Unknown: I know what I'm like. Like, I'll be working here looking at the computer doing what I need to do task on hand. I've got this computer open here and I'm like, typing on a different task here, and then I'm back to here while scrolling Instagram at the same time and I'm like, Holy shit, I've got all this going, you know, it's like a dopamine overload
that it just sucks the life out of me And then it's like, I've got all this stuff inside my head. I need to put it on a canvas. I need to look at it, figure it out. Nah, scrap that. We don't need that. That's an alignment. We don't need that. Like just to be able to get it. It's like when you have too many tabs open on a computer. Mhmm. What happens? The computer runs slow, doesn't it? Close the tabs, hit refresh, and away we go again.
So I did a podcast with a guy you said by the name of Lawrence. Mhmm. And I released something on that podcast that I've never released before. Happy to dive into that,
deeper. We didn't dive into that because I was like, I wanted to hold off on that, so I want to die. So if you want to go into that, we can dive into that. Oh, okay. Essentially, like, wherever you want to have the conversation, but essentially, my biggest thing, that I've never said live on a podcast before was, we wanna be Australia's best streetwear brand that specializes in hats. And I did kinda get things wrong. I said we want to take Culture Kings head on. It's not Culture Kings that I wanna take a head on. It's the hat industry of new wear. Obviously, Culture Kings is the thing. Yeah. So, like, that's if you wanna dive into that, we can, but I'm an open book. We can go into relationships. We can go into everything. I'm This is good. Well, we're gonna be good there. We're literally gonna be good there right now as we're talking about it. Yep.
Unknown: And so I've had someone who's close to Simon before on this podcast as well.
So, and I wanted to start with gonna be like, look, we've had
a bit of a conversation back in 2022 with yourself. And we went through a little bit of your
backstory, where you came from, where you were there. We we so we've already covered things around LiveCo, things around the ambitious lifestyle,
what was working, what was not working. And now coming into it, I went, you know, what I want to know from Andrew is
what's the growth been like the last 2 years? But I wanted to begin kind of at the end, which was,
I was gonna ask you as well,
what does the end look like for yourself,
for end state of the company?
But maybe said in another way, what will be enough?
Unknown: Oh, look. I've actually look like I've generally got goosebumps thinking about,
look, I've got a motto of, like, ever satisfied, always hungry. Like, I feel like I'm gonna be that guy that just Mhmm. Ever
stops doing things. Like, you you know, how they're like, oh, I can't wait to, you know, be a multimillionaire, and then I'm gonna retire and blah blah blah. Like, I'm still always gonna have something on the car. I don't think my mind
operates
on just one thing. I've gotta be just moving all the time.
So
in goal
for the brand
is to be Australia's
best streetwear brand that specializes in hats.
Unknown: That's the end goal. Mhmm. And, and we took, we, we sort
Unknown: of looked at that. What is the competitor? Like who, who would be considered right now? The number 1, would that be culture Kings? Culture Kings as, as the retailer, they would be the the biggest retailer for it. But as a brand, I would say New Era. New Era would be the one. They're like the goats of the hats. You know? I was inspired from them from a very young age.
They would probably be the ones that I'd wanna take hit on, I said, essentially. Yeah. Okay. So that that's in in state for the company is be Australia's.
Unknown: I'm gonna
challenge you. 1,
why stop at Australia? What's the mentality there of saying like, oh, we wanna be Australia's best?
Was it like a real mental decision to be like, okay, no, I'm not gonna
say
I'm I'm global Yeah. Or or was there a reason to not aim at that level?
Unknown: No. There wasn't,
like, a reason as to why I just did Australia. I think because, like, once you've got the Australian market, I know that we're then gonna have the New Zealand market as well because that's my hometown. Like, that's something that we're gonna have as well, I guess, Australia, New Zealand are are they're the same. But I I essentially see it as, like, as soon as we've got Australia, it's going to start. It's gonna be a ripple effect going into the, you know, the rest of the world
because we're gonna hit, you know, different markets because we're essentially right now
getting orders from some countries I've never even heard of in my life. That's awesome. I'm like, is this even gonna get there? Like, this is like this is crazy.
So, yeah, I think it's just like Australia. I just wanna focus on the one target for now. And who knows in 5, 6, 10 years time, it could be, you know, the US market. It I don't I don't really know just yet. Yeah. Now I'm not gonna try and explore deeply the story because I wanted people to go back to the previous one to sort of catch on a couple of things. But
Unknown: that that from a LivCo perspective,
okay, we see that. Does that then match up very closely to what the end state or enough looks like for yourself? Like, you know, if you were to achieve
that goal, let's just say of cool, we're Australia's leading, like, you know, if people think,
a hat, you know, a hat product from the streetwear perspective, cool, LivChat, that's who you're thinking of.
If you were to achieve that, do you think that would feel like enough for yourself personally? Even though you might wanna keep continuing to strive.
Unknown: It probably won't feel enough,
but the journey along the ride because, like, as soon as you achieve it, you'd be like, yeah. Cool. You go to sleep. You wake up the next day. You've got another day. Like, for me, it's probably more the journey along, like, the drive to it to be like, fuck. We finally did it. We've we've made it. Mhmm. Now what's next? Like, let's push. Let's push. Let's push. Yeah. So there's I mean, there's probably already built in.
How long now with Lifeco's? I've been it's been a marathon. Yeah. It's been a marathon. What? 6, 6, 7 years? I know. Like, look. If we were to look at it as a whole, Lifeco's been a bit of a side hustle for a very long time, obviously, working fitness industry and stuff like that. Realistically,
as a business, I think we've been,
2015,
so that's no. 2016. So we're coming up 9 years. Yeah. Okay. Yep. Realistically doubling down on it big time and going all on it for years. Yeah. Okay. For years. So we're only really just at the start. We're only just starting. I'd like to look at it. And it's I I mean, the fact that you're talking to me right now and saying, okay, I kinda knew where you were in 2022.
Unknown: Yep. Now it's been an evolution. There's been growth. You're saying you're getting orders from various places that you're like, wow, this is pretty impressive.
Obviously that's growing and it's getting to a point that it is realistic that you can start aiming for those lofty goals as well.
What would you say about
the term of focus? Because I had a conversation on here not too long ago with someone who they, the way that they were kind of explaining was
they found a bit of a challenge with having multiple folks on different things, AKA they were trying to do something in the fitness space and something in an app space. Right? And I know that for yourself, you have Liftco, you have ambitious laptops, you're doing interviews with other people, you know, and putting some good content out there.
Do you think that's been a challenge in splitting your folks into different things
to maybe it's slowing down or just preventing you from quickly getting to that particular
achievement, it'll have you not seen that at the moment? A 100% I've seen that. It's like Yeah. Okay.
Unknown: I'm a person that I can't just do one thing at one time. Like, I've gotta be doing multiple different things, and it's the worst worst one of my worst traits, but also one my best traits. Mhmm. Because I can multitask and do things that, you know,
at different speeds to other people that can't do it. So it has probably hindered the growth,
but I had pulled back a lot
compared to what I was doing before.
And now it's just a sense of just outsource. If if there's something that doesn't inspire me, I'm not going to do it. I'm gonna outsource it to somebody else, even though it's completely in a different task. Everyone knows the mission and the vision that we're we're striving towards,
like, outsource it. Yeah. Focus on what truly
inspires me. Mhmm. And, you know, that could be anything from sitting here, having a chat, to something that we're doing with the ambitious lifestyle. Like Mhmm. You know, in the last 12 months, I've started and failed something that no one even knows. Like,
well, I wouldn't say it's failure. It was just a learning curve there, but it's like,
Unknown: I had that in my my brain that I had to take this opportunity and and I can go all in and see how it how it works while doing LivCo and everything else, and and it didn't work out. Cool. Put to the side. Keep doing what I'm doing. Dude, I I can assimilate to this so very much Yeah. In that exact example, we have the same example.
