Episode Transcript
[00:00:11] Speaker A: Welcome to wealth on Main street, where conversations about growing your wealth are fun and entertaining. Wealth isn't just about money. It's the skills and the knowledge that we develop to pass on to future generations. Tune in each week to grow your mindset and your net worth at the same time.
So how exactly do you take a business and grow it? How do you make it so that it can be more than you even know? It's possible by having the right kind of coaching. That's one of the ways to do it. And joining me today is a business growth expert. He's an investor, an international speaker, coach, mentor and a podcast host. He helps business owners grow and scale their business to create wealth and freedom. He's helped over a thousands of businesses in 30 industries across 10 countries and he's the host of the Business Growth show. Joining me today is Athen Kasiosis. And thank you so much for being with us, sir, on our second edition of wealth on Main street under our new brand. So happy to have you with you today.
[00:01:16] Speaker B: Yeah, thanks so much, Richard. It's awesome to be here. Look forward to giving a lot of value to your audience.
[00:01:20] Speaker A: Yeah, amazing. So, you know, how did you get into the environment of coaching businesses? How did you, you know, that doesn't just happen naturally for everybody. I mean, it has to transition somewhere. So what was the journey for you to get into the position where you help businesses across 10 countries today?
[00:01:37] Speaker B: Yeah, it's. I've got an interesting journey that's a little bit different than most. So I grew up in Adelaide, South Australia, which is more like a big country town, smaller city. My parents were high school teachers. And at year 10, at high school, I was about 15, 16 years old, I started selling VCD movies. This is on two CDs, right? And this is where I started to think ahead. And I had a CD burner, one of the first. And I would get these movies faster. Furious, number one. That's how long ago it was, right? It was the first one that I did. Got it from my cousin and I burnt it. I thought ahead, I got to burn this 5, 10 times, selling for $10 each to my friends. Because once I get gets out there, someone else could burn it, right? So I started making money in year 10. Then to the end of high school, I actually didn't enjoy it anymore and I dropped out. I left in my final year, year 12, which my parents can imagine were not happy with. But then I got a job, a big environmental company. I worked my way up. Then they moved me to Sydney, the biggest city here in Australia, did a lot of awesome stuff for that company still. But then I want to learn more about business. People were talking about it, right? All these degrees and all these things they had. And I just worked my way up in the company and I worked out I could get into doing an MBA at one of the top universities here based on over eight years of experience. And I had that at the time working. So I went into the mba, did a lot of the core subjects, and then I left that business with a change of management after 10 and a half years. And I started my first business, which is waste management consulting. So I took all my knowledge that I had from that industry. I started helping the big brands like Westfield shopping centers, which I know you have in the US as well, you know, saved them like $4 million a year, you know, 20 million over five years. Came out in Target department stores. They're massive here, like you guys have over there too, you know, save the millions as well. Um, and started working with these big brands, getting a lot of great success. Then I, I started going to these networking events, right, and you know, meeting people at events and 8th and they're like, oh, I've got these business problems. What do you think about this? I'm like, why don't you do 1, 2, 3, 4, 5? And they're like, that's really good. Can you tell me that again? I need to write that down. And this would happen multiple times. And I'm like, okay, I've got a very good strategic brain, a good memory. You know, I've got my MBA knowledge, my own experience and my own business. I think I've got to create a business out of this. So that's why I started business coaching mentoring. So I've been doing my first business for over seven and a half years or so now. Business coaching mentoring has been about four and a half now from there that I've been doing that and basically, yeah, taking all my knowledge and it's a bit of a combination, right? It's from my mba. So I finished that and did a lot of entrepreneurship and strategic management subjects, which, which are great as well. Taking my experience from running my first business, working with big brands and, and also, you know, doing a lot of other trainings and that, investing, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars in myself and going, how can I help other people to do this as well. So that's sort of where it happened. And it was just before COVID that that happened. So a lot of it started online and then now getting more into in person events as well, as well as virtual events, one on one coaching and you know, speaking internationally in front of thousands of people in Los Angeles as well as, you know, alongside Robert Kiyosaki here in Australia among doing my own events. So that's sort of, yeah, how it transpired and I think having a great memory and yeah, being able to strategize, thinking many moves ahead has really been, you know, unique to me and taking all of that knowledge. And once you see a lot of businesses, you notice that business is the same predominantly. Right. If you understand the foundations and everything, no matter what the industry is. Yes, some industries have some nuances. You can always find that information out. Right. Like, you know, you use relationships and everything to get in there or you get yourself involved in that industry. But you know, business is business in the end and that's how, you know, I love helping so many people in that area as well.
