. I mean, Australians aren't really known for much besides our drinking culture. I feel like we travel, but we do have some glorious beaches. So I would say, on the east coast of Australia, we've got some amazing beaches. So if that's your thing in nature, that's definitely where you want to head to.

[00:03:15] Will: otherwise a pretty good place. It's a pretty good place. , you'll find a lot of. Anywhere you go.

[00:03:20] Matt: , what is your drink of choice? If it's a drinking culture, then what's the, uh, Australian drink of choice over there?

[00:03:26] Will: I mean, I would say my drink of choice is anything that you put in front of me. Beers, wine, and.

[00:03:33] Matt: Nice, nice. Okay, cool. well thank you for that little background there. let's dive in deep here right away. Will, I'd love to go straight to challenges. So the subject is challenges and I'd love for you to take a, a look back in time and it can be, Something you're facing right now, a challenge in life and business, , or you can take us back to kind of when you were developing back in childhood or, teenage early business years.

[00:04:00] Matt: You can talk about a challenge there, but what's some challenge that, you remember that you can share with our audience today? We can dive into.

[00:04:08] Will: I think the biggest challenge that I've had to overcome in terms of growing the business and getting to where we are, it would probably. Be how introverted I was. So I grew up a massive introvert. I'm still an introvert, but it was almost at the point where, really couldn't get much done because of how bad I was.

[00:04:28] Will: So, to give an example, when I started dating my wife, now wife, then girlfriend, she used to be like, Hey, just let's not talk on the phone. Can you just text me? Cuz I was so bad on the phone. I dunno how I developed it, but it was almost like a phone phobia. . So anytime I had to call someone, I'd start to get sweaty and nervous and stutter on the phone.

[00:04:48] Will: And so, that was a massive challenge, probably around how I was brought up. So, , to give you even more context and to go even further, I grew up in a very poor area of Australia. my family were immigrants from, from China, came here of nothing. And so a lot of the things that we were taught was all about staying under the.

[00:05:06] Will: Not pulling attention to yourself and certainly nothing around financials or money or anything like that. So I've, had, I'd say pretty difficult transitioning to business where if you wanna sell someone, you've gotta obviously talk about money, but it just never seemed to be part of what we did before.

[00:05:21] Will: So that was, I think, the main challenge, that, that I had to overcome.

[00:05:24] Matt: Well, so you grew up in an area that, , it was a poor area of Australia, , immigrants from China and. So I, guess being an immigrant from China into Australia, and kind of learning, let's grow up under the radar a little bit. Let's not be the most outspoken person and we definitely don't talk about, money all the time.

[00:05:42] Matt: how did you end up, let's just take us from that point when you first came over, when did you immigrate, when did your family come over to Australia

[00:05:51] Will: so my family came over about, , must have been about more than 30 years ago now. So, I was over when I was two, I believe. So touch foot in Australia when I was two years old. yep. From China and then pretty much grew up here. So, hence, I can't read or write Chinese, , I've got the thickest Australian accent.

[00:06:10] Will: So when I'm actually in China trying to speak Chinese people look at me going, what is this accent? Like, what is this dude? Where is this dude from? , so that's kind of, yeah, the, kind of background.

[00:06:20] Matt: Okay. Well then take us back into the, kinda the format of high school years. What were you like? Were you, uh, athlete music scholar? what was that like

[00:06:29] Will: Definitely more the black of the family because if anyone, the show, , understands typical Asian background, they want you to be engineers and doctors and you've gotta be good at your studies and mathematics and all that kind of stuff. I was the exact opposite, so I. Mediocre grades at best during school.

[00:06:48] Will: , loved my, we. In Australia, we have a sport called rugby league, which is probably the most brutal sport out there. It's, the equivalent of, the NFL except without shoulder pads. So you just run into each other and smash each other in. , absolutely obsessed with that game and try to go through the university on scholarships, playing rugby league.

[00:07:05] Will: Obviously don't have the frame or, , or the must they build for it. , but just absolutely loved it and that was my passion for so long. So exact opposite path of one parents wanted to win. , definitely more of an athlete than, , , than the academic. But even then, probably just medi.

[00:07:18] Matt: Okay. So you were not going to get out of the poor area by being , the athlete. We didn't have the grades. . So keep moving us forward a little bit. At what point , you have this introversion, right, and I think a lot of us can relate. I mean, I myself incredibly introverted and it's easy to talk one-on-one in a virtual world and and selling cuz that's what I do.

[00:07:40] Matt: I'd rather just kind of be kind of solo. I'm very introverted, so I relate to you. I think it's easy to talk with you like this, but let's go to this phone phobia. , how did you meet this, , well, she's your wife now, but how did you meet your.

[00:07:52] Will: Yeah, so we were, we met in high school, so we didn't start dating until university, but we did meet in high school. So at least I had that kind of going for me. And, , I don't know, oh, actually I should say I did how he started dating. I was a massive video gamer. I was, I love video games and she just happened to play a similar video game to what I did.

[00:08:12] Will: And so I just started hounding her on the video game. , that's how we started.