You know, we started the brand and did a few things, tried it, failed, actually forgot that we were paying for the website, had to go and reclaim all this sort of money. And you gotta try it. Sometimes it's it's good. You gotta get it out of you always. So I get where you're sort of coming from in that regard. Yep.
Just picking up that point where you said outsourcing and
bit of a tactical question,
I've seen it personally in a couple of companies and the like, how do you go about
scaling? So scaling
effectively
your individuals
in the company that you're trying to build both in the, like the permanent stuff that you, that's really like they are live co, and then the others who are live co, but they're kind of outsourced through various means. Yeah. Look. We're,
Unknown: we've gone down to skeleton. So we're a skeleton business now as in the sense of
there isn't any full time employees that now work with so the business. Like, we've turned everyone into subcontractors.
I want everybody so other subcontractors or freelancers or anything along those lines, I just feel as though I don't wanna hold somebody with inside
my business if I can see the potential for growth. So for an example, people that have previously worked with me in the marketing sense, like, I could see her potential big time. Mhmm. And
went from
full time,
turned into a subcontractor,
still doing full time stuff. Mhmm. But she could mix and mingle things in between and all that type of stuff.
But all my subcontractors
and freelancers, like, if it's gonna benefit the business,
100%. Like, I would pay extra Mhmm. For them to be a part of something that's going to not only upskill my business, myself, but also upskill them and themselves because they're gonna respect that. They're gonna come back and go, like, the one person that truly believed in me at that point of time was Andrew, and he gave me the tools and the resources to be able to be where I am today. Mhmm. So, yeah, I'm very big on upskilling my staff. Yeah. Have you, on the opposite end, had to, unfortunately, let people go so far? Yes. Yep. How do you how do you
Unknown: Any strategies,
any,
you know, direct practices in that or any learnings in the letting go of people?
Unknown: It's more so just I try and take the emotion out of it. Like, it's it's hard because
I'm a very
empathetic person. Is it empathetic is the word where you're like you're you're like Okay. You you are generally careful, especially if they've got, you know, kids,
you know, they've gotta put food on the table and stuff like that. But I will do everything in my power that if I need to let them go Mhmm. I will transition them to somewhere, or I will literally sit down with them and be like like, we where do you wanna go? Like, what's the direction? Like,
you know, things are not working out here. Like, what is the the life goal? Because I'm really big on purpose. Like, you've seen it all on social media. I like you know, and there's there's some people that haven't worked out with inside my business, but I've actually helped them start a business over here.
And that's probably more so I like to try and help them out or put them in the direction of friends, family, like, hey. I know someone, so you'd probably be be be bit better off type
thing.
So I will always even if they did wrong by me or they didn't do wrong by me, I will try and help them out to put them in a direction that's gonna benefit them. Yep. Gotcha.
Unknown: With so, again, come back to the company, and I'm asking a few of these questions I've had over the last few months quite specific, both personal views of this with friends and people coming through for the podcast actually asking about these questions on the sort of tactical.
In the hiring people,
what sort of platforms have you found work the best if you've used multiple ones? That's 1. And 2, now with the way that potentially you scale or you subcontract out,
have you found ways for it to be really efficient with the way that you're either going out to market with Yeah. All that sort of information,
or what sort of tools or tips have you sort of found through that process?
Unknown: I haven't looked at any resumes. Mhmm.
Resumes don't care about. I say, don't. I I generally don't care about that.
The biggest thing from hiring these days is TikTok and Instagram. So my videographer,
I found him off TikTok. I was scrolling TikTok, came across this guy. I was like, fuck. He's epic. Mhmm. Send him a message on Instagram. Realized that I was actually his sister's boss back in the day. Like, small world.
But, yeah, like, I've see people's content that they put out. I'm like, I, you know, I resonate with this person. Like, this is like, you could be
vital to my business in some way, whether it's a short term or a long term. It's like
you provide something again. Sometimes they'd be like, but what I what what can I help you with? I'm like, I see the way you do x y zed. I feel like this could be work really well inside the business. Not, yeah, I'll give it a shot. Mhmm. And just having belief in some of these people that are putting themselves out there. Because I think
we're now moving into an era where, like, unless you're a lawyer, doctor, all that type of stuff. Mhmm. Corporate world,
resumes don't really mean much. No. Like, you build a personal brand Mhmm. And you're gonna find somebody by social media. Yeah. And so that's my big thing. Back in the day, it was like Upwork, so, like, freelancers and all that type of stuff. That was where I skipped things. But now it's just full social media.
I've seen them or I've spoken to somebody that knows somebody that would be able to direct me in the right pace. Mhmm.
Unknown: The one thing that always pops into my mind with now obviously having, so I've got a, yeah, a daughter, young daughter, and I go, I honestly think in 10 years, 15 years' time,
as you said, the way you potentially get a job at that potential moment or
your work capacity to do something is not gonna be relational to, as you say, a resume. It's gonna be your attitude, your energy, your ability to just want to go and do things.
And energy, you have a lot of energy. Yeah. Yeah. It seemed like you're quite an energetic person, but also you'd mentioned that you went all in, all the things that you really care about.
Have you found in all of this years now and growing LiveCo, doing ambitious life, all these things that you're doing,
where in life do you find that you end up taking away energy from? Is it relationships? Is it fitness? Is it what other aspect of life? Do people not see that, yeah, you're making this quite successful.
What does that come at a cost of if there is one? Look,
Unknown: I would probably say that my fitness in the last 12 months has has significantly dropped.
Mhmm. Fitness has been my life my whole yeah. I've lived and breathed it since I was young age. That's probably taken a a little bit of a step back. I still go to the gym every single day. I just don't train as hard as I used to. Like, I've gone from being on my feet all day to literally sitting behind a computer, you know, all the time.
Hips hurt. I'm over 30 now. Like, I've got a receding hairline. I went for a run. I went for a run. Do you know what? That was the funniest thing. So, to go off topic here. So I see all these run clubs around. I went on these run clubs and I'm like, they're obviously doing something that I don't know. I've gotta figure this out. So I was like, right. I'm going home. You know Strava. So I'm like, I've hit the Strava and I've gone for a run, went for a run around the block. And that was gas. And I was like, absolute gas. And I remember putting this up in my story. I got home and I was like, fuck. I must have ran for ages. I looked at it. It was like 5 190 meters. And I was like,
are you kidding me? Like
like, people are running like 10 k's in the morning. It's like a warm up. And I'm like, I couldn't even run that. I was like, that's when I had a bit of a realization. I'm like, oh, fuck. Like, I've actually gotta do something about this. Yeah.
So, yeah, I'd probably say,
my fitness is probably lacked a little bit. But if we were to get a little bit deeper, like, I'm a very
energetic person. I've got a lot of energy to give and stuff like that, but it's not always like that. Like, there's a lot that people don't see behind the scenes,
in the sense of
everybody has down days. Like, every single person has a down day, and
I would normally say I had one
once a week, once every 2 weeks Mhmm. Where you just feel defeated. Like, you just feel flat. You're just like like, we we all have it. So I think social media is probably you know, I show up on there all the time and, you know, I'm energetic and stuff like that. But it's not always
Unknown: like that. What what have you found nowadays to manage that? So,
you know, for probably for yourself,
one, what does a bad day look like? Is it just business or is it other things that might happen in life that that trigger it? Or what is the most common thing that you find for yourself?
