0:00:00 Ben Wright: I’ve been trying and, you know, I’ve been tested.
0:00:06 B: Welcome to the Friends in Business podcast with your hosts, Ben Wright and Jemima Ashley. Ben, known as the sales strategist, and Jemima, our resident visibility expert, are here to share their wealth of knowledge and experience with a little fun along the way. Whether you’re a leader, entrepreneur, or aspiring business owner, this is the podcast where we share everything we know about business to help you succeed.
0:00:31 B: Let’s get started. Welcome to the Friends in Business podcast.
0:00:44 Ben Wright: Welcome back to Friends in Business, where our topic for the last five minutes has been whether or not your feet would sell on only fans.
0:00:52 Jemimah Ashleigh: I maintain it it would. And do you know who would buy them?
0:00:55 Ben Wright: I don’t know
0:00:57 Jemimah Ashleigh: Mostly dudes.
0:00:58 Ben Wright: Yeah, I’m looking at mine. I think you’re probably not so much.
0:01:00 Jemimah Ashleigh: If the podcasting thing doesn’t work out for us. Geez, we’ve got another opportunity here.
0:01:04 Ben Wright: Yeah, there’s a backup plan. Only fans with two different feet. Yeah, it’s. You know what? It’s so creepy. I need to move on. Jemimah, how’s your morning been?
0:01:11 Jemimah Ashleigh: Good. I just jumped off the phone from a girlfriend of mine who’s a liquidator. She was saying I’m sort of a bit blown away by this. They’ve had a 600% increase in inquiries for liquidation. Like for getting rid of companies who are going insolvent or in too much debt. Yeah. And that there’s been a 45% increase in the amount of companies run into liquidation than normal.
0:01:33 Ben Wright: 45%. So we’re one and a half times the number of. Is that this year or what is.
0:01:39 Jemimah Ashleigh: It since the start of the year?
0:01:41 Ben Wright: So we’re nine weeks into the year, and the first nine weeks of the year, we’re going at one and a half times run rate that we did last year.
0:01:49 Jemimah Ashleigh: Yeah.
0:01:49 Ben Wright: Okay. Right. There’s a few things going wrong. Is this Australia or global?
0:01:53 Jemimah Ashleigh: Yeah. So she’s Australian. She is based in Melbourne. She was just saying she’s been running off her feet. She’s calling to move dinner because she’s so busy when I get home.
0:02:02 Ben Wright: Yeah. It’s not a good thing when you see the good addicts busy.
0:02:05 Jemimah Ashleigh: No. But also it really got me thinking about the situation that we’re all in and we have businesses and, you know, it feels really bad talking to your friend, like she’s liquidating multiple businesses from debt. And I understand Covid is still wreaking havoc on businesses and getting out of the debt and the issues that are being faced. But. And also we went through a recession that no one called a recession earlier in the year and late last year in 2024.
0:02:29 Ben Wright: I’ve certainly seen cash reserves across many of the businesses I work with start to reduce because their debt cycles have been so long. And what I mean by that is they’ve come out of COVID with ATO debts, with bank debts. Right. With personal debts that help them get through. And of course, a lot of businesses thrive during COVID but these debts help them get through for those that are struggling with. Which means they have very little cash reserves now. So if they have a second hit or a third hit or a fourth hit, whatever number they’re up to.
0:02:58 Jemimah Ashleigh: Right. Like the interest rate continued to go up for years. That.
0:03:01 Ben Wright: Yeah, yeah, yeah. When you don’t have those cash reserves, it gets really hard to trade your way out of trouble.
0:03:07 Jemimah Ashleigh: Yes.
0:03:08 Ben Wright: Because you can’t hold losses in your business for a year or two and just pay for them out of previous profits. Right. Your equity in your business is very marginal. So, look, that’s a shame. I’m sorry to hear that.
0:03:19 Jemimah Ashleigh: I was disappointed about dinner also, but I think I’m a little bit more concerned probably about the businesses.
0:03:23 Ben Wright: Good. I’m glad. I’m glad you’re up, Jemima, because it’s not all about the food we eat. Right. We’re trying to look after all these poor businesses out there that are struggling. But look, we came very close once during the COVID pandemic, unbelievably close. And that caused huge amounts of stress. I’ve been there, in fact, trading while insolvent laws were abolished during COVID which I think was helpful for a lot of businesses who are close to the edge. And certainly for us, we were close to the edge. But, gee, I’d never want to go back there again.