[00:08:15] Matt: Awesome, awesome. Did you like have an avatar of some massively muscular, strong competitive like elf or, or strong bearded barbarian or, I'm just imagining all kinds of stuff,

[00:08:26] Will: Oh

[00:08:26] Will: no,

[00:08:27] Matt: of how.

[00:08:27] Will: this was not even that cool of a game. It was literally just a little tank game where you shot each other, . So we'd get on and shoot each other in tanks and chat to her on, uh, and then thankfully it was all text-based chat as well, so it was on the phone. It would've been a disaster.

[00:08:41] Will: But , thankfully we got to know each other through, through text chatting and then obviously tried to move it onto the phone, but that didn't work. So I was just SMS and then in person I was, I was okay. But was something about the phone that kind of tripped.

[00:08:53] Matt: Okay. Okay. Well thanks for, just transparency. Will, I mean, I haven't met you before now, and it was really easy in our intro to talk and to share that you're an introvert. I'm not surprised cuz a lot of us are. but to hear the very humble beginnings, of someone who is, , one of the most prolific marketers, your side of the pond, it's just great to hear that it wasn't all unicorns and rainbows and a piece of cake cakewalk for you.

[00:09:19] Matt: It was challenging and yeah. Thank you for sharing that.

[00:09:22] Will: Thanks, man.

[00:09:23] Matt: , let's go into your first businesses. You've got, phone phobia, you've got a girlfriend, you're in university. what does your first job start to look like around this time or your first business?

[00:09:33] Will: Yeah, so I think I came into business. , I wouldn't say. Late, but I'd say it took me a little while to get through, , all of the things that I needed to get through, right, all of the challenges. So I knew that I had a phobia. I knew that I was really bad on the phone, but I've always had ambition and drive.

[00:09:50] Will: I think that's one of the main things that I had going for me, where I saw my parents struggling with financials with money, and I just said, look, I don't want to grow up like that. So I've voiced the direct to do it better. And one of the things that I realized pretty early on was that I've got such debilitating weaknesses.

[00:10:06] Will: I can't work on my strength because my weaknesses will ultimately still hold me back. And so I think I realized that fairly early on. And so, What I did was I wanted to confront my weaknesses and discomfort head on. And so I actually went and got jobs at core centers, and jobs, you know, chasing debt on the phone, which was kind of most uncomfortable area that I could have gone into.

[00:10:29] Will: So I used to sell telco products. I used to do dick collections based on the phone. I used to sell spring water. it was just, you know, a whole bunch of different things I could do on the phone to try and get myself out of that discomfort.

[00:10:42] Matt: Wow. Well, so you made a decision to, to actually confront your greatest fear, this phobia on the phone, and you went straight to the enemy itself, the phone, the telecom company , to go and sell. What was that first day like when you were either walking into the call center or making that first call?

[00:10:59] Matt: Describe for us what that felt like.

[00:11:01] Will: Yeah, I was a nervous wreck and I had patches of a sweat running down my arms and I could barely string two sentences together. And I don't know why they kept me on , but I think it was more because they felt sorry for me. , I think I somehow, Managed to fly under the radar in the interview process where they're like, oh, he's okay.

[00:11:19] Will: Why don't we give him a shot? Now, to give you context, the core centers in Australia, it's a very churn and burn model. So they get people in, they just smash them with, work and with expectations and all that kind of stuff, and the week. In, quotation marks because they're not actually weak people, but the people who don't really like handling it, they drop off very, very quickly.

[00:11:38] Will: So I guess the other thing that I had was that I could just eat crap and get up and do it again next day. So I stuck with it. I was able to be okay being uncomfortable, and I think that's one of, the strengths that I do have is, , I'm okay with being uncomfortable and I just slowly, slowly day by day could kind of see myself moving out.

[00:11:59] Will: A place where, , I just couldn't handle the phone to be more comfortable with it and to the place where it wasn't so daunting to actually talk to someone.

[00:12:06] Matt: Wow. So you've identified one of your strengths is that, you can actually get over. being uncomfortable, that's okay with you and you're not comfortable or, really good on the phone at this point. So you take that dormant strength and you take this really big debilitating weakness. You put 'em together and it looks like , the shift occurred that the phone was here and this uncomfortable is here.

[00:12:31] Matt: And before you know it, Now it shifts, and now you're good on the phone. And what kind of confidence did this inspire you? What happened next on your journey once you developed this skill and this newfound confidence will?

[00:12:44] Will: Yeah, , I wish I could say it was, all smooth selling from there, but it wasn't because, I had got comfortable on the phone enough to land a job , , with Coca-Cola here in Australia. So Coca-Cola in the call center selling their spring water product. From that I was studying it at university just because it was the easiest degree that I, could find.

[00:13:02] Will: , but now I had jumped around to about five different degrees cause I just could, I couldn't find the thing that really drove my passion that, that I was really interested in. So I ended up studying it just because I felt like it was the easiest degree for me. And so, because I was already working within Coca-Cola, a graduate program came up , to do an it, , placement within Coca-Cola.