[00:05:13] Speaker A: That's fantastic. And it's interesting going through the MBA program and a lot of that based on experience. And so I'm curious, what were some of the things that you learned in taking that program? And I guess where I'm coming at, the question is I know a lot of people who either gone through or attempted to go through MBA programs in the past and although they enjoyed and loved the learning, some of the feedback that I've received is that what they learned in that environment versus what they were doing out in the real world, there was a bit of a mismatch. So what comes up for you when you think about the, you know, getting that MBA in and the effort that went into getting it versus what you doing on a more tactile basis, on a one to one basis as you're working with entrepreneurs.
[00:05:55] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a great question. And you know, like anything, there's a lot of fluff. And this is why I tell people now I'm basically doing a three day MBA for people. Right? Because as I say, don't worry about all the research and all the, you know, the fluff that's in the mba because there is some. Right. They want you to look at all these things. That's too much. But there's a lot of gold in there as well. Right. Like it might think about the 80, 20 rule. Right. You know, if you can get the 20%, that's the goal. That gives you 80% of the results. That's the stuff that you want to be getting out of the mba. You know, for me, I think the major or the sub Major that you do is really important in the MBA because they have core subjects, right? You know, the standard stuff like finance, accounting. And you know, they do some marketing, which doesn't exactly. I think the marketing area and they don't really teach sales generally, right. In these things. I think that's where it's lacking, you know. So, you know, they teach a bit about a marketing plan stuff, which is okay, but not exactly how to implement it. But there's some good stuff with economics, some other areas, but I think the major or the sub major, so my university, I know I want to think strategically. So strategic management was a really great subject where we played a global game against all the universities around the world. And we were a sneaker company. Think about like Nike, right? And you had factories, you had white label, you had this. And we had to make decisions in a group of four. And we were sixth in the world out of thousands of teams, right. At one point, you know, it's not to brag, but you know, you've got to, you've got to think ahead, right? How to do this. So this is, this is real world stuff that you're doing in real time, right, Every week. But the best subjects I did were entrepreneurship subjects. So because it's more recent that I've done this, you know, whenever it was like, you know, five, 10 years ago, they started to do entrepreneurship subjects. So the first one was creating a proper business plan from scratch and going it really deeply with someone that had a business for 30 years, right. So I knew what he was doing then. We were strategic consultants that actually paid the university instead of paying like a PwC or these big, you know, Ernst and young people, 100,000 to go into a business as management consultants. They actually paid the uni, I think about 10,000. We went in as a team, had coaches and mentors, and actually improved the business, right. So very hands on, which was awesome. And then we actually did a pitching area where we pitched the actual venture capitalists on how to pitch your idea, come up with a pitch deck. So this is actually, you know, practical things, right, That I could use. So I made sure that I picked those entrepreneurship subjects. I think that's what was key, which I use this stuff today, right? So some people can just do general management ones and whatever, which, you know, could be okay if you, if you want to be a manager in a company, but as an entrepreneur, as a business owner, you know, those are really key for me to differentiate myself and do that. So. So that's why, yeah, that's why I say, people, I'm giving you sprinkles of the good stuff for the mba, I'm giving you stuff that actually works right as well. When you put it together, then it becomes powerful. But yeah, there definitely is some fluff and everything in the MBA as well.
[00:08:37] Speaker A: That's interesting. So you were able to really move yourself into a lot of very interactive components of that education, some of that. It sounds like it was very much by design, by choosing the right subjects, probably doing a little bit of research on what was going to be covered in that subject before you got involved, which is great.