And then, you know, second to that,
this happens to us all over the time. What's the ways that you try to either kick yourself out of it, manage through it, sleep through it? What what's, like, sort of coping things that you do at living? Yeah. Look.
Unknown: I had this really good one the other day is,
I'm not really a spiritual person in the slightest way, and I've got this one really good friend that's super spiritual. Like, I tease her all the time. Like, the 5 g lady, the tin four hat lady, like, she is actually amazing.
And,
she, like, opened my eyes to something. It was like, I was having, like, just
it would had been gone for a couple of days. I was still showing up. I was still just doing the 1%. Like, the minimum 1%, doing what I need to keep the business ticking over and everything along those lines.
And she's just like,
you look with it.
What do you mean look with it? She's like, turn your phone off, turn everything off, like, just sit there in your own thoughts Mhmm. And just see how you go. And I sat there, and I remember I had both whiteboards on by the side. I had, like, my mission statement up on there, I was, like, just sitting there and just watching. And I was just looking. I was like,
that's so light. Like Mhmm. And that's what I started to realize a lot was going on as I was looking at shiny object syndromes across the fence and seeing what other people were doing. And I'm like, I could do that. I could do that as well. I was like, no. No. No. That's going off my alignment. And then that's 9 times out of 10. It's like, I'm other doing something, a task that is really fucking hard that I'm really struggling to do. So I need to break that down into bite sized pieces to be able to achieve it. Mhmm. Or if I can't break it down to bite sized pieces, it's a misalignment of of my direction that I'm going, and that's why I'm feeling the
Yep. Type thing.
So now it's a sense of come back,
look at the drawing board. What, what, what is the mission that I'm going on?
What is the direction? And just think,
like,
go for a walk. Go do something that actually,
like, gives you life. Mhmm.
So,
yeah, it might be, sorry, going off topic there. So, yeah, coming back and just looking at like the mission and going, what is, what am I looking to achieve?
Okay. I'm looking to achieve this. Well, how am I gonna do this, this, this, and this. And then just sitting there just thinking and just thinking and thinking and thinking, and I've got like whiteboards. Like if you walk into my office, like one side, literally the size of the them it's just 2 whiteboards. And I'll just sit there and I'll just look at it. Oh, yeah. That's the arrow over there. I'm gonna grab that. I'm gonna write that down there.
Like, hold on. Like, no. Let's grab this. We'll do it. Like, it's just a massive scribble Yep. Which is great because I I love it. And then that's like my brainstorming thing. And then I'm like, I'm fucking g'd up. Let's go again. Like, I'm good for another week type thing. Yeah. Yeah. And then it happens again, come back to my whiteboard again. I'll look it up. Okay. Yep. That makes sense. Yep. Do you think if you really inspect that,
Unknown: is it, is it the
fact of ideate or just throwing all those things out of your brain onto a canvas
and extrapolating it from yourself and then being able to inquire upon it that gives you that energy, maybe it's gonna be both, maybe it's that, or is it a case of
really reflecting on the on your mission or your vision or whatever have you?
Unknown: Is it both in in units? It's like what okay. Yeah. I'll definitely say both, but I think a lot of it is like brain dumping because
I know what I'm like. Like, I'll be working here looking at the computer doing what I need to do task on hand. I've got this computer over here and I'm like typing on a different task here then I'm back to here while scrolling Instagram at the same time and I'm like, holy shit. I've got all this going, you know, it's like a dopamine overload Yeah. That it just sucks the life out of me. And then it's like, I've got all this stuff inside my head. I need to put it on a canvas. I need to look at it, figure it out. Nah. Scrap that. We don't need that. That's an misalignment. We don't need that. Like, just to be able to get it. It's like when you have too many tabs open on a computer. Mhmm. What happens? The computer runs slow, doesn't it? Loads of tabs, hit refresh, and away we go again. I like I like that sort of mentality. Yeah.
Unknown: One of the things I've been doing lately. So I've been keeping a track of just like daily journaling, right, for a few years,
and I've started to do it for my daughter Yep. Since she was conceived
every single day all the way through today. Love doing that. One of the things I've been doing recently though is a memorable moments. So every day I'll kind of reflect back in the day what's a memorable moment. For me, kind of sharing more deeply,
99% of the time, Raoul, is my daughter. Right? One of the memorable ones, you know, is having bath with her. She is now on the point that she's capable of grafting water and then she'll put it on my chest and amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. On that point, I'm not thinking from an Instagram perspective or a computer. That's my memorable moment.
For you,
Andrew, what's
making memorable moments for you at the moment? Because,
and I ask this in the realization of
if you, whatever you wanna deem success, you're not successful at from a company perspective. And you're doing what is probably deemed as also power, like, you know, close your eyes and be able to create what you wanna do and go after it and do it. Yep. You have that ability. So what's giving you those,
those memorable moments on a day to day at the moment?
Unknown: Probably my parents, my partner, and my dogs. Like, those
are probably, like, my go to, like when my partner gets home from work, like, I'm like a little kid. Like, fucking run down the hallway and, like, just be annoying. Like, I am the most annoying person ever. Like, I do that with my dogs. I do that with my parents.
I'm very similar in what you're saying with the like, what you write down memorable moments.
Every single day, I journal, and I always say, like, what I'm grateful for. Mhmm. And
I would say a 100 single dimes, it's like my dogs, my parents, my partner. Mhmm. Those are the those are the 3 things there, like my life, my happiness.
That would probably
yeah. My my happy moments. Being able to
do things with them and, you know,
spoil them
and just be happy. Like, no phones, like, going for a walk. Like, in the afternoon, she'll come home from work, and we'll just sit on the back steps. The dogs will be running around. I've got grass between my toes as boys are running up and down, like, sun setting. Like, to me, like,
I fucking love that. Like, I might have been, you know, at my desk for, you know, 10 hours prior to that, and that one hour or that half an hour of us just playing with the dogs outside talking about our day and stuff like that. Mhmm. Before I go back to sit on my computer for another hour Yep. I that there is just, like, my moment. Mhmm. And I I
Unknown: thrive for that that Yeah. I mean, that interaction. Now and this is a powerful one because one of the reasons I wanted to start me and mortals was to have conversations with people and get into the into, like, topics and pieces
where, you know, someone might have made it, might have been successful, might not have been successful,
but it's also inquiring into the things that made it work so that now when success comes, we don't forget, oh, but there were these things that actually I had to do and set up so that as you're describing Yep. You have all that availability to you. And is it hard, do you think now to where you are in this position with everything that's going on to
recognize, oh, yeah,
it's in all of this effort that I've been putting in now year in, year out, you know, of all this work that I've been doing to get me to this point. And
not to say to
do you do you go to a pathway you forget
how hard you work to maintain it? I guess I would say? Or is it in such a stage now that you've set yourself up and it's okay. That's I it's almost cruise control if I need it to be. Yep. I is now full enjoy mode
Unknown: in this aspect of my life? It's definitely not full enjoyment mode because I'm not anywhere to where I want it to be,
just yet. Mhmm. But if I was to, let's say, go on holiday for the next 12 months, it would run finally by itself. Like, it would just cruise long, just do its thing.
Would we have growth? Yeah. We'd probably have growth, but not probably to the growth that I'd probably expect.
So, yeah, it wouldn't run, Mhmm.
