For Episode 114 of the Wealth On Any Income Podcast, Rennie is joined by David Jenyns. In David’s early 20’s he sold Australia’s most beloved sporting venue the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Since then, his business experience has spanned from franchising retail clothing stores to founding one of Australia’s most trusted digital agencies Melbourne SEO Services, which he systemized himself out of in 2016.
For Episode 114 of the Wealth On Any Income Podcast, Rennie is joined by David Jenyns. In David’s early 20’s he sold Australia’s most beloved sporting venue the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Since then, his business experience has spanned from franchising retail clothing stores to founding one of Australia’s most trusted digital agencies Melbourne SEO Services, which he systemized himself out of in 2016.
David is a fan of systems and has his own popular podcast – Business Processes Simplified. His bookThe SYSTEMology Book shares a breakthrough approach that turns your owner dependant, zero-systems business into one that runs with the precision of a Swiss watch. It is quite literally the system for systemizing your business!
Ready to learn how to systemize your business and scale your profits?
In this episode, Rennie and David cover:
01:52 What David does today to help business owners systemize their processes and why he feels he is uniquely qualified to do this.
03:13 The charity that is important to David, Kiva – which is an organization that provides micro-financing loans for businesses and business owners, particularly in emerging economies.
03:50 David’s target market and the sweet spot he feels a business needs to be at to embrace his approach.
04:41 What David considers his biggest failure and how it taught him an incredible amount and especially the importance of choosing the right vehicle.
06:59 The common misconceptions around what David’s prospective clients have about what systems and processes are.
08:03 The story of the Diggy Doggy Daycare and how David successfully assisted the owner to systemize her business to prepare it for sale – with amazing results!
11:26 David’s free resource – a tool called Critical Client Flow which will help you determine where you should start systemizing in your business. To get it visit systemology.com/academy.
‘I help business owners get out of the day-to-day operations of their business so they can then have the choice to work on it, or in it, it's up to them. Some business owners love to work in it. Some like to at least have the option to step in and out.’ – David Jenyns
To get David’s Critical Client Flow Tool visit https://www.systemology.com/academy/
To learn more about David visit https://www.systemology.com/about/
To learn more about Jackie visit https://jackiewoodside.com/
If you'd like to know how books, movies, and society programs you to be poor, and what the cure is visit wealthonanyincome.com/tedx. You'll hear Rennie's TEDx talk and can request a free 27-page Roadmap to Complete Financial Choice® and receive a weekly email with tips, techniques, or inspiration around your business or money.
AND if you'd like to see how you can increase your wealth and donate to the causes that touch your heart. Please check out our affordable program ‘Wealth with Purpose’.
Rennie’s Books and Programs
https://wealthonanyincome.com/books/
Wealth with Purpose:
https://wealthonanyincome.com/wealthwithpurpose
Rennie’s 9 Days to Financial Freedom program:
https://wealthonanyincome.com/programs
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Rennie Gabriel 00:09
Hi folks, welcome to Episode 114 of the Wealth On Any Income Podcast. This is where we talk about money tips, techniques, attitudes, information, and provide inspiration around your business and your money. I'm your host Rennie Gabriel. In past episodes, we spoke about how to understand the numbers from your business, how to measure the level of pleasure based on where you spend your money, how to track your money in 5 to 10 seconds, what determines how close you are to Complete Financial Choice®, and how to run your business without being in your business. And last week, we had Rob Dubin, who retired at age 42, and now teaches corporate classes in employee happiness. Today, we have as our guest, David Jenyns. In David's early 20s, he sold Australia's most beloved sporting venue, the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Since then, his business experience has spanned from franchising retail clothing stores, to founding one of Australia's most trusted digital agencies, Melbourne SEO Services, which he systematized himself out of in 2016. This is what I'm talking about working on your business, not in it. Obviously, he's a fan of systems and has his own popular podcast, Business Processes Simplified. David, welcome to the Wealth On Any Income Podcast.
David Jenyns 01:40
Hey, Rennie, pleasure to be here.
Rennie Gabriel 01:42
Terrific. Well, let's get right to it with some questions. Okay, you had something to do with SEO Services, what are you doing now, and why?