And also some wonderful experiences to go through, working with some different teams. And so when you think about the different businesses that you serve, because they're different types, are all some of their massive multinational type corporations, and then you're working with people who probably have much smaller teams. Where do you find that you're getting a lot of inspiration and enjoyment in working with people today? Is it with people who are more in a startup phase or. It's where they're established, they're five plus years in the business and they're profitable, but they're looking to figure out, okay, how do I move forward? Because we're at a stall or we're trying to move past the ceiling of complexity that we've created and move back into some level of efficiency so we can level up. Like what do you find as far as the businesses that you're serving, the challenges that they face in the modern world and how you're helping them today?
[00:09:43] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a great question and I think you have to work with a lot of different businesses to understand what you enjoy working with. So I've started from startups for people that have been in a job. Right. All the way up to six figure, seven figure eight figure businesses and then obviously the big guys, the multinationals there. Right. So I've done the whole gamut. So which, which, which is great because it allows me to help other people depending on where their clients are as well. Right. In those areas of who they're, they're serving with my clients, for me, I, I, there's a lot of momentum that needs to happen for someone that's in a very early stage startup. So I don't enjoy it as much anymore. It can be rewarding, but it takes some time. Where I really like is people that are, let's say, making at least six figures in their business, but ideally, you know, even seven figures and they're wanting to go to that next. They're just wanting to grow and scale their business, create, you know, that more freedom, right? So it's not working for them. I've worked with a lot of eight figure businesses as well, you know, in terms of revenue. So I think they're making at least that six figure range. So they've got, maybe it's themselves, they got one or two employees, maybe they've got five or ten. Right. In their business as well. It just depends. I've worked with people that have, you know, 50 or so as well, but they've got, it's them, they've got some employees, you know, working in the business, but they're going, I'm still wearing different hats, you know, I'm doing a lot of different things. How do I get to that next point? A really bit stuck, right? So they're the types of businesses that I like working with. They've got some traction, let's call it in the business, but then we can really ramp it up because it's like, you know, I'm sure everybody here has seen someone break down or broken down themselves, right? And the old school times, you know, used to have to push a car to start it right before, before the newer cars of today. So, you know, pushing a car when you know, in neutral from start is hard, right? But once it gets started, the momentum's building right from there and you know, you can create really awesome things. Like I had a client that was a seven figure trade business and he came to me, he went from 15 employees, he went down to five and he was like, Ethan, everything's not working. You found me online, right? And I said, we had a session. I said, okay, the first session we're doing is a mindset session. So even though I have my MBA and I teach all these strategies and tactics in nine areas of business, one of them is mindset. I'm an NLP master practitioner. You know, I reframe mindsets as well. And I said to him, we're going to do a mindset session. And I did one mindset session with him and the next month he had his biggest month ever in his business. No strategies, no tactics, just a mindset session. So this is where, you know, I think someone like myself or someone in business that understands the mindset side is really key because sometimes it's not the strategies or tactics because if you didn't have the mindset to back up to implement that, then it's not going to be implemented right. Or you're going to sabotage yourself in some way and then we Implemented the strategy and tactics to help build that and continue that, you know, momentum and growth from there. So it's really a holistic approach. That's why I like working one on one with people. Obviously my time is limited there, but we can do it in groups as well. But you know, you can really get to the core and go, what's going to be the biggest shift that we can make quickly with the momentum and then how do we, you know, sustain and grow that over time?
[00:12:41] Speaker A: Yeah. Amazing. I love that. And we talk about mindset a lot on this program. Of course, what we do and what we teach people is very mindset focused around the concept of infinite banking and having that personal autonomy over your daily finances and seceding a little bit from the powers that be in the economic climate and sometimes the political environment on policies that tend to oppress your decision making process around your finances. But when it comes to businesses at these different stages and you know, nowadays when you're helping people in a post Covid climate and being that you've, you know, been doing this on a, on a bit of a global scale and you're working with people in multiple time zones, in fact, at the time this recording were pretty far in distance. So you're, you're, you're out into the future and I'm in the past at the time of our recording. And I think it's interesting. What I'm curious about is to look at where are you seeing innovation take place in the modern world? Like how are you seeing people embrace some of the new types of technologies and ways to create additional efficiencies or even just new business ideas that are being created within an existing business structure? How is that showing up for you with the people that you've been speaking with lately?