But I'm just not prepared to do that. Like, I've still got Fucking Yeah. Years of The engine still wants to go. That's all big. Yeah. Like, even sometimes I'm like, holy shit. Like, anyway, I'm getting
I need to and I'm like, you hear Gary v. You go, like,
what do you mean? And I'm like, okay. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I'm still, like Mhmm. I got a lot of me. I guess it's I'm not 21 no more, so I can't work all hours of the night. But when I'm on a task, I'm like, lights me up, You know? Mhmm. And I think I've got a very my partner is very
understanding of
my work, what I do, and
we have a fear exchange side, our relationship. So she knows, like, if I'm, you know, doing an all nighter Mhmm. You know, there's a fair exchange. She could be doing, you know, a little bit extra around the home or whatever it it might be, and then, you know, vice versa. She might have to work a late night, and I'll come in and, you know, step up and all that stuff. How how did you determine that? How did that come about? Was that just natural that the relationship,
Unknown: enabled you guys to just converse and find that out? Yeah. Or did it take something to be like, okay. Look. We need to talk this about it and get really formal with it or, you know, somewhere in the middle? We're both very independent people. Very, like, independent people. We don't need other people and stuff like that. It came down to communication. That was probably a big thing. We've, like,
Unknown: our communication is is pretty strong in what we talk about,
to the point where,
like,
every single night we communicate about what's going on. So for an example,
on a Sunday
evening, we sit down and we talk about the week that's passed. Mhmm. What do we achieve? What didn't we achieve? Why didn't we achieve it? All that sort of stuff. Put a plan in place for what the week is.
And then kind of every single night, we'll kinda sit down and be like, what did you achieve to that? Like, what did you learn? What did you, you know, type thing. And then on a Tuesday night, we have, like, a learning night. So it's like, she will bring an hour long podcast or she might have brought a course or a mentor or whatever it is. It might not be it's got probably got nothing to do with what I'm interested in and vice versa,
but I'll sit down. And then at the end of it, like, after we finish it, it could be an hour long video, it could be half an hour, and be like, she'll go, what did you take out of it? And I'll ask her the exact same thing. And we could be on 2 different levels, but then we're explaining,
like, why we think that way. And so we've got a,
yeah, we're very communicational about, like, what's going on, and we're very big on learning. And even, like, with our close close group of friends, it's like we do this thing on a Wednesday where we all come together and we drink wine and,
you know, we have dinners and stuff like that. And our biggest thing that we talk about is, like, the peak of our day and the pit of our day. Uh-huh. Oh, it's one one one peak of your day or what's one pit of the day. And it could be just as simple as somebody brought you a coffee or you got green lights all the way, and it's just being grateful for those little things.
Yeah. No. That's I love that. Just little things. So, like, yeah, that's something that yeah. Me and my partner, we we sit down and and we do. And so, like, at the end of every month, we go out for dinner on Friday night, and we talk about, did we achieve what we wanted to for the month? Where are we sitting at? You know, how does the next month look for us? What are some nonnegotiables that I need from you as a partner Mhmm. To kinda like, like, come on, Andrew. Pull your head out now. Like, actually start doing it. Yeah. So, yeah, our communication is pretty pretty strong. Yeah. No. That's that's also I know. I mean, I was gonna double down on what you said there because I know that we're not doing this enough in our relationship at the moment with my partner.
Unknown: It's hard. You as a good kid? It's different. It is. It is. It is different. Like, I've actually and I've actually said this to her that she's gonna I'll surprise her when they come back because she's my daughter's gonna be 1 in a couple of weeks. Yep. And I wrote down before the birth of my daughter, hey, This is how I wanna be as a dad. This is my, like, on negotiables, what I wanna be like, how I wanna be showing up. And I kinda wanna reflect on that of the year to go. Cool. How would you rate me? Out of 10 basically on these sort of things, how do you see this? And so I I I feel like I've put it now, what you're describing there, a little bit of an enginent to my daughter. Yep. But it's fallen a little bit away with my partner. Yep. Which I mean, it's a normal, that's a normal It's a natural thing. Happens. Yeah.
And so it's it's kind of in relation to that we're saying for yourself
with once or relationships,
you seem like you got a good communication or at least energy flowing through that from a work perspective as well. But maybe to borrow
the pit and the peak perspective,
what would you say at the moment then is failing either in the communication,
communication or energy at the moment in in life from, like, a pit perspective if you had to look across the domain of everything at the moment? As in my life or as a relationship? No. In your life. Just as a whole. What is the peak that's go oh, the pit that's going on in my life right now?
Unknown: That is a good question. I mean,
manufacturers
start turning around I don't pass in the I I actually Well, actually, on the manufacturing,
Unknown: Salah, we touched on this. Yeah. You originally started,
Unknown: mostly Australia based. Right? Yep. Now That was a big thing. I was Now was pure Australian manufacturers owned. Yes. Yes. Now what does that look like today? No.
No.
Look. Our t shirts here are manufactured, here in Australia currently.
That is that is getting to be moved overseas. Yep.
And what that really came down to, it just came down to a costing. Like, it genuinely just came down to a cost. It was,
I couldn't justify
because it's like somebody's only gonna buy a t shirt a certain price, and I can only manufacture it for a certain price, and minimum order quantities
are hit. And, you know, when you're doing mass production, they can only go so far because, obviously,
labor prices in Australia are quite, you know, up there. Mhmm.
So, yeah, we definitely had had to go on overseas. Yeah. Yeah. And it it it sucks because
I would love to keep it here. We would love to put it back to the economy and stuff like that. But
Unknown: Well, it also gets back to what a customer's willing to pay for the value that a product is. Right? Now I'm gonna, reveal a couple of things here. 1, I remember I asked you. I was gonna talk to you about,
shirts and some of the items that that conversation. You said you basically just said like,
if you can't, I do it. Right?
These, you can't see them on the, on this particular video, but I've got this particular like custom shows I got done local, right? It's a local place.
And this one's each one alone I think came out to like 70 something dollars each to get of course, I'm not gonna be reselling them at all, but the price point that you'd be competing in and the value of the brand that you have to set yourself up is just out of this world
in where maybe the domain that you'd be competing to sell somebody like that would be.
When it comes to business for you, I think
you probably you and amongst it quite a a lot of people are gonna be a good question for this. Is is it all about numbers?
Is it all about the numbers in terms of,
transitioning people from a selling them x apparel? I'm not just talking hats here. Is from the experience that you're seeing now in business, is it just really a a numbers game? It's literally a numbers game. Like and you don't know the numbers with inside your business.
Unknown: So the way that I like to explain it is, like, I do a lot of coaching for a lot of people these days. Right?
And the biggest thing that I come to, mom, is like, tell me the numbers inside your business. I wanna know, you know, how many people go to your website, your ad to car ratio, your conversion ratio, your fixed cost ratio, marketing expense ratio, your video cost and they're like
and what? And I'm like, no. Like, do you not know these numbers? And they're like, no. I'm like, do you know your profit margins? They're like, no. I'm like, do you even know if you're making profit? They're like, oh, well and Like money at the end of the day. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So like we've I've worked with some pretty big companies, like, doing some coaching and I'm looking at it and I'm like, bro, you've got way too many overheads. Like, you're
scratching the surface. Like, do you need x y zed? And they're like, oh, well, I thought I did. I'm like, no. No. No. Scrap it. Scrap it. Like, get rid of it. Because god of the days of having big flashy warehouses with big corporate staff and laptops and computers, it's like, people will work from home. Like, you don't need all the staff in the world. You've got freelancers. You can do that. You can literally build a 7 figure business with 1 person. Mhmm. Like, you don't need to have everyone else.
So, yeah, numbers are a crucial thing because the way that I look at it now is, like,
when you know your numbers with inside your business, it's like driving a crane and I've never driven a crane in my life so I'm just gonna shoot this. Right? I'm no I'm no trader. I sit at a computer. But if you pull this lever, it does that. If we pull that lever, it does this. It's like when you know the numbers with inside your business, you know what lever to pull
to be able to make things right. So
when we look at
a lot of ecommerce businesses, when they come to me, right, we look at the 3 things, markets,
yeah, marketing expense ratio, variable cost ratio, and fixed cost ratio.