[00:13:21] Will: So I was in a smaller company owned by Coca-Cola, selling the water, but now I could move into the main company looking at business intelligence , or looking at data, , you know, around the core products. And so that job fitted me to it teach, just because I was so introverted. I didn't have to talk to people.

[00:13:36] Will: I could be behind a screen. And so I jumped at the opportunity. , it was probably. A bad decision at the time, knowing what I know now. In hindsight, it was actually a pretty bad decision cuz it meant I'm, I lost all those confidence and skills I had on the phone and I went into it. And so I redeveloped bad habits, wouldn't talk to people for weeks at a time.

[00:13:54] Will: Cause all I had to do is stare at a screen. And so that kind of. Made it even worse because I had kind of gone over it and then I walked, got back into it. And so the grooves, , the patterns was more established the second time round. , and so I had to kind of work back out of that when I actually decided to go into business for myself.

[00:14:11] Matt: Okay, well then here we are, batter up. we're on the business for ourself for the first time. We've, beat the fear of the phone and then it came back because we didn't keep flexing the muscle. So there's a little bit of that that's come back, but you somehow, somehow gained the courage or the skill or something.

[00:14:26] Matt: You're ready to go and give it a shot, , and do your own business. So what was that first business and what was that experience like?

[00:14:32] Will: Yeah, so it's, the same business which I have now. So I've been in business for about seven years now. and it was this marketing agency. And so as I was working in it, I quickly realized that it just wasn't my passion. , actually I shouldn't say quickly realized cause it took me about 10 years. So I've been in it for about 10 years and every day was miserable.

[00:14:51] Will: Right? On Monday morning, I'd wake up and I'd struggle getting out of house thinking, oh my God, it's another week of this rubbish. And, , it was just , very difficult. And so what I really like though, at this point, I. I realized I really loved reading and writing, and so there was this thing that was popping up and I just realized could copywriting, which I could, I was actually quite good at because I had a few side hustles, the copywriting for websites and friends websites and things like that.

[00:15:18] Will: And I realized, Hey, I'm actually pretty good at this writing thing, and so I decided, why don't I take that and turn it into my, my full-time career, my full-time job, my full-time. And so, a series of events happened where I happened to partner up with a local magazine in my area. They sold me on this idea of, Hey, you are good at writing, you're good at social media.

[00:15:38] Will: Why don't you join us? And we'll partner up in business Together, we've got about a hundred clients. We'll literally walk in the door for every single client. We sell them a social media pack and a rocking pack, and both us will be stinking. And so there's a whole story behind that and why it didn't work.

[00:15:53] Will: But on the premise of that, I actually left , my six figure IT job to do that, , first day

[00:15:59] Matt: Why, why didn't it work? Well, hold on a sec. Hold on a sec. You said there's a whole story. Why didn't it work? Why didn't it work?

[00:16:04] Will: sure, , I'll, I'll kinda get into that. So, I was sold the idea that this magazine had amazing clients and they loved the magazine. They loved the business owner who ran, ran the magazine, and they would jump with the opportunity to, to have a social media presence and to get copywriting help. So I was like, okay, great.

[00:16:21] Will: If we can even close 10%, that's 10 clients, I can make my salary here. So I quit my job. The first client we walked into of the magazines, they just saw him and said, Name, I won't say his name. If you step foot, if you step another foot into our premise, we're gonna call the cops. You bullied us into going into magazine the last time round.

[00:16:41] Will: We're not doing it. It's a worthless magazine. You suck. Get out. And so that was a very you right? And so I'd gone in with the expectation of being the red carpet being rolled out and everybody being, oh, come back. You're welcome. Amazing. To the reality of being like, no, we don't like the magazine. We are only here.

[00:16:58] Will: Cause you wouldn't leave our office last time, but get out. We're not buying anything else from you. . And so that was an absolute disaster and it happened time and time again where this guy who ran the magazine would just go and sit in someone's office and go, no, we've really put you in the magazine, even though they hadn't asked to be.

[00:17:13] Will: And because it wasn't a huge feat, a lot of people just paid him just to go away. But obviously they're not gonna give him more money to do the social media thing when they don't like him already and , , so that was an absolute disaster and it just didn't work. , but it was also quite a blessing in dis.

[00:17:29] Will: Because at that point I was relying on him for sales, but I realized, no, I can't leave my destiny in someone else's hand. So I've got to step outta my shell again and actually go get good at this thing, talking to people and making sales and growing my business.

[00:17:43] Matt: You can't leave your destiny in someone else's hands. So you went out to acquire more skills. You went out to start your own company. , okay, I think we're ready. Really ready now for the batters up. That's America. That's baseball term. Batters up baby. So let's hear it. Let's hear it. Where, uh, what happens next?

[00:18:02] Will: , what happens next is I just ate a bunch of crap day in, day out. So I did everything I could to get in front of people and it's the usual thing, you know, going to networking events, being in I events. , finding meetups, groups, whatever I could do, because I knew that I could do it from having gotten over the phone for a beer once, but it felt like it was a lot worse this time around because I wasn't, trying to sell on the phone.