0:03:50 Jemimah Ashleigh: It is one of those things. I’ve just got a real anxiety breath. That just happened to our listeners. Apologies. I was like, yeah, I would hate to do that. It is really interesting about how many companies really struggled during that time, but also never really found their footing again. And there’s just not been that recovery that we think we had. But I do want to ask you a question, very hypothetical question, and we’re going to touch some wood behind us right. At the same time. Yesterday. Hypothetically. Yesterday. Yeah, yesterday. So it’s not going to happen because it definitely happened yesterday. This all goes away. It got me thinking and I was chatting to Kate Shout out to my liquidator friend, Kate if this all went away, because she did do the very polite, how’s everything going? Like, do you need to have a chat? Like, is that she’s doing it with everybody. I didn’t take that personal. That was not a reflection of my business. Yeah, we’re doing pretty well. I’m very aware of that and I know you’re doing pretty well too. Like, we are all heads above water.
0:04:43 Ben Wright: Yeah.
0:04:44 Jemimah Ashleigh: But also, you and I both know that as of yesterday, things could have gone very wrong if this all went away yesterday. Hypothetically speaking, One, what would you do to rebuild? And two, would you rebuild?
0:05:00 Ben Wright: Yeah. So absolutely. More than happy to go through that. And look, I’ll certainly say my business is going as well as I could ever have asked for when I started this armor, my business a few years ago. Let’s do that. But then after that, let’s have a chat about if we can see that the business is really starting to struggle.
0:05:15 Jemimah Ashleigh: Yeah.
0:05:16 Ben Wright: What handbrakes you can put on. Right. To help you get through that. So, okay, so for me, so if I lost everything and needed to start again, right. And I’m going to take that question to mean we lose the house, we lose the business. I have no debt in my business. So certainly it’s not that. That type of business. But what would I do? Well, I’ll tell you what I would certainly do. Couple of things is I would sit down. Well, I take some time to lick my wounds.
0:05:36 Jemimah Ashleigh: Yeah.
0:05:36 Ben Wright: Right. And I’d take. Sometimes you’re not allowed much time if you were to lose everything, but let’s.
0:05:41 Jemimah Ashleigh: Just say that you’ve got a month. Let’s give you some time.
0:05:43 Ben Wright: Yeah. The bank of Mum and Dad or something like that might help out for a period. I’d take some time just to be with my family. And then what I’d do is I’d come back and sit down and go, right, where are my key skills?
0:05:52 Jemimah Ashleigh: I think, like, I agree with you, I think there’s a real reflection time that needs to happen of, like, what happened? How did we get here? And I think that wound part is definitely part of that.
0:06:01 Ben Wright: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And look, for me personally, that’d be a small piece. Right. Band aid, that wound. I got a couple of stitches in my hand at the moment. Right. I bandaid that and get that sorted.
0:06:09 Jemimah Ashleigh: Can you please stop falling off your bike? This is a constant discussion point at the moment.
0:06:13 Ben Wright: Yes, I did have a good accident. So first thing I’d do, and this is really important, I might actually go through my sequence of Thoughts here because they’re kind of related. Is first thing I do is I sit down and look at what are my relative superpowers. And when I say relative, what are the best skills that I have?
0:06:28 Jemimah Ashleigh: Yeah. Great.
0:06:28 Ben Wright: Because if I wanted to build again, I’d want to build fast. And by the way, this goes for. From growing as well.
0:06:33 Jemimah Ashleigh: Yeah.
0:06:33 Ben Wright: Is one of my superpowers, relative superpowers that I can really leverage heavily. And for me, that is building great networks. It’s building sales funnels. Right. It’s learning a market and then delivering on that. So that’s the first thing I do is I’d sit down and say, okay, relative superpowers, what are they? What do I need to make happen? The second thing that I do from there is I try and pick a market that I think had some really strong growth numbers behind it.
0:06:56 Jemimah Ashleigh: Yeah. I think like emerging markets and stuff that is currently booming would be incredible.