Okay. So your marketing expense ratio could be low. Let's increase the budget. Let's add some, you know, more, you know, ads into it. Cool. Everything's going really, really well. Your variable cost ratio could be a little bit high. Okay. That's your product cost. Well, if you're ordering, let's say,
a 1000 units
and it's x y zed, what if we were to up that to
15,021,000
units?
Where does that put it down? Okay. We're gonna drop our variable cost ratio by
5%, which is gonna give us 5% more profit margin with inside our business.
And then so we're able to scale just that a little bit more. And when you know these numbers in the business, it just makes it so much easier. Mhmm. Like, I know
every single day
what my breakeven number is. The on any any new product, service, whatever we bring into the business, I know my breakeven number every single day. So I look in my spreadsheet every single day to see where things are. And I'm like, okay. Cool. We're in the green. Everything's going really well. Market expense ratio is really good. Scale. Let's let's push this harder. Let's go let's go harder.
Unknown: And and it's it's
amazing to me to
almost no matter the industry
or ecom is very, very, you know,
obvious that numbers are imported there, right, in terms of turnover on who you're bringing in, if you're going through a website, whatever, ad turnover into sales. But I see this in a whole host of other industries now that, you know, you wouldn't think about it, but it's all just numbers. It's just Space businesses. Like like back in the day working in the fitness industry, it was like, how many people are we speaking to? What is our appointment ratio? What is our closure or, you know, appointment ratio,
Unknown: to phone, appointment to show ratio, close ratio Yep. Our referral ratio, like, it's just numbers. And it's just like,
I'm not against service based businesses where you've got like
so, like, let's go back a bit. Back in the day, if someone said to you like, oh, like, how many people have you got working for you? And you say one people, it's like, oh, you know, you got a very small business. Right. Where if somebody goes, I've got 10 bands on the road. I've got 20 builders. Blah blah blah. When somebody says that to me now, I fucking cringe because I'm like, bro, like, you must be going, oh. Because,
like,
the like, what you have that turnover every single day just to keep the lights on, like, stuff that. Like,
Unknown: I'm very big on just skeleton businesses. Yeah. I I I see it. I don't know if this is just a
broader trend as well, but I see it in even myself and of 1
many years ago, I would have seen him go, oh, successful business. Yep. You got plenty of people, you're growing it, you're in different locations. Now
There's a handful of people that I know like yourself Yep. Who run things very lean
and it works, right? Again,
is there, and direct question for you,
would there be a difference right now to your life if you were doing a 7 figure versus a 9 figure company?
Unknown: I was looking at the flash cars and the, you know, the private jets and stuff like that. Sure. But no. I think my life would be the exact same. Like, I still wear the basketball singlet, I still wear a hat, like, I dress the way that I am. Mhmm. I've got my biggest thing is, like, when people come to me, they're like, you know,
you know, you're turning over x y zed, blah blah blah. I'm like, I've got on the table, and I've got a roof over my head. Anytime somebody asks me something, I'm like, that's all I care about. My mom and dad are happy. My partner's happy. My dog's a fit. I've got food on the table, roof over my head.
I'm happy.
Unknown: You know? And you're gonna increase all of those things in they're individual. You can increase
what a roof over your head looks like, what the food looks like, what the drinks that you have and the trips that you have, but
there's a level of opulence and excessiveness that when you really inspect it to go,
here's the other one, so 7 to 9, would you sacrifice to get to 9 if it meant a whole load more stress
and building out a gigantic company? Would you want that?
Would the push and the extra effort for you be like,
okay. And that's warranted. I'll take that. Or would you satisfy with, look, I'd give that up just to be lean and mean and always have a business that I could just sort of steam through where I could just go and do my experience. Multiple 8 figure businesses. That's pretty damn that's pretty damn. But is he real question? This is a real question, man. Look, probably not. Probably not. Not like look, don't be wrong. 9 figure sounds fucking great. Like, it sounds really, really good.
Unknown: But if you gotta do the 9 figures, you're gonna have I would want to have a team Mhmm. That is
really good at what they do
so that I'm realistically
only just focusing on the growth of the business. I'm not focusing on product development. I'm not focusing on the marketing. I'm not focusing on that. Like, I wanna have everything so lean. So I only have one person come to me, one person to speak to me at the end of the day and go, hey, Andrew. We had x y zed wrong in the business. How would you like us to action this? He goes down to that person. He goes down to the next person and goes up. That's probably the only way maybe tonight, because we think about
Because the last thing you'd want is a 1,000 different people going, hey. I need you here and I need you here and I need you. I'm like, fuck that. You can't. A minute a minute each and you've there goes your day. Because I had, like, just got a little bit off top. I had a bit of a reality check the other day about a couple of weeks ago where I was like, hold on.
We're doing well.
I get to go to the gym when I want. If I wanna go overseas, I can go overseas. If I wanna go out for lunch, dinner, go stay down the coast, I can do whatever the fuck I want. Like,
what about? Like, life's great. And I think that's where a lot of people get caught up is, like, they see so much on social media. It's, like, they need the jet, the Lambo, the, you know, the Rolls Royce, you know, all that top stuff. Mhmm. That they don't take a step back and go, hold on. Life is actually good. I appreciate what I have right now. You know? Well, and this one's even further off topic, but I know that you were in our roles just recently. That looks great. That looked very good. Beautiful. Now in that roles,
Unknown: any again,
strike this to whatever you think feels like an opulent thing or a very nice thing to you in the world if you're listening to this.
Did you sit in that and go
you know what? It would be worth putting in a bit more effort across a few things to have these sort of things, not because you need them, but because, you know what? It's worth it's worth the hard work. Yeah.
Look. My vision board changed that day.
I did.
Unknown: You know what? Like, anyone can They own a Lambo. Right? And, like, Rolls Royce is, like,
the fucking duck snuck. Yep. That was, like, getting into that, I was like oh, I could even go goosebumps. Like, I was like, man, this is, like
and it wasn't like
I think the way Darren has done
his roles as well, like, was he's done it next level. Because it's like, you get when you see Rolls Royce, right, you think rich old people. Mhmm. But he's
Unknown: I think he's got, like, $20,000 worth of rooms that he's upgraded, the suspension, and all that type of stuff. Like, it looks boss. Yeah. It looks fucking There's a few there's a there's a few in the last couple of years seeing, role yeah. This is mostly social media as opposed to in person, But seeing them, they go yeah. It's moved from
old, I guess, you'd call it to more like, woah. Wow. That that looks boss. That looks really, really cool. Again, a blacked out rolls Yeah. For me, it'd be a thing, though.
Unknown: Even like the Mercedes Maybach's, like, that was a very, like,
well, like, sit in the back, like, Adrian Patel is rocking around. What is he? He's, like, 30? Like Mhmm. Like, it's now young. I think there's a guy on the Gold Coast for sure. I think his name is or something. He's got a Maybach as well. Like, young dudes are, like, making this he's what was considered old people wealth, like, sick again. Like, like, it's actually dope. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I like that I like that the the the board has changed. Oh, yeah. Rolls Royce 100% that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What would the interior color be?
I would love to say orange, but I think it might clash with my beard, to be honest. Oh, like, I genuinely think it would be I think the orange looks sick. I think the orange you'd have to go orange. Yep. Orange life looks next level. And I remember, I think Troy Candy had a Rolls Royce at once upon a time. He had, like, fucking 22 inch rims on it slammed like it was I was like, these
sick cars that they've just brought the new age to them, like, I think that's dope. Alright. It's a good evolution of them. Yeah.