[00:18:28] Will: Whereas before it was more like, you know, products that people kind of knew about or wanted. This was about me, so the rejection wasn't, I didn't need any more. Coca-Cola. The rejection was, no, you are someone I don't want to work with. So that was actually a little bit harder to overcome. I just knew that if I did enough of it, I'd get not so bad.

[00:18:46] Will: And so I just talked to anyone every night I could. I tried to take face-to-face meetings cause that was a little bit easier for me. , but then eventually I had to move to the phone anyway. So I wish there was some kind of magic formula, but it was really just doing it enough times to not suck at it and to be comfortable with the idea that, Hey, I might suck for now, but if I do one more phone, Even if we don't get the cell, I'm gonna improve at 1%.

[00:19:08] Will: And you do that enough times and eventually you wake up and they go, oh, I'm actually okay at the phone. I'm not terrible

[00:19:15] Matt: Yeah. How long did that take for you to wake up one day and realize we're starting to get some results, and I'm not that terrible, and something's happening here.

[00:19:24] Will: I think probably about two and a half years. So I really struggled in business for about two and a half years. We had a bunch of savings that we blew through within the first six months, , and then we started to tap into our, our morg. We had a bunch of money in our mortgage, and so we started pulling money out of the mortgage, and it wasn't until about two and a half years into the business.

[00:19:46] Will: Funnily enough, I was about to give up that we kind of turned a corner and started to be able to pay all the bills and then we've grown quite steadily from that point.

[00:19:55] Matt: So, wow. Okay, so you had savings. You had to invest the savings to stay afloat. You then had to take equity out of your home or take money outta your mortgage to be able to keep the business going, and you almost gave up right when you turned the corner. Can you take us to that time? Please, right when you're ready to give up, it's gotta be leveraged and stressed in really, really challenging time.

[00:20:18] Matt: And what was that like?

[00:20:20] Will: It was, I think this is where, where I think I was very, very lucky in that my wife has been a partner in everything that I've done so far and, my biggest supporter, and I think this is where a lot of people, might not have, , whether they give up too early because they don't have the support behind them to push 'em to do.

[00:20:39] Matt: Hello.

[00:20:39] Will: So I remember sitting there one night, and this was when we were struggling again, pulling money from the, maxed up credit cards, pulling them into expenses, trying to make the mortgage payments, putting money into the mortgage. So it looks like we paid the mortgage. Then taken out in a few days time after the payments had gone through to put it back into the credit cards.

[00:20:55] Will: This was at a point where we just sat there and said, we don't have any more that we can do. There's no more money we can move around to try and make it look like we are paying the. And so I said to her, look, I think this is it. I think we've set us ourselves back by 10 years, cuz at this point we're blown for 10 years of savings.

[00:21:12] Will: I said, I think we, I've made a horrible mistake. We put ourselves back by more than 10 years. Financially. I think I'm gonna have to go back to work. I think I'm gonna have to go back and, and, and to actually get a job again. And so my wife and answer you said, look, obviously it's not a great situation and , I'm not gonna stop you from sending resumes out.

[00:21:30] Will: But she also. To me, like I, I think you've actually changed completely. You've grown to a different person. So don't give up just yet. Don't give it just yet. I, can see that you've completely changed who you are and grown so much over the past two years. Keep giving that shot. Yes, send your resumes out, but don't give up on yourself from the business front.

[00:21:48] Will: Keep pushing for another few months. See how you go. And so from that night, funnily enough from when she said that I got booked onto one of my first speaking gigs on. And from that speaking gig, I landed two clients, , at a higher price than than I'd ever charged. And those two clients covered all of our expenses.

[00:22:09] Will: And so that was like a massive sigh relief. It's like, oh my, I don't have to take money. We don't have to put into the credit card to put into the mortgage. We can actually pay, you know, not pay ourselves well, but we can make ends meet. and so, Was in and of itself just to, you know, we went through that, got two good clients, started to get more clients on board, and then that got us to the point where we were actually making profit on the business itself.

[00:22:34] Matt: Wow. Wow. And if I'm adding this upright, that wasn't that long ago. That was like four and a half years ago.

[00:22:41] Matt: and you hit that, I guess you could call it that tipping point or that breaking point and your wife showed up strong, man, kudos to her. I mean, wow.

[00:22:51] Matt: I mean, respect to her for this

[00:22:54] Matt: And now a quick word from our sponsor. Today's sponsor of the Eternal Optimist Podcast is coaching quite simple. When you turn the lens on yourself and you look in the mirror, you can actually see a few things and you can work on 'em. You can make progress, however you wanna make super fast progress at the lightning speed.

[00:23:15] Matt: Hire a coach. Hire someone that you can share your challenges with. Hire someone that has experience in thinking through and working through the challenges that you might wanna overcome and solve someone that has experience in getting to where you might want to go. Hire someone to be your accountability partner, your confidant.