David Jenyns 01:52
Yep, these days, I help business owners get off the tools, you know, get out of the day-to-day operations of their business so they can then have the choice to work on it, or in it, it's up to them. Some business owners love to work in it. Some like to at least have the option to step in and out. And I kind of feel the reason I do this is I feel for business owners. I know how hard they work and what it takes to get a business off the ground. And this particular problem that business owners face, I feel like it's very poorly addressed when it comes to how do you remove that business owner, build up the team, capture your systems and your processes, start to delegate responsibility. And having started three separate businesses, where I've built them up, systemize them, scaled them, brought in someone to run it and then sold them - I've done that three times - I feel like I'm quite uniquely qualified to bottle what we've done. And that's really what I try and teach.
Rennie Gabriel 02:54
And yeah, and if you've done it, it makes it easier to teach it. And now, you're probably aware I donate 100% of the profits from the work I do to charities. Tell me about the charity that's most important to you and what they do, or what cause most important.
David Jenyns 03:13
I love a group called Kiva and they do micro-financing loans for businesses and business owners, particularly in emerging economies. And I just love that whole idea. I mean, I'm a big supporter of business owners, and I feel like that's a charity that gives straight to the business owner, which really helps them get their business off the ground.
Rennie Gabriel 03:34
Yes, it does. Primarily, they're in third world countries, and you know, they can finance buying a goat, and that can put someone in business. Yes. Thank you for doing that. Well, let me ask you this, at this point, who are your target markets?
David Jenyns 03:50
Hmm. Typically, it's the business owner who has product to market fit, they've got a little bit of traction, they've already got some clients, oftentimes, they got a small team, anywhere between 3 and 25 staff, that's usually the sweet spot. They've been in business for a while, and they're just finding that it's almost like they're starting to fall out of love with their business, because they're just stuck in that day to day grind. And they've just built up the routines and habits, which oftentimes is great, helps them to grow to one size but then those habits are usually what ends up chaining them to the business. And how does that glass ceiling move for them.
Rennie Gabriel 04:29
Yeah, that makes so much sense. Okay, so you've built and sold three businesses so far. Tell me however, what your biggest failure was, and what insight did you gain from that?
David Jenyns 04:41
My biggest failure would have been our rock and roll clothing music store. So we modeled a business that we built up over here on Hot Topic, so in the US you've got, it's a like a rock and roll clothing music store called Hot Topic. And we took that idea, brought it back to Australia and came up with this idea to basically franchise out these stores. Now we got it up to three stores, but I very quickly learnt the rag trade is a hard business. You've got high overheads with, obviously store locations, wages, and then we got hit in sort of 2008 with the recession. And we found that discretionary money for people just went like "this". And everything really started grinding to a halt and it was some really challenging times. So like, I think going through that experience just taught me an incredible amount, but it was very challenging times.
Rennie Gabriel 05:38
So I mean, is there a particular insight that that you walked away with?
David Jenyns 05:45
Yeah, look, there's quite a few things.
Rennie Gabriel 05:47
I mean, one of them could have been - stay out of the rag business - but I mean, there's something more than that.
David Jenyns 05:52
Well, moving forward now, like, I understand the importance of picking the right vehicle. And I find traditional business that already starts every single month, where you're behind the eight ball with regards to rent and overheads, and all those things that you just have to meet to reach breakeven, like, it's really no comparison when you compare it to an online business these days. So I often think about competitive advantage and a much better understanding of cash flow, and how to manage through challenging situations and changing economies, how to grow, when to kind of - really maintain position, and what to do at the right time. But before I was probably a little bit more tentative, but I felt like that was the best way to learn. It's kind of, I feel looking back now, like it was a baptism of fire.
Rennie Gabriel 06:45
Yeah, that is exactly the thought I was having. So now, let me ask you, are there, you've kind of addressed this a little bit, but what would you say are the common mistakes most of your clients or your prospects make?
David Jenyns 06:59
Oftentimes, the business owner has a lot of misconceptions around what they think systems and processes are. Oftentimes, they think, 'Oh, I'm going to need hundreds of systems to systemize my business'. Or they think 'Systems are going to remove the creativity in my business, so why would I want to put them in place?' Or they think that systems they're going to need some complex software or that they need to systemized like McDonald's. So oftentimes, there's a lot of this baggage that they carry, based on what they think systems are. And a lot of the work that I do, particularly when they first get started is to try and break that mold for them, test some of those, some of those assumptions and give them some insight where they could go, 'You know what, maybe I can build a systems-driven business. Maybe this is possible for me'. And that's a lot of the work I do.