Unknown: Question on the business card. I don't wanna miss this because it it it spiked my interest.
Right now. You're looking at right now with the businesses and you've, at the very beginning of this podcast said, Hey, we wanna, we're gunning for the top of Australia.
In when you think again, caps, you're thinking streetwear, you're thinking LIVCAY.
To do that,
what does that mean? And I'm talking internally
to the company, you, metrics wise, does that will you know that's been achieved
how?
The
the the the revenue or the profit is what's telling you? Is it the
the size of the Instagram handle? Or
how how would you kinda like start assessing that because Yeah. Quite a bit. Yeah. Because and I guess the reason I ask it is
with few different businesses for me it'd be a question of okay
what's the metric that's telling me that I've achieved this outcome that I'm actually gunning for? What what does that actually look like for you?
Unknown: I think for me, I think there's no way to actually measure that. There's probably no way at all. I think for me, it would be more just
that is people's go to
product. I think that's probably the realistically, the only way to measure it because you couldn't really you could measure it off revenue, like, you know, but there's, you know, a lot of businesses out there that revenue wise are doing really, really good, but just about turn into bankruptcy in the next state type thing.
I think for me, it would be
people's preferred go to hat. I think that's probably the only way,
and having
other brands
wanting to use our fitment
Mhmm. With their logos and all that type of stuff and, you know, licensing out our fitment Yep. To these other brands. I think that's probably when you start to know. Yeah. When you say fitment, what do you mean by that? So we've got a particular soft fitment that we have,
with our hats. Yep.
So we've had tech back strong up, and we've got very specific on how
it shapes
Unknown: like
And I'm I'm gonna tell you, I I know nothing about hats. One, I'm not a hat wearer. I'm just, I'm not a hat wearer.
But I have to say what the,
it's clear that the selling point of the hats
is that. Like I know that your cell flew the company put really great effort into
being on trend
through the cycles of the year, right? State of origin. Yeah. Different colors. You got the Super Bowl, right? You're right on there with that. And the color and the content changes,
it makes you like, oh, this is awesome. But it always sort of come back to me, because I was thinking what's the unique selling point, right? It's that, it's the shape, it's what the hat is, and you see that being, you know, you you see it in other marketing being like, oh, this is the deepest hat or the like,
Unknown: but it's consistently what comes through in your particular brand. Yeah. So we've got a particular type of fitment that
it just it it it just working. And it's like we recently had to change
our fitment because our audience was and the we listened to our audience. Our audience was like, we need we need this x y zed to change. And I'm like, okay. Cool. Let's give this a crack. Yep. And then I was like, holy fuck. This is too big now. Like, this is next level. And then one half of the audience was like this is like amazing, best product. I've searched my whole life trying to look for this and now I finally got it. And then we got the other half that we're like, now it's too big. So now we're in a predicament. Yep. And we literally had the samples arrive this afternoon where we're now having to go into size categories.
What yep. So we don't have a kind of a one size fits all no more. It's kind of like we got you bigger, we got you smaller,
and then, you know, there's different things that we're gonna go through in that. So That's exciting. What what,
Unknown: if any,
risk exists right now with the company? Sorry, say that again. What risk, if anything, if there's any at all, sits within the company? What I mean by that is
one
from many businesses,
one of the things that can kill a business is cash flow. That's
generally predominantly the big thing as you say. Yep. People could be all fine in revenue, but if you're just making them meet, your profit margins are nothing, you could go out of business very quickly.
Is there now where Lifco sits because you, you take it as option of, okay, cool. Now let's, let's do these different things. Let's grow it. Let's go this path.
Do you
spend any minutes being like, oh, it's risky. Like, do we do that? Do we keep it the same? Do we have to play back a little bit? Or is it very thin now in the risk sense? And it's like, oh, no. No. We know enough of what we've been doing. We've been in the market. We're established enough that we can we can play. We can make this work. Yeah. We're we're in a time where we can play. Mhmm.
Unknown: Mhmm. But I love risk. Like, I'm like, fuck it. Let's just see what happens. Yeah. I'm a I'm a person that, like,
I wanna adapt and I wanna pivot really fast. Like, if I'm putting this out into the market or I'm doing a particular marketing campaign or whatever I'm doing,
if hypothetically
that doesn't work, I need to move
really fast. Like, I don't wanna be taking,
you know, 2 weeks, like, 3 weeks to get something done. Like, we're making decision. We're doing it right now. Like, whether it's hypothetically, we we we fuck up on social media. We get out. We speak about it. We're not there's no big corporate ladder where I need to speak to this person and do this and do all my you know, I am the founder. I am now essentially in the face of the brand. It just somehow even up in that way,
where I'm just like, okay. I can just there's not
a hell of a lot of risk. Mhmm. I think if there was gonna be any risk, I think sometimes in I think the most
clothing
brands know this. Mhmm. It's a cash flow.
Because
you've spent
quarter of a $1,000,000, half a $1,000,000 in product here that's in development
right now. That's land in the country. You've done all your products. You've taken all your photos, and you put it up online for sale. But then you've gotta put another,
you know, quarter of a $1,000,000 into this for the next season ready to go. And it's just a juggling act. And yet again, it all comes down to knowing your numbers within other business
to be able to make
Unknown: these things happen. Yeah. No. No. No. It's it's it's an important piece.
One of the,
we're gonna say interestingly, what yeah. Why have you become the the the face of the brand all of a sudden now? I'm not gonna say it's a TikTok that you've been doing and the videos of of packing and someone. That's really cool. That is a good idea. Yeah. Well, I,
Unknown: I came across it as I was chatting to a manufacturer, and we're doing some changes on that. And they're like, do you have Alibaba? I was like, yeah. They're like, okay. Cool. Jump on our live right now. And it was like, who's showing the products and stuff like that? I was like, hold on. Like,
something's
am I missing something here? Yep. And 1st January, I decided I was like, oh, I'll give this a crack. So I went live on TikTok. The 1st January,
I was hungover. Like, I was
I was hungover. Right? 1st January, hungover, went live on TikTok. I had, like, 10 people watching. Mhmm. Whatever. Like, whatever. Just packed hats, you know, type thing. Mhmm. Now I did it on the second, and we had, like, 50 people. Then on the 3rd, we had, like, a 100 people.
Hold on. I want something here. And then so the analytics on TikTok, you can see the analytics and it shows how, like, rough average watch time and stuff like that. It shows you the top ten people that were watching. Right. It could be so I thought it was online for 2 hours.
It could be anywhere from an hour up to an hour and 45 minutes that people were watching me just pack hats. And I'm like, that's wild.
What is going on here? Like, this is mental. And then what was happening is, like,
people that I went to school with that don't follow me Mhmm. I was showing up. People that I knew from when I was younger, people that knew our friends of friends, people that had purchased from us that didn't follow us were just somehow ending up in the live. And I don't know if it's what I'm saying. I don't know what it was. So now I have a set thing as on a,
Monday night and a Thursday night, just not tonight. Yep. Monday night and a Thursday night, I will go live and I will pack orders. And we kinda just do, like, a fun thing where it's, like,
if we get 50 people, I'll do a giveaway. Like, it's, like and I was just saying to them, like Yeah. If you can get 50 people into the slot while I pack orders, I'll do a giveaway to any of you guys that are watching right now. Just we'll just pick 1 person. And they do it. They love it. They go crazy. Mhmm. They would like, if we hypothetically cross over that 50 mark, and then it'd be a 100. And, yeah, that it's it's nuts. And I've built some really good relationships
because they get to know me on a personal level. They get to know my backstory.