[00:23:34] Matt: Imagine if there were a person you could share everything on your mind with, and that person could help you to grow and scale a business. That person could help you to overcome trauma and live life on your terms to your potential. , that's the right coach may be able to do that for you. Hire that coach.

[00:23:52] Matt: Invest in it today. You know, you look at Will Wang today and even myself today. We both invest significant sums every year to work on our games. I encourage you, my friends, to invest in some type of coaching relationship. Having said that, let's go back to the show.

[00:24:12] Matt: Well, so from that point, moving forward, , things have, continued to grow. So what's it been like for the last, last few years once you turn that corner and things have started to take off?

[00:24:23] Will: Yeah, I mean, not without its challenges and I think one of the things that I've started to realize was that the challenges and, and the problems never really go away and they just grow in terms of scale. So, you know, going from that moment, even though we could pay the bills and everything was okay from there.

[00:24:41] Will: There was issue of, of capacity. So even though we had got these great clients on board, you know, we were paying the bills at that point, I was then doing massive days, right. I had to do client delivery to get these clients on board. I promised them the world. So we were just literally doing everything that they wanted for their marketing and the scope of the projects were massive.

[00:25:00] Will: So the hours are crazy. I was getting burnt out from doing the work. , and then if we ever had a client drop, I had to go back and try and do more work to find new clients. So that was a bit bit of a challenge in and of itself as well. And so at that point, I engaged, a, a really great coach who I've still, , helping to this day to work on the operations side.

[00:25:17] Will: So now we've got. You know, I see as a serious challenges. The first challenge was getting to 10,000 a month. That was so difficult once we hit that and got to $25,000 a month for just sheer will and brute effort. The challenge was, well, I can't replicate this cuz there's just, there's no, i, I don't have any time, I don't have any mental space.

[00:25:35] Will: And so the next challenge was to get to 50,000 a month. And at that point there were other challenges around how do I hire new team members? How do I hire staff? How do I get better at leading? And then from 50,000 to a hundred thousand dollars a month, it was that, in and of itself is another series of challenges.

[00:25:49] Will: It's the balance, it's the leadership, it's your own marketing. It's our offers that we've gotta look at. And beyond that, again, , so I think the best example of that is I was sitting with a friend of mine, a client of mine, and they're doing 50 million, a hundred million a year in the business.

[00:26:04] Will: And so I was complaining to them about us having blow for $5,000 in ads and not getting results. And he turned around and he said, well, . Last month, my, our CMO spent $180,000 and we didn't set everything up right, so we actually wasted $180,000. So then you start to understand, , there's many more steps to this and there's, much more scale in terms of problems.

[00:26:24] Will: , but you just get better and you just get, you know, you grow as an entrepreneur, right? You grow your confidence, you grow your capacity, you grow your team around you. And so challenges become, not easy to handle, but you get better at handling.

[00:26:37] Matt: Yeah, I mean, I love the way you just chronicled that and I see that all the time and, and I'm with you in those steps as well. I look at it like, first it was, make ends meet those two clients. You had the sell. You did. Yes. Got the relief, man. I'm with you. Kudos to brother. , , sell to eat.

[00:26:51] Matt: Sell to pay the rent. I remember those days. So there's that. And then it's getting to 10,000 to 25 to 50 to a hundred and every step of the. Some of the best wisdom I've heard you shell out today. This was just amazing. You said that the problems don't go away, they just change in scale. Problems don't go away, they just change in scale.

[00:27:09] Matt: , and you outlined quite chronologically, very nicely, like the problems that different entrepreneurs see at different, different revenue levels or profit levels. So great to hear that, , that you've experienced that. What's the big challenge right now at the place your business is right now?

[00:27:23] Matt: What's the challenge you're actively eagerly, , trying to solve at the moment?

[00:27:27] Will: Yeah, that's a really good question. So I think the bigger challenge we've got at the moment is around how do we scale profitably and efficiently, but also keep our team culture. So we've got amazing team members, amazing team culture. And we've got the capacity to double or triple next year. So this year that we're sitting in, that's 2020 was the, , was probably one of the slower groceries we've had on purpose cause I wanted to focus on team building and client delivery, making sure our processes were solid, letting up to this point, we've pretty much doubled or tripled every single year.

[00:28:03] Will: I think we have the capacity to do that again going forward. But the issue is do we lose? Or how do we preserve, I should say, the culture we've already got within the team? And how do we scale profitably? So not just growing for the sake of growing and taking on the wrong work. Now how do we keep our our employees happy, team members happy, the clients happy, but also put more profit into the business?

[00:28:25] Matt: Yeah, absolutely. What are you finding out so far on this next phase in the journey? Will.

[00:28:31] Will: , I'm finding out that the way that we've done offers in the past, Is not gonna get us to where we need to go in the future. So we've got a whole process. We've in sales process, we've gotta build, we've gotta re-engineer all of our offers, gotta make it, , , even better for clients, even better for ourselves, and sell it in a way that drives more revenue and profit.