[00:13:53] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a great question. I think innovation is really important, right. Because if you keep doing the same thing, someone's probably going to copy you. Right. At some point. Or there's the law of sort of diminishing returns type of thing with marketing. So if you know, you have a marketing thing that works, after a while, if enough too many people see it too many times, then it starts to diminish. Right. So I think we always have to be innovating and there's multiple levels to that. So think about it from a marketing sense. If you're putting something out there to people to attract them to you, then you're going to have to keep changing that. Sometimes it's just minor tweaks, right, that you have to do to that doesn't have to be massive things or you have multiple areas that you're doing things, right? So, you know, I like to think of marketing like a chair. It has four legs, right? So you should have at least four ways of marketing, you know, to your business of attracting leads here. So maybe there's different lead magnets. Maybe you're doing, like, events, whether they're virtual or in person. I mean, there's a lot of different ways, right, that you can market to people. So I think there's. That's where innovation in a business side, you have to think about it, about how you're attracting the right people there. Then you got to think about, what am I offering? And if you think about a value ladder, it's like you have maybe your core product or service that you do, but what else can you offer, right? Do you want fries with that? You know, the McDonald's way of things is. And think about it as you go to the next level. Sometimes you want to go in with something that's easier for people to get into. And then there's a bigger thing later on, right, that you can do. And obviously adding more value, there's more of an investment. You know, you can keep that journey going. So think about what's the next thing? What's the next thing that I can offer people to increase that lifetime value? I think that's where, you know, really big businesses really do very well, right? You start to create more of an ecosystem. And sometimes it's just speaking to your customers, your clients, and going, like, what other problems do you have? Or think about your industry or the supply chain that you're in and going, okay, is there something else that I can be offering that's simple? You know, similar, you know, some people that, you know, there might be accountants, right, or they can offer bookkeeping. Then, you know, then a lot of people invest in, like, property, right, as an example. So they could have a property arm, they could help you buy property. They can have mortgage broken, they can have financial planning. All of a sudden you've got all these services that are built into one thing right there. And whether or not it's yourself or whether or not it's, you know, you have partners, right? And you can just take a little cut out of that and it can work together. Doesn't have to be you all the time as well, because some people might think, oh, I need the licenses, or these are a lot of things to do. Well, if you can partner with people and maybe there's like an 8020 split or something like that, then you can offer more without having necessarily to build it all yourself. Right, so these are some things about how to innovate in terms of the types of, you know, products and services that you're offering that are similar to clients. I think then the bigger picture is AI, right? I think AI is, you know, massive. Right now, obviously everyone just thinks of ChatGPT, which is, you know, the forefront runner and, and which is awesome as a generalist, you just got to know how to prime it and how to prompt it. You know, you can always ask it that as well. But that's really, really key. But there's a lot of specific AI programs that are being built off of that. Or you could build your own AIs. I think this is where it becomes powerful now, where if you have a large amount of data for something, I'll give you an example. Let's say you record basically every sales call in your business, right? So then imagine uploading that into your own chat GPT for your business, which is all just for you. And then you could pick out things, go, give me the 10 biggest objections or the 10 reasons why people buy. Or maybe it's your knowledge system where you have all your product policies and procedures and you can ask the AI, oh, where is this answer? Instead of someone trying to find it and search and do all these things, you can just ask the AI that you've built that's within some of these programs. So some of them are already in these online management systems they're already building them in. So you don't have to build it your own. Or sometimes you might build it your own as well. And I think, I think this is where true innovation is. If you can build a unique AI solution for your company initially. So maybe it's just a better way of you doing things. And then you could productize that and then you could sell it to the industry, right? So it's just solving your problem is number one. Or maybe it's a bigger, like industry problem or something that you can solve. I think AI, it's, it's the new way of doing things, right? It does things a lot quicker, faster than us. Yes, we still are more creative and make decisions and everything like that, but it's moving very fast. So I think, you know, make sure you're playing with it. Make sure you're thinking about how I can do this and incorporate it already into your business processes because then, you know, you can make yourself twice as efficient. Now imagine making all your team twice as efficient, you get double the amount of output without hiring anybody new. Right. That's potentially possible now as well. So these are the types of innovations that you need to be thinking about, not just always doing the way it's done, but then there's bigger frames of creating like software and everything with it that could, you know, change industries and be, be really profitable and really impactful too.