Rennie Gabriel 07:52
Terrific. Do you have a case study that illustrates a particular client who had these misconceptions, and adopted the systematized approach and what the outcome was?
David Jenyns 08:03
Hmm . . . So I've got lots of different stories like where you've got business owners that have been able to take their first holiday when they haven't taken a holiday in five years, and other business owners that talk about improving efficiency and that impacting bottom line. I worked with a videography coach - he had a small team around him and he managed to grow his bottom-line profits over the course of 12 months by 80%. One that kind of really sticks out for me and kind of really encapsulates, I did some work with a lady who ran a doggy daycare company. It was called Diggy Doggy Daycare. And it was, her name is Jeanette Ferran. She's based in Melbourne, Australia. And she'd been in that business for about 10 years and she ran it with her sister. And she kind of got to the point where they'd had enough, they could see the end in sight, and they just were thinking about exiting. So they came across the work that we do with systemology, and started to think about what needs to be in place for an exit. And she realized systems was a key part of that because the person needs to make sure that it will continue to operate once the key people leave. So we started to systemize the operations, got her out of the day to day and her sister as well. And then we ended up ultimately, she groomed that business for sale and it was purchased by a company called Pet Stock, which is an Australian listed company and she got a very high multiple. So that for me, yeah, going through that whole process of - she got traction, she had a small team around her, she'd proven it, and she, you know, had been in business for some amount of time, and then got to that point where when she systemized it, the person who acquired it actually said we bought it for two reasons. We bought it for all of your systems, because we can see your store as a franchise prototype that we can roll out the company that bought them - Pet Stock - has a bunch of... it's almost like the Office Works or the Office Max, for pet paraphernalia. And they basically were looking to stitch this doggy daycare business onto the side of these other businesses. And they bought it knowing that, 'Ooh, your store is a franchise prototype that we can roll out'. So they bought it for the systems and they bought it for the financial performance. And yeah, I love that, that story, and she went away, took a year off, travelled around Australia in a caravan and had a chance to - which many business owners don't get to do - take a step back and go, 'Well, what do I want to do next?' And really think clearly where she felt she could have the biggest impact. And I thought, yeah, like I contributed to that outcome.
Rennie Gabriel 10:55
Terrific. And what I'm thinking about is, one of the things that you said is that the large listed company bought it because of the systems that they could see makes it easy to franchise and create multiple locations. So yeah, that makes so much sense. Well, let me ask you, I've, you know, I probably got some listeners who want to reach out to you - connect with you, is there some valuable free resource that you can provide which is also a way for them to connect with you?
David Jenyns 11:26
Yeah, I've got . . . One of the first questions people ask when they think about systemizing their business is what should I systemize first? What are the first 10 - 15 systems that I should start with? And I've got a tool called the Critical Client Flow, and you can get that over at systemology.com/academy. It's a template that you can work through to identify what are the mission critical systems in delivering your core product or service. And then using that exercise, it's a great way for you to then go, 'Ah! This is where I should start'.
Rennie Gabriel 12:01
Perfect. Let me have, I couldn't type that fast enough so let me have you email that link to me. I'll make sure to put it in the show notes. I often ask what question should I have asked that I didn't. And I think you just presented that. So we're coming to the end, David. I want to thank you for being on the show. That's first. Thank you for being on the Wealth On Any Income Podcast.
David Jenyns 12:25
Pleasure. Thank you.
Rennie Gabriel 12:26
And to my listeners, thank you for tuning in. Next week, we'll have Jackie Woodside, a USA Today and four-time, Amazon best-selling author, TEDx speaker, international trainer, and professional coach. You can listen to the Wealth On Any Income Podcast on your favorite platform, and please rate review and subscribe. And if you'd like to know how books, movies and Society programs you to be poor, and what the cure is, then log on to wealthonanyincome.com/TEDx. You'll hear my TEDx talk and can request a free 27-Page Roadmap to Complete Financial Choice®, and receive a weekly email with tips, techniques, or inspiration around your business or your money. And if you'd like to see how you can increase your wealth and donate to the causes that touch your heart, please check out our affordable program, Wealth with Purpose on the wealthonanyincome.com website. Until next week, be prosperous. Bye bye for now.