0:07:01 Ben Wright: Yeah, yeah. So emerging markets could be one markets that are mature but still in the high growth phase. Even markets that are somewhat in decline but the reduction in players has gone past is more significant the market decline. Right. Which means your opportunity potentially opening up. But really it would be. For me, the most likely area would be an emerging market or a market that’s here now and in high growth. Right. Because I know that my skills generally are going to parallel towards businesses where there’s. Or markets where there’s great opportunity. There’s a reason behind that though, because I know that the rising tide of those industries are more likely to lift businesses with that. And I think it’s a really important part for businesses that exist now is if you’re finding things a little bit difficult, try to find the areas of your industry where there is high growth. Right. That you have big opportunities to capitalize on. But the. But for me it’d be what are my relative skills? Right. What are the industries that are going to be experiencing high growth?
The third thing I do is I then get out to my entire network and I’ve got a good network. Right. I would get out to everyone I know and say, here’s what I’m good at. Here’s where I want to get to. Could you introduce me to one person?
0:08:11 Jemimah Ashleigh: Yeah. I love that.
0:08:13 Ben Wright: And for me, if I had to start again, if I had to go work for someone or if I started a business on my own or if I started a business with some. Someone else, or if I was a minority shareholder in a larger business. Right. Any of those things in minority shares. If you haven’t got anything right. You haven’t earned those. That wouldn’t necessarily be the product of my attention. It would be where can I use my skills, my best skills, in markets of growth where I can maximize my impact. By the way, this is a question without notice.
0:08:39 Jemimah Ashleigh: Yeah, I absolutely blindsided you.
0:08:41 Ben Wright: So for me, they are the areas where I’d start. And then the fourth and fifth things is I’d sit down with my family and have a discussion around what the next 12 months looks like. So we’re all on the same page. So my wife may need to be the steady income for that period of time. Or my wife, you know, we might need to talk about can she stay home a bit more. Right. Or are we splitting duties with Amali? Right. What does that look like? What’s the next 12 months going to be? And then that fifth one is I would put that car into fifth gear and I would fight like my life absolutely bloody well depended on it.
0:09:11 Jemimah Ashleigh: Right.
0:09:12 Ben Wright: I would come in all guns blazing and throw so much energy at the thing that I couldn’t possibly not make progress. Because I know that also is one of my skills. Right.
0:09:22 Jemimah Ashleigh: Yeah.
0:09:22 Ben Wright: So you line everything up, measure twice, cut once you’re ready to go, you know your skills, you know the markets that are growing, Right. You get out and meet your networks, you’re cleared with your family, you’re all aligned. And then it’s like, boom. Fire those engines up. Boom. Right away you go. And for me, that is how I think I’d re approach life if I lost.
0:09:39 Jemimah Ashleigh: If it all went downhill.
0:09:41 Ben Wright: Yeah. And have to start again.
0:09:42 Jemimah Ashleigh: Yeah. Again.
0:09:43 Ben Wright: Yeah.
0:09:43 Jemimah Ashleigh: I would take an absolutely similar approach to that. I would definitely look at, I want to know where I went wrong. Like, I would follow this exactly the same, have the wool wounds, have a little leak, have a lay down and be like, what? But I would also, for me, I want to know exactly what went wrong. Because if I’m going to do this, if we’re going to have to go through this again, if I’m going to have another shot at this, where did we make mistakes? And it could be as simple as we bought the wrong person on this happened. This was a bad investment. This is what this looked like. That coach was terrible, whatever it was, just make sure that we knew exactly what had happened and with no lens of judgment. And I think that’s a really important part here, is not putting that lens of this is your fault. This was the mistake going all right, because it’s going to be a sum of things that happened. And some of it, half of it will be luck and some will be half chance. There will be moments where you’ve made potentially bad decisions, but also the environment, the political climate, these things are really important to look at as well. How did we truly, truly get here? Yeah, yeah, I love the skills audit. So important. What worked well also what were the easy wins? I go a bit further. Where did we have real easy wins of making money before? Where was the thing that just was felt like? Because often we get caught into the business does 10 things. We know that this is the one that just was like water. This was effortless. This one made a little bit more money but was a bit more of a grind. Can we just turn that one up? Being very honest about those things. I love getting the family on the same page. It’s going to look different. It’s not going to look the same that hitting the network saying, I now need some help. I very much like you. We both have spoken about this at length off camera, but we both keep our side of the street very clean. I don’t have a lot of people that don’t like me. I know you don’t either. And if, well, we wish you the best. But also we have left good relationships. We haven’t like even when we’ve ended working relationships, none of us been negative.