And it's even like when people ask questions now Mhmm. Because they've been watching for so long, they literally
answer it for me. Like, I could be over here grabbing something and they people are just answering a lot Yeah. But literally answer. Okay. And I'm like, this is this is great. Yeah. So I
have done a little bit of a change, and I
I'm trying to get it away from our business TikTok and actually build it more into my personal
brand tick tock. And I started a brand new tick tock last week or something called as I said. You gotta get over a1000,
Unknown: 4,000 followers before you go live. So I'm just building on that, but I'm gonna definitely double down harder on my personal brand through that. Through that. Now yeah. Because I guess I know personal brand. And I I think you talked about this. I think it was either real or a story that I sent of you recently. And I was gonna ask you that. Is is it a bad thing that for LivCo,
you'll becoming the face of it? Is that,
do you want that to be the path
in terms of, yeah, cool, I'll be the face of it. I'll be
prime number 1 person that you're seeing the come be through, because, yeah, personal brand is a huge thing. It's what it was always part part or the whole story that people are buying.
Unknown: Look, it wasn't
what I wanted it to go. Mhmm. But then if I think back to where we first started in my parents' garage, like, I was the face behind it. I was jumping on Snapchat. I was talking about our products, what we were doing, packing orders, and all that type of stuff back then. And it's like, as much as I
didn't want to be it, I've always been it. Mhmm. And that makes sense. And I think it was more so in the sense of
we see other companies, you know, they've got, you know,
models and all that type of stuff. And I'm like, I need to be like that. I need to be like that. And then I had a bit of realization. It's like, no, like
I started this brand, and I I want people to know, like, about it from me as the founder. Yep. So, yeah, I'm really big on personal branding now. Like, I'll
I'll probably try and be in majority of our campaigns.
You know, I'll always probably show up on our stories, and I'm hoping if, you know, even if we get to
that 8 figure mark Mhmm. 9 figure, you know, if we ever get there,
then I'm still the face of it to some form of extent. Because if, you know, Gary v can do it, Alex Samosa can do it, I've got no excuses.
Unknown: I've got no excuses. I've got plenty plenty of bigger people, like, you'd be able to do it. Now the one caveat to that, and it's always it's always a good question to ask, but I don't think that you sit within the space. It's, if you're building
a business or a brand that you wanna sell, you're looking to sell something, All right. Then you're tying yourself to it. Right. And what does that mean?
Informally, you know, there's a little purchase of a business that I was doing and I was asking you about some of the things. We had to pull away from that for that reason, for that exact reason. Right? So it can come in other areas. But in the space that you're talking about right now, it doesn't sound like to me that you wanna give away live co ambitious lifestyle ever. It's that's who you are. That's a part of you of, you know, you what you've been building. Yep. It's gonna be you for however long that exists. Yep.
Unknown: Yeah. I
don't think in maybe the clothing space that
it's gotta be an issue
because if hypothetically it was to sell or anything along those lines, it would be a retail giant that would take over it and, you know, they'd put it in their stores or or someone along those lines, and they would just be, you know, in a an agreement stating that I can't start a brand in the next 12 months or take the clothing, you know, some some breasts.
So I don't think that would be an issue. I think the only issue would be is if I was to go do something stupid out there in social media or in the world Mhmm. That could
hurt the reputation. But you see it all over social media. Now
somebody says the wrong thing. They do the wrong thing,
and it can hurt them. Mhmm. Like, hurt their business really bad.
So I think you just gotta be very mindful, that type of stuff. Yeah. Do you think you feel to yourself at all much?
No. Like,
I get it all the time. Like, my brother, he will message me because my my niece loves
watching me on social media. Love that. But, like, as you know, like, I just say the fuck with no. And
he's like, come on, man. Like, she's watching. And I'm like, fuck that. Like, if I am me, like, I just I just don't
my personality is I kinda just say it as it is, and I don't filter it as much. There's just things that I don't like to speak about on social media, like political things. Mhmm. I've got my own views, and that's one thing I always say is, like, when I speak about a particular topic, especially in my personal brand, it's like, these are my views.
Like, do what you want with them, take them how you ask, but these, these are my views. And if it hurts your feelings, then it's obviously shows more about you than it does about me. Mhmm. I think that's probably the only way that it could potentially
hurt
Unknown: store brand repurchases just saying the dumb thing. Yeah. No. No. No. From the people who you're talking to as well right now in a coaching perspective or another in other formats at the moment,
Do people
tend to be navigating or gravitating towards,
oh, yep. I've gotta become much more of a personal brand. That's a that's kind of an easy
Unknown: movement where everyone's going. Yep. I'm doubling down on them. So, like, all my 1 on 1 clients right now, we literally had a call last week, last Wednesday, and it was all about personal branding. I'm like, you guys gotta do this.
Like, and the reason.
I I knew personal branding was a big thing. Like, I put up a post, I think it was about 2 weeks ago where we talked
I did a post back in July 2020
where I was, like, in 5 years' time, personal branding is gonna be the biggest thing. You need to learn about personal branding, and I gave my take on it. Mhmm. And I was scrolling through, like, my archives, and I came across it. And I screeched on it. I was like, I said 5 years from now. We're 4 years in, and we've hit this big toe. And I think the biggest realization that I had for this is, I did the marketing for Kalei skincare. Mhmm.
Jonathan, Kat, Leticia, and Dasia. Like and they've been building their their personal brand massively on TikTok. They're one of the biggest TikTok families, in Australia. And
when we launched their product, bear in mind, I'm sitting on a beach in Fiji. Mhmm. And we launch, and they sold out of their OG kit within 4 minutes. No Facebook ads, no Google ads, just pure personal Wow.
Yeah. Wow. Like,
this is unreal. Like, this is this is absolutely
nuts. Mhmm. And so
I think people also need to realize that when you do personal branding, you've gotta be yourself. You've gotta be a 100% authentic that aligns with you. Don't try and be somebody that you're not because that's when it completely goes off course. And one of my 1 on 1 clients, when we talked about personal branding last week,
he's really into the fitness space.
But for him and what he does is he's a tradesman. Like he's a, he's a, he's a tradie. And I was like,
just be you be
show up and be the person that you wish you knew, you know, 5 years ago, tell the stories that you wish you knew 5 years ago. And I literally got a message from him today. He had his first video hit 10,000 views from him just being his authentic self. Yep. And I was like, double down on it. Mhmm. Like, he's got all these guys coming in, like, that's cool. How did you do that? Like, explain to me, like, how you did this, this, and this. And I'm like, just keep doing it. Keep doing it. Keep doing it. Just show up. Build a personal brand. Just see where it takes you. Mhmm. It may not take you anywhere, but people are gonna remember you from it. And I remember back in the day when I was big on,
you know, Snapchat, and I was at, Cleveland
markets, night markets with my ex partner. Yep. And, this girl come up, and she's like, you live co guy from Snapchat. I'm like,
what the hell? Like, this is crazy. Yeah. So, yeah, personal branding is huge. Anyone that's watching this, anyone that's
feeling lost,
show up and be your authentic self. Doesn't matter whether you're,
you start up a 9 figure business, a mom, a dad,
anything. Like, there's this guy,
I I don't follow him, but he's popped up on my TikTok that many times.
And,
he was he's an Aboriginal guy. He, you know, was on drugs, all that type of stuff. And
he came to TikTok, and he's like, I wanna clean myself up. And I've kind of just, he pops up all the time and it's been probably 2 years ago. And I watched the story,
had popped up yesterday and it was like, he's like, man, 2 years ago, I wish I was at this day. He's like, I've got a job. I've got a company car. I've got food. He's like, man, if I knew that I could eat every single day and not have to worry about
getting my next thing. I'm like,
man, that's so cool. Like, the fact that he was able to build a personal brand and everyone is cheering him on, g'ing him up, like, they're like, man, it's so cool to see how far you've come.