[00:28:52] Will: So that's kind of, we're going back, back to the basics. We're going back to the building blocks and, , we're also finding that as an entrepreneur, , I need fresh challenges. I need new types of work to keep me engaged as well. That's definitely something that we're coming across and we're doing that a little bit differently.

[00:29:09] Will: In terms of traditionally, or at the moment, we serve a lot of big corporate clients, but over the past few months we've engaged smaller companies, but taking, doing joint ventures or doing revenue shares, or even investing in buying passive companies to bring them on board and to keep me interested and engaged.

[00:29:25] Matt: man, I love the way you're just so forthcoming and transparent and sharing it and, uh, , I'm excited to hear how you solve and continue to evolve with this challenge, because I see this often and it's one of the big things that I coach to and, see. So I'm curious how you solve it is around, you know, we get to a certain size.

[00:29:43] Matt: And we can grow so much more. And with that growth comes fulfillment and expertise to the people that do it. So you gotta hire more, most likely, or change your offer and yeah, how do you hire more and keep that culture? So it's exciting to see that you're in that, that phase. Man. Exciting for you. Well, let's look at this.

[00:30:02] Matt: What are you and your team experts at Will?

[00:30:06] Will: So. We've got a really deep expertise in how to write really good copy. So copy is the stuff, you know, the words that you see on marketing, the words that you see on websites. , I started as a freelancer in copywriting. So our company is built on the back of really, really world-class copy. Off the back of that, our clients use us for cold emailing, for example.

[00:30:26] Will: We do a lot of, for our clients, and so if they're chasing big enterprise deals, , they use us to get them delete. , that's probably what. Best known for, it's probably what we're world classing.

[00:30:37] Matt: Awesome. And who might be an ideal client, , that would benefit from such a service that you provide?

[00:30:44] Will: Yeah, so there's two sides to it. One is so bigger companies where a client for them could be worth a lot of money. So as an example, I've got a client who sells into government. They're, they're a data provider, they're a traffic data provider, and every dealer they close with either a b corporate or a government enterprise.

[00:31:03] Will: It can be worth up to three to five. So they use us to go and get in front of these bigger enterprise companies, , , or the right people within the right government organizations and have conversations. So that's kind of one example. the other side, which we're starting to get more and more things coming through with, are kind of, smaller consulting practices.

[00:31:24] Will: So I've actually got a client who consults , on safety right on, , explosive safety. And so that's a great client for us because we can get him into the right companies that actually manufacture and, need someone , to analyze. How they're doing, the dust safety stuff and how they're doing, what they actually do to keep their employees safe.

[00:31:42] Will: And so we've seen those type of businesses grow massively when we start working with them. And so that's kind of the second side that we're starting to, to grow. So if we've got the corporate side that's going really well, now we're getting the smaller side that we are growing, , to as well.

[00:31:56] Matt: Let's say that I am, I'm a business owner. , I fit the niche of your ideal client. And I am, I'm of the mindset that digital marketing, internet marketing sounds really good. I don't know anything about it. It just sounds expensive. , I wanted to do it, but I just don't know what to do, how to do it, where to start, for the person that doesn't know what they don't know, how would you help them comfortably, , introduce them to your firm and what you guys do if, if they're just, they don't know.

[00:32:22] Will: that's a really good question and. The way that I, I'd be very careful about it because, , marketing it, it can absolutely change businesses, right? The stuff that we do. , and I can share some examples of the results we've got for some of our clients, but it can be business and life changing, but you've also gotta be realistic going into it.

[00:32:40] Will: So if someone's selling you the idea of I can turn you business around in 30 days, and. Put millions of profit into your bank account in 30 days. Well, unless you're already doing millions it, that's gonna be really hard to do. If you're doing $250,000 a year to expect to do a million dollars or have a hundred K run rate monthly in 30 days, it's just unrealistic.

[00:33:00] Will: But that's what a lot of people will try and sell you one. So I think first and foremost, make sure you really speak to the people who are gonna be doing the work. Make sure they understand or have done some kind of work with your type of business before, and make sure that you like their ideas, right?

[00:33:14] Will: You like their strategies. It sounds optimistic, but also realistic. So one of the things that I say to my clients is if we invest in real estate, if you take the same amount of money that you are gonna pay me and invest into real estate, you are probably gonna get a 6% annual. Now the good thing is when you invest with us, that's gonna come through a lot faster.

[00:33:33] Will: So we even give 90 day guarantees on the returns that people, that people would get. But it's also unrealistic to expect that within 30 days of just launching campaign, we're gonna nail it and you're gonna make a million dollars. It takes testing, it takes work, it takes a bit of patience. Marketing is one of those things where you can absolutely guarantee results, but you need a lot of testing to get your way to those results.

[00:33:52] Will: So just be very careful about what you're being promised, but also, you know, make sure that there is an upside and that they understand your business, they understand you and you like working with them because for most of our clients, we work with them for years. So if you don't like 'em as a person, that's still not gonna be a great relationship.

[00:34:09] Matt: I appreciate your responses, your answers, and, thank you for, kind of painting the picture for us here. Will, uh, I'm curious how in the last two and a half years you've had some great growth while this, coronavirus has been out there in Covid in the last couple years. How did that impact, you and your people, , in your business?