0:11:42 Ben Wright: Absolutely. Well, I mean there’s always a few and I do mean that. But genuinely, you try to end relationships as many of your relationships as well as you possibly can. Right. And look, even though I’ve got somewhere, I’ve had, you know, two or three people, I’ve had really difficult moments in life. I certainly haven’t.
0:11:57 Jemimah Ashleigh: My ex husband will not have great stuff to say about me.
0:12:00 Ben Wright: Well, but I think that’s important. I make a big effort not to share my dirty laundry. But anyway, keep going. And in fact, to be fair, the people that I’ve had trouble with as well so far, I’ve experienced that they in general haven’t aired their dirty laundry as well.
0:12:14 Jemimah Ashleigh: And we’re human people make mistakes, things will sometimes go awry. What’s important is how we also deal with it. The decorum that happens later, it’s not always going to be beautiful and it’s not always going to end well in business. You have to be very honest about that. Where the real benefit is is about keeping that reputation 99% of the time. Also, you know, there’s this whole study that was done about five star reviews about if you have 100 five star reviews and I have 100, mostly five star reviews, but I’ve actually got a 40, like 4.9. You know, when you get those, I’m actually more trustworthy. They will believe in that. Most times you’ve bought all of those. No way. You’ve nailed it 100% of the time. There is expected that you’ll make mistakes. Businesses do that. It’s what we’re very good at.
0:13:01 Ben Wright: That’s how you respond to this. I think the point you’re trying to make around your network is where you leave your prior networks. Well, you have wells that you can go back to time and time again to help you. And of course you provide that same in reverse.
Great. Okay, so I love the piece around what would I do if I had to start again? But I think for me and the businesses I work with, the more impactful piece is what’s the handbrake, right. That you’re gonna pull, or as my father used to say to me and I say used to, Right. He still says to me, right. Is what are the parachutes that you’re gonna launch? Right.
0:13:30 Jemimah Ashleigh: Yeah.
0:13:30 Ben Wright: I love that trouble. Because if you can launch them early and effectively, then hopefully you’re not starting to get them. And I talk around a few areas when I’m with businesses around making sure that the handbrake goes on early enough. And number one for me is around sitting through your business, sitting down and looking through your business. Right. The first and most obvious is cut out the waste. But I think that’s pretty straightforward. Look at all those areas where you’re spending too much money, where you’re wasting it, right. Get really deliberate. Go and get someone who’s financially driven to sit next to you. Right. And really buckle in hard. Okay, where’s all the waste I can remove?
0:14:06 Jemimah Ashleigh: I read the other day and I know that the average person, just to show you like the level of waste that we have, is spending around 2 to $3,000 a year just on subscriptions that they don’t even know they have or aren’t engaging with. I’m not saying all of those will be running through your business account, but I can’t tell you that not all of them won’t be.
0:14:25 Ben Wright: Yeah. And look, if there’s a business that’s on a nice edge over two or $3,000, you’ve got far bigger problems. Right?
0:14:31 Jemimah Ashleigh: Yeah.
0:14:31 Ben Wright: At this, I’m talking about, you know, looking at taking 10% out of your cost base.
0:14:36 Jemimah Ashleigh: Yes.
0:14:36 Ben Wright: Right. For most businesses you take 10% out of your cost base. Right. And you’re coming back to at least square.
0:14:41 Jemimah Ashleigh: Yeah.
0:14:42 Ben Wright: I don’t know too many businesses that are running worse than that other than those that are in serious startup mode.
0:14:47 Jemimah Ashleigh: Yeah.
0:14:47 Ben Wright: Right. And they’re often funded or you know, they should have some fund some pool of money behind them.
0:14:51 Jemimah Ashleigh: Yeah.
0:14:52 Ben Wright: But okay, so first things to look at where you’re reducing waste. I think that’s pretty non controversial. Not sure how much value that adds to people, but it’s the second bits and on that get really impactful. So the second piece of me is have a look at the areas that you’re really good at. Right. Where you’re making really good money for whatever service you’re providing. And what I mean by good money, I mean profitable money. Right. I don’t mean good sales, I don’t mean necessarily good cash flow or that helps. Right. I mean where you’re making strong profit.