[00:18:46] Speaker A: Well, I know there's a book that Jason had sent out a lot of members of our organization, my co host Jason, who's not with us today, and it's called AI Is yous Teammate and a great book and it really speaks to the things that you mentioned. It's, it's not exclusively around AI, but it's around the premise of using technological features to help create speed of implementation and efficiencies in the things that you already do on a day to day basis. So that each member of your team is armored with essentially another more ammunition around how they can go about doing the things that they already do so that they can have less frustration, have more joy, spend less time searching and hunting for the answers or the information. So even just like an internal Wikipedia scenario around the various, like you say policies and procedures or the way you go about doing things, as a business grows and scales, you have different departments. Imagine now you don't have to go to this department head to share information with the person over here who needs one thing, one question, and it's got to go through this circle of emails before you can get an answer back. You know, that's what happens with companies grow and they can get to a point where they can get almost too big for their own good, for their own britches. And being able to have AI assist in that process can be very beneficial. So I love, I love the commentary on that and also some of the ideas that you have around where you can begin implementing those processes right away in the modern world. And so are you seeing then on a more frequent basis in the people that you're working with that they are either developing or they're reaching out to you to have conversations about, hey, what should I be doing with AI? Or just to get your feedback, get that kind of coaching influence around how can I implement or develop an AI strategy? Is that becoming more popular as you're discussing things with the entrepreneurs that you're currently working with?
[00:20:27] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. I think everybody knows they need to be doing it and it's like how to do it? I think marketing is probably the easiest way. That's where it's Sort of become, you know, initially used a lot, right? So you can find out, let me ask, what my biggest problems are, you know, in my industry, or help me with a plan, you know, with a blog maybe, or, you know, a lot. Now you've got. I use it a lot, like with my podcast, right? Like creating video snippets, you know, use AI. It automatically creates all these snippets and then you can see, you know, which ones you like. And then you could post those ones, right? And, you know, send it to the. To the guest as well, and they could use it. You know, my team used to have to do that manually, you know what I mean, before AI happens. So there's a lot of cool things like that where we can speed up processes. So I think it's good to start on a marketing sense in those areas there because it's easy for people to understand that it's a bit more tangible that you can use straight away, like help with the social media posting, right? You know, you know, ideas like this, and then it goes to the next level. I think for me, you know, there's a lot of cool application I like. I'm. Even though I used to be the person between IT and the business, right. I don't code, but I understand systems very well. It's one of my. My strongest points, you know, being learning computers. Windows 3.1 from like 6 years old. My parents, you know, the blue screen originally told me from a young age. So I've always liked it. We've gone a long way since then.