[00:34:26] Will: I think , in terms of the business side of things, it's had actually quite a positive effect. , we were always a remote team, although we had a small office and small presidents within Sydney here, and we had team members that we had to come into the office and sit next to and do all of that kind of stuff.

[00:34:43] Will: We've. Covid with a lot of our clients going remote, , especially the bigger corporate clients, it's actually made everyone more comfortable with the idea that, Hey, I can be talking to you from, my house and my home office here and still be getting you great results. I don't need to come in and see you.

[00:34:57] Will: I don't need to sit in your boardroom to, to be having these conversations. And so that's actually been really great for us. And the second side of that is, I think Covid really changed the way that, , B2B sales, B2B lead generation has happened. So we were just very lucky to be in an ideal situation where we were generating leads from cold emails and from LinkedIn.

[00:35:15] Will: And so when all of the face-to-face dried up , for a lot of the corporates we worked with, they just said, well, we need the leads from somewhere. It's not gonna happen face to face. Who else out there can provide us with a service and we just happen to be in the right place at the right.

[00:35:27] Matt: So it seems like you found a way in, in challenging circumstances to still find a way to, , make it happen. And I think that's been a recurring theme and everything you've shared so far Will, is that, growing up challenged, you found a way, resilience, , getting to school challenge, you found a way, , then went to the, enemy, the.

[00:35:43] Matt: the cold call center, and you found a way to get over that. I mean, in every step of the way, you've been hit with a challenge. You have grown to figure out how to solve the challenge. You know, so I, I'm glad you're on the show. You're a great example of you can do it, , there is hope. You can do it. , and I kind of say that tongue in cheek cuz Will, if you don't see 'em, those of you in YouTube will see him.

[00:36:04] Matt: I mean, he's ripped, he looks gray, he's in great shape and he's talking about how he's in rugby getting beat up back in the day. But you're pretty ripped. , Anyways. , I saw on your arm over there you had this really, really awesome tattoo. What's that tattoo I saw over there under your sleeve

[00:36:17] Matt: for a

[00:36:17] Will: I don't know if you can see it on camera, but it's, I've got the elements on here. I've got the water, the five, , the tree, which is earth, and then the wolf in here. And then I've got in Laden freedom, uh, loyalty, honor. So kind of, you know, what West live by. , I did at one stage and I will one at one stage become , a biologist and study wolves somewhere.

[00:36:35] Will: , I've just gotta retire myself first before that can happen. , , that's kind of background of the tattoo.

[00:36:41] Matt: Awesome. Well, thanks for sharing. I, I wonder what might be, , what might be the places that our audience can find out more about you, what you're up to, and connect with you if they want to.

[00:36:49] Will: , sure. So the best place would be my website, which is Growth Labs with a z, , lap z.com. , otherwise you can find me on, LinkedIn. , I think I'm William Wang. I, go, I often net between William William, depending on how formal we wanna get. , , William Wang on LinkedIn. , I think my LinkedIn tag is, Will Wang lives here, or something like that.

[00:37:08] Will: So you can find me on LinkedIn. , probably a great place to connect. Send me a message, , and I'll, get back to people, so if they want any advice or, even bounce ideas around, happy to, happy to do so.

[00:37:19] Matt: Hmm. Well, I'd like to, , invite you to what I might call the lightning round here, will of kind of unplanned questions that, I wanna throw at you. And if you've heard a recent episode, then you might have heard some of the questions, but I've got three questions. one of them would be, , when you hear the words eternal optimism, what does that mean to you?

[00:37:37] Will: It's a mindset and a way of living , , that helps you see the world at its best, , and but also prepares you to do what you need to do to bring that world into. Thank you. That was nice. Nice. Well, I then ask you, what might be, , uh, a movie or a song that inspires you? And I'm really interested in what you're gonna say because if you're in Australia, you might say some, some song or movie I've never even heard of. So I'm curious what might be a movie or song, , that inspires you?

[00:38:13] Will: I think , one thing that's really, really inspired me lately, and it's not quite a movie, it's the Netflix show. I don't even remember what the name of it was. Uh, no, I do, uh, it's the last dance, so it, it is Netflix documentary featuring Michael Jordan and that, that sent shivers down my spine.

[00:38:30] Will: That was really, really great. , that was super inspiring for me.

[00:38:34] Matt: Awesome. Awesome man. Cool. Well, last one be what? I see and I, my, my a d D's really kicking in over here. The second that I saw you like an hour ago when we started to record. I saw your background here and it's just like very symmetrical. It's color code. There's great books on the shelf. if you had to recommend a book or a couple of books, , that have been, helpful for you and your growth and development, what might be a couple books you can recommend for us?

[00:39:00] Will: I would say there's two books that I recommend to everyone because it attaches on both business and life. So the first one is the Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss, , specifically the first part of that book. So that's where he talks about dream lighting, a fee setting, and I find that a very useful exercise.