0:15:17 Jemimah Ashleigh: Yeah.
0:15:17 Ben Wright: Have a look at those activities and have a look how you can divert more of the business to spending time on more of the great profit generating activities. More of the time.
0:15:26 Jemimah Ashleigh: Yes. Love that.
0:15:27 Ben Wright: That can be as simple as simply going through each function within your business and saying what’s the one thing you add the most value to in the business? Right. If you’re a sales team, what’s the one area sales where you do it? If you’re the marketing team, what’s the one activity that generates customers who deliver us the most money? If you’re in the customer service team, Right. What are the types of conversations that either stop us hemorrhaging money or enable customers to refer us business? Right. We can go through every single function at an operational level. What’s the one activity we can do that delivers our jobs at the most cost effective manner that delivers great customer value out of it. Right. So really start to zero in on the things that you’re good at and pull back everything else. I talk a lot about delegate or automate.
0:16:10 Jemimah Ashleigh: Love it.
0:16:11 Ben Wright: Right. So if we get to that point and we say, you know what, I’ve got all these cool things that we’re great at and here’s the pool of stuff that isn’t adding value. Right. We then can run a lens that says we’re going to delay it so we can put it on hold for 12 months, I’m going to delegate it. So I’m going to delegate it out to something that costs me less money to run it. Right. So it’s less of an impact or I’m going to automate it, which also comes down to costing less money. So when you can run that lens over the non value add areas of your business. I think that’s when the handbrake can come on and you can start to just steer the car right. Your fishtail for a little bit, then you can start to steer it in the direction that you want.
0:16:47 Jemimah Ashleigh: Yeah, I think that’s really important.
0:16:49 Ben Wright: Okay. We’ve had a look at where we’ve got waste. We’ve started to have a look at what we’re really, really good at. And then for me, the next piece is you’ve got to make a plan. It’s a financial plan and an activity plan that sits down and says, right, here’s all the metrics we need to tick off. Weekly, monthly. Right. If you’re really in dire, straight to the daily and you measure yourself against those metrics and if you don’t tick them off, you know what that next handbrake is. So if you have a sales target, I have to hit $100,000 or $5 million or $100 million in the next month. Right. Doesn’t matter what the number is, if you hit the target, you continue to execute plan.
0:17:23 Jemimah Ashleigh: Yeah.
0:17:24 Ben Wright: If you don’t hit the target, you say, right, well, if I’m 10% sure, these are the activities that are going to stop. Right. All customer entertainment, you know, at a small scale. Right. That’s an easy one. Or perhaps you need to downsize your team. Right. But you’ve got to be really clear. If you don’t hit these stage gates, boom, here’s what happens. And you have someone accountable, a coach or a CFO or someone else that you really trust to sit down and go, right, here’s what we’re going to do as our crisis management plan to get us through this.
0:17:49 Ben Wright: Right. We’ve cut the waste, we’re focusing on the areas that add value, and here’s our plan that we’re going to stick to. And I can tell you I’ve done this numerous times right across my businesses where I’ve had plan B’s and C’s and D’s and like, some of these plans were savage.
0:18:04 Jemimah Ashleigh: And I mean, this is one of the things I was just thinking when you were saying that is that there are people who are going to be listening to this now going, you know, I’m never going to be in this situation or I could never get rid of Cheryl. We’ve had her for so long, we can’t get rid of it. She’s been here forever. There is a time and place here where you might have to make some really Difficult decisions. And probably more importantly, you’re gonna have to really make some hard decisions to save everybody. And sometimes that is going to feel absolutely horrific that you’re gonna have to look at who’s on this lifeboat right now that maybe shouldn’t be here anymore.
0:18:39 Ben Wright: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s really difficult. Cause your first responsibility for most people is gonna be to their families, right. And then to their business and the people that are within it. And they can be difficult decisions. But you’re far better to make that decision for Cheryl now than you get to a point where you go into administration and Cheryl doesn’t necessarily get her entitlements or. Right. She’s, you know, now you can say, hey, Cheryl.