So when you're looking at systems now, it's actually a lot easier. You know, you don't necessarily need a technical founder or you could have someone that knows the technical side a little bit more. There's a lot of like, low code or applications that are actually creating apps automatically for you using AI now as well, right? So it's almost using the power of AI, saying, this is the type of application that I want. App, you know, whatever it is that you want to develop as a solution, and then it starts to create it for you, right? So this is where it starts to become really powerful. Because when you're creating like a software, right, like an AI or any type of software, there's this process, right? Normally the first big milestone is an mvp, which is a minimum viable product. This is like, what is something that has enough features that people can use initially that you can get feedback from the market and say, is this good? What changes need to happen? So because you're not making Money right before this point. So you want to get there as quickly as possible with the least amount of capital used as possible. And this used to have to cost tens of thousands of dollars, sometimes, you know, potentially hundreds, depending on how big the platform was to get to that point. Now you could do it in like hundreds or thousands, like a lot less. Right. You know, in terms of dollars to get to that point very quickly. Then you get the feedback and then you adjust it and, you know, you can do it a lot better these days. So I think we're. We're in a great time now where we've got things like this available to us. So it's just reaching out, whether it's someone like myself or people that understand these things and go, okay, let's scope this out, let's put this into practice, and then let's get some feedback from the market. Because I think a lot of people, you know, they want to, like, create this perfect thing and they work on it for a year or multiple years and they put it out to the market and then it doesn't work, right. It's like, oh, people don't want this. And so you've got to put it out to the market first as soon as possible, get the feedback and do it the other way. And that's how you will create something people actually want to solve a real problem. Because as entrepreneurs all just solving problems and then improving it over time. So I think that that's where the power is. So think about areas like that to really enhance it and yeah, get it out to the market quickly. And then, you know, if you think about the Forbes list, most of them of the top 10 have wanted off software off, you know, off, you know that. So that's where there's big leverage. Right? Because if you can get something that's like a SaaS product, that's, you know, ongoing revenue, which we all love, generally, whether it's business, whether it's personal money, investments, right. Infant banking, whatever like that. We want money that, that, you know, compounds. Right. And everything over time, then that's where it's a lot of leverage in the software. You just need to be able to build it initially first and then get it out there to the market.
[00:24:29] Speaker A: I love that. And I know, as Dan Sullivan says, with strategic coaches, find out who the check writers are first and figure out where you can get the check and then build the thing that the check writer said that they wanted. Um, so that's fantastic. Uh, thank so much for all that. Now, as one of the Things that we like to do here, as we kind of look at closing our show is we always want to find out and get a little bit of clarity for our listeners on who it is that you would most like to be a hero to.
[00:24:58] Speaker B: Who it is that would most like, be a hero, too. I love that there's a two prong approach, I guess, that comes to my mind here. So at some point, you know, I aim to be a father. Not right now at this present time, but so I'd love to be here to my children, right, and, you know, to me leaving a legacy and, you know, allowing the next generation to be better than myself. And I think I'm becoming a lot more aware and I hope a lot of people that are listening to this are and doing a lot of personal development on themselves like I am and going, well, imagine the. What I can set up my kids to be from a young age to then create them into these, you know, superhumans type of thing, right, with very minimal limiting things and a lot more empowering things, right, to go forward in their unconscious mind. So really being the hero to them and allowing them to, you know, really showcase themselves in their best possible way. So that's what the one prong approach, and then if I was going to talk about a big, you know, macro approach, is really being the hero to, you know, business owners across the world. You know, I plan to be, you know, one of the top speakers around the world and travel to so many different countries and just, just help people. Because entrepreneurship is a challenging journey. It's not necessarily for everybody. You're going to get a lot of ups and downs. There's going to be a lot of, you know, resilience that needs to be built. You know, you're going to think about, you know, potentially throwing in the towel, especially at the start many times. And you just got to keep going, right? And getting help from coaches and mentors and people like I have, you know, along the journey to keep you going. And if I can be the hero to them and make them keep going and realize their dreams and create that true wealth that they want, and then really realistically, which comes to the freedom so they can do what they want, when they want, you know, create an awesome environment for their teams as well, right? For the people that don't want to be the entrepreneur, they create a great place for people that love to work there, and then for them, you know, for their family, and they're setting up to them make that impact that they want. So I think that's the really big way me to be the hero to, to foster that. So everybody's really enjoying, you know, their life in whatever part of that cog, in that process that they are.
[00:27:06] Speaker A: Love it. Fantastic. Thank you so much, Ethan, for being with us today on the show. Absolutely appreciate all the value that you provided. And for those of you watching on YouTube, you're going to see a new video just popped up that says, in bright lights, watch me. So go ahead and click that and continue that incredible journey of learning until next week. We'll see you soon.