[00:39:17] Will: So once a quarter, I'll sit down, , I'll dream line, I'll do the fear setting and prepare myself for the next quarter. So that's definitely up there. The second book I'd recommend is one from, from my mentor, , James Schramko. And the book is called, , workless Make More. And so the whole premise is around how you systemize and build the operation within the business , to grow the business without having to be stuck in it.

[00:39:41] Will: So that one is, , it touches on lifestyle as well, , and touches on how, you know, to build a really great business that you absolutely. And the third book I'm really fanboying over and getting into at the moment is, , 100 million Offers by Alex Homo. So that one, he just, the way he expresses how he thinks about offers, I think is the best , I've seen from a lot of marketing books and the way he tackles the offers, the formulas and his thinking process behind building businesses.

[00:40:07] Will: I think it's absolutely amazing. , so those are the three I I definitely re.

[00:40:13] Matt: Awesome. Awesome. Great. Well, , to kind of wrap things up, I'm just kind of go off the cuff here. , I feel like there's a question I should ask you, but I'm not sure what it is. Is there any question or any story that, you feel compelled to share that has not come out yet today?

[00:40:29] Will: Yeah, looking back on the journey, I think there's one thing that's really helped me in terms of mindset, in terms of being able to front up the challenges and for me, and everyone's gonna have their own thing, but for me, , I've been training Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and, , , boxing and muta, which is tight boxing for many, many years now.

[00:40:50] Will: And having something outside of work in business that challenges you, , and force you to get better and improved, but deal with difficult situations, I think has been super helpful in terms of developing a resilient mindset that relates into business. So I would recommend that, for anyone listening who is an entrepreneur who is in business, find something outside of business.

[00:41:10] Will: Helps teach you lessons but that you really enjoy and that gives you time where you can actually stop thinking about things. , I've always seen that every time. I've got a business challenge I'm struggling with. I would go and train Jiu-jitsu. And when you do, it's like you can't, be in your mind, think about business.

[00:41:26] Will: Someone's trying to literally choke you unconscious or break your arm or your leg. You can't sit there going, oh, what do I do about , this team member? It's like, no, let me just survive. And, , kind of do what I need to do here. But because you've got the mental head space and when you come back to the business challenge, everything's a little bit more.

[00:41:42] Will: And, and you can solve the puzzle a little bit easier. So I would always recommend having something outside of business that , , helps your life and that in part, will flow into the business as well.

[00:41:51] Matt: Hmm. You mentioned mentors and coaches, and I wonder , are you a part of Masterminds or, or any other type of learning environments, , that have helped you to grow and develop in these last, , you know, probably five or six years?

[00:42:04] Will: Yeah, massively. I can trace the inflection points in terms of my business to the coaches and the masterminds and all the groups that, that I've been a part of. And one of the things I build into our budget every single year is we have a six figure training budget. , a lot of it's just for me to go and actually meet people and to mastermind its network because it can take just one idea to spill you onto the next great thing.

[00:42:27] Will: So I'm a big, big believer in that. , I'm a big believer. The idea that you are five of your closest friends, although it's, I actually differ from that. I don't think it's actually the friends, it's more , the ideas and the people that you surround yourself with. So because we're so remote, , I consider my.

[00:42:44] Will: Five plus people to be people that I listened to on a daily basis. So people like my mentor, people like my peers, like my friend who's doing a hundred million a year, , to people like Alex on Mosey, who's got so much great content , on YouTube to Tim Ferris who puts out great content in his podcast.

[00:42:58] Will: Those are the five people, and it doesn't have to be, you know, immediate network is just whose faults and whose ideas are you surrounding yourself with on a daily basis.

[00:43:06] Matt: Hmm. Fantastic. Fantastic. Well Will, man, it's been amazing meeting you. Just thank you, , for everything. , it's great to hear your story, such a humble beginning and now , you've kept it. It's like what was inside of you. This essence did not change. As you grew this massive business, and I'm grateful to have people like you out here who maintain this humility, this centeredness, , as they've grown to this place.

[00:43:33] Matt: And you came from a very challenging place and then you hit that breaking point and you made it. So just, I'm happy for you, brother, and if there's anything I can do, let me know. , just thank you for coming on board today. We appreciate my friend.

[00:43:46] Will: Matt, thank you so much, and your podcast is super inspir. I've been going for episodes, as I was saying, , before jumping on and just, you know, the sheer amount of knowledge and, goodwill and just feel good that you put into the world. It's, it's just amazing. , , I've said that I've been on a lot of podcasts about business stuff, but this was.

[00:44:00] Will: One of the, the best ones because we could really dive into, you know, just sharing more optimism. And I think that's something that the world is really missing, especially for entrepreneurs. It's such a struggle sometimes, but to have a resource like you and the podcast out there, I'm so wanted to be part of it.

[00:44:14] Will: Thank you so much for having me on. , and would love to jump on in the future. And also I just get so much knowledge from other, the other episodes you've done so, so thank you, Matt.

[00:44:22] Matt: Awesome. , thanks brother. All right. Take care.