0:19:00 Jemimah Ashleigh: Well, now you have to get rid of Rob and Steve and Paul have got to go with her. So it’s a really. It can be a really difficult thing to put people on the chopping board and look at this as just numbers. Because often the businesses that we’re building aren’t looking like we’re trying to do the right thing by everybody, including Cheryl and Rob and Steve.
0:19:18 Ben Wright: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Look, I’ll probably have two other things, if it’s okay to add, please, nice and quickly. First one is look after yourself.
0:19:25 Jemimah Ashleigh: Yeah, definitely. Stressful time.
0:19:27 Ben Wright: Yeah, yeah. Episode. Where were we? Episode number 35, we spoke about mental health, mental fitness. Go back and have a listen to that, right. And know your levers there. Because if you’re not running well, the business won’t run well
0:19:41 Jemimah Ashleigh: And it’s going to feel really uncomfortable.
0:19:42 Ben Wright: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Right. And then the last piece, just get some help. I’m not talking about go and see a psychologist, necessarily write it. But if that’s, if that’s your piece, then go and do that. Because I know some people are exceptionally good at that. What I’m talking about here is get some help to steer your business in the right direction.
0:19:59 Jemimah Ashleigh: I’ve got a great liquidated friend who can necessarily help you in financial distress. But when you’re starting to hit those places, or if you’re even thinking, I’m going to head there in the next 12 months, now’s the time for intervention. Now is actually the time to go, I think I need some help.
0:20:13 Ben Wright: Yeah, yeah. And that might be a mentor, that might be a coach, that might be someone that specializes in, you know, pre insolvency stuff. I think if you get into that point, right. She should get in late. But if you know you’re in trouble, go and get some help from those around you that will steer you on a safer course. Or I say find a safe pair of hands that’ll help you through if nothing else. Right. Just reach out to those around you to give you a hand.
0:20:36 Jemimah Ashleigh: Yeah, I think it’s really important just to understand that one, you’re not alone in this scenario. But also, other people have been there before. It feels very isolating. That’s the thing that I think is a little bit scary. Amazing advice, Ben. Just one more thing before we go. Unfortunately, you can no longer stay in business. What job would you take, hypothetically speaking?
0:20:55 Ben Wright: Oh, okay. So right now, if I had to choose a different industry, my natural piece would be to fall into a Sales Leadership role
0:21:03 Jemimah Ashleigh: You can’t do sales. You do that already. Totally different career.
0:21:07 Ben Wright: Oh, okay. All right. Total different career. I’ve always loved real estate.
0:21:13 Jemimah Ashleigh: You’d be a great real estate agent. I know it’s a little bit salesy still, but, like, you’d be great at it.
0:21:18 Ben Wright: Maybe buyers advocate.
0:21:20 Jemimah Ashleigh: Yeah. Or I wouldn’t want to go against you in a negotiation. For sure.
0:21:24 Ben Wright: That might be my callback. Or the other one would be a mediator. Right. Business mediation. Something I almost always.
0:21:31 Jemimah Ashleigh: Yeah. You’re really great at that.
Ben Wright: And for you, before we wind up
Jemimah Ashleigh: Dentist, probably.
0:21:35 Ben Wright: Like my daughter.
0:21:37 Jemimah Ashleigh: No, if I had to, I really enjoyed working government. I actually really enjoyed that. I think politician. I think it would be pretty fun. Go out and shake some stuff up.
0:21:46 Ben Wright: Yeah. Yeah, I can definitely see you shaking it up.
0:21:49 Jemimah Ashleigh: I still maintain I’d be great on Googlebox if I ever got that opportunity. Reality TV style. It maybe.
0:21:54 Ben Wright: Well, if we ever see you there. You heard it here first. Well, that’s it for this week, Friends in Business. We’re checking out for another seven days. Catch you in a week, everyone.
0:22:01 Jemimah Ashleigh: Bye for now.
0:22:02 Ben Wright: I’ve been trying, you know, I’ve been tested.
0:22:08 B: Thank you for listening to the Friends in Business podcast. This episode was brought to you by your hosts, Ben Wright and Jemima Ashley. Recorded in beautiful Noosa, Queensland. For more insights and resources, Visit [email protected] and [email protected] if today’s podcast has helped you, we’d be so grateful if you could leave a review and share with someone you know. This will help more people in the world benefit from the hard work we are putting in to bring you the best content we possibly can.