You know, just start speaking, like, what's going on in your life. Yeah. Well, just just
Unknown: it's like, I don't know. For for a long
time, any any of the social media platforms, it was and maybe still is in some formats. It's it's
present the picture that you want to present because you think it's what people want to see
where what you're saying is, and I see it more and more, I kinda wanna follow more, see the people that are just showing me more their real day to day life because in a weird way, that's a fascinating bit. And I've always been fascinated by that. I think, to come on that, I I created something the other day and it was, like,
Unknown: back in the day, let's use Instagram as an example. You were some form of influencer that we would sit here on Instagram. And I'm not saying all influencers. It was a selective few, you know, they had, you know, the the cameraman. They had, you know, the flash houses, the cars, you know, they had the makeup artists. And when they showed up to social media, everything was perfect. Like, everything was good. TikTok came along, which was a real raw
there's no edits. There's no high contrast. Like, it's you pull your phone out and you record.
These people here from Instagram were like, I'm too good for that blah blah blah trying to shove products down your your throat. Like, you know, look at me look at me
That these people that started to show up on TikTok showing up as their authentic self, hearing about the audience and actually engaging with them. Mhmm. What happens is these people from a gone, oh, shit. I now have to be on this platform. Mhmm. And they're trying to be authentic. And it's like, hold on. You didn't give a fuck about us 5 years ago. Yep. And now all of a sudden you wanna, you know, pretend that you care about us. Like,
you're just here for the views. Like you should have been doing that a long time
ago. And it's like, this is why I feel like the new age of TikTok
social media influences are real. They're raw. They're showing behind the scenes and they're talking about real life stuff.
Not pretty pictures. Not, like, look at me and look at me. It's, like, this is what's going on in my life. Yeah. And it's the
Unknown: the the story still sells, but the story has changed. 100%. 100%. Like,
Unknown: I had a a good friend reach out to me just before she had a baby, and she was like, she was freaking out. She's like, what do I do? Andrew? Like, I don't want to go back to work. Like I'm a mom now. Like I don't want to put my child in daycare. And I was like, show up every single day, talk about your life as a mom. I was like, you're a first time mom. You don't know what you're doing. You don't know. It's like, tell people your experiences because there's gonna be new moms that are out there that wanna learn. Yeah. Exactly. Well, it'd be in the exact same spot. Yeah. And guess what? She didn't go back to work.
That's, like, good. Yeah. She didn't go back to work. And it's, like, it was just so good for her to call me up and just like, I don't have to go back to work. Yeah. Like, she was able to build a personal brand, create an online ecommerce business, sell her products from there, and she gets full time with her kids all the time. Yeah. And I think look. I mean, that's what you do in part with through your businesses is helping out people Yeah. Whether it's, you know, that's our path or different paths, you seem to be helping out others to find that you know, find the niche, find your 1,000 true fans type of deal. Yep.
Unknown: Put it in a product to put it in a way that's truthful and sharing it out to the people where where the type of people you wanna be connecting with you is, and off you go. Yeah. I wanna ask you just pulling away from that into masterminds, but still people, but masterminds. Yep.
I don't know if you're a person who naturally gravitates to something like that to going to a mentor, to going to a group of people.
Myself, I'm not, I'm just very much not like that. I've
rebelled, like, mentally rebelled against it slash I don't wanna do this. I've I've sometimes formed part of group. I don't
wanna do this. I don't know why, but I can see there's a lot of value now. That's what I think. From your perspective, you've talked about being, you know, just before we came to the podcast, you were chatting about a particular experience that you'd been on. Yep. I know that right now, you're in another mastermind right now.
1, do you gravitate normally to them? And 2,
do you find them useful?
Unknown: Back in the day, I used to think, like, no. They're not.
Because of since you a lot of people used to say you're just a lot shit.
These days, I love it. Like my
subscription bill is ridiculous. Yep.
Yeah. No, I love it. So I'm a part of, I've been a part of 1, and I've got a lot of respect for him. He's been
a big person that shaped me
not only business wise, but personal development wise, understanding how I operate and stuff like that. So I've got a lot of respect for him, and I've been with him
since 2018, I
think, something ago. Wow. It's okay. 2018. It's still with him to this day. Mhmm.
And, essentially, I will join groups masterminds
to get the knowledge that I need out of it. You know, whether I'm in there for a month,
12 months, whatever it is, like,
everyone
scales up to where they think. So things that I was learning 7 years ago is different to what I'm learning
drop, you know, today. So yeah. No. I'm very big, there on What what triggered you on the the 2018 one? You know? Who who can you share who that who that was? His name's, Lewis Mocker. Okay. I see you Lewis. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Everyone knows Lewis. Like, he's a great guy. Like, he's generally a good guy. And,
I don't know. He just resonated with me. It's just like as a I would probably say that I was a bit of a lone wolf, like growing up. Like
I just, I had beliefs and things like I'm not big into real estate. I'd never understood,
you
know, mortgages and paying these loans off and be stuck in a house that you you can't just pull a brick off the wall and go buy your free coffee, you know. Yeah. Like, I've just never understood that, but I just there was no one in my circle that spoke that way. Like, everyone was like, you know, the Australian dream go by home. Drop dead. It just kept saying these things, and I'm like, this is exactly how I'm fucking thinking. Like Mhmm. And so I joined this thing, and, yeah, school of mastery is great. Like, I don't look at it every single day. I don't look at it every single week, but,
you know, I know that I can, you know, go to a minute. You know, we've we've built a bit of a friendship, and he's he's actually a a genuinely good guy. He's actually helped me a lot. As well as, you know, I've got
great friends
that have mentored me along the way, like, you know, Dan Lau. Yep. 26th
of every single month, he calls me regardless,
and he checks in with me. Mhmm. Where's everything at? Good friend of mine, Greg Lacey, like, love him to death. Like, he's
he tells me the honest truth, the shit that I do not wanna hear. Yeah. You need that. You need that. Like, I'll get off of some phone call someday, and I'm just like,
man, I didn't wanna hear that, but fuck. He's right. Like, he's so right. Mhmm. And they're just kind of like whatever's going on. Like, at the moment, I recently just joined, the 1 Life Club Mhmm. With meal and Simon and stuff like that. And I'm just about to join,
Simon's other one because I'm like,
they they know something that I don't know, Mhmm. And I wanna figure out what that is. Mhmm. And so
I've got enough respect, and I feel like they've gotta
they they know enough to be able to provide me with something even if it's
the smallest thing. As long as I can take something out of it, and realistically, mentorships,
mindsets, you know, coaches and all that type of stuff, it's realistically what you decide to do with that knowledge. Yeah. Because It it's the action. There's a new thing a new wave going through at the moment,
motivation porn. Like, it's literally you go watch all these motivation to get, you know, that dopamine hit. Once you've watched me feel like shit because you don't actually fucking put it into action. Like, put it into action, and you'll be surprised what actually can come from it. Yeah. 1 hour of getting really motivated about something is not equivalent to doing 1 hour of the of the action or the task. 100%. So, like, I've got,
like, binders, like, notebooks. Like, there's, so one guy that mentored me many years ago in learning Facebook ads,
I still have that binder of, like, Facebook ads that this is back in 2015.
That even the other day I pulled up and I was like, oh, we used to do this back in the day. Why don't I test this? Mhmm. Like, even though this hasn't been done for 5, 6 years, let's see if it's works today. Like, you know, let's talk about the new age. Let's see if I can try and incorporate the old age with the new age. And, yeah, I've just got binders and binders of knowledge. Like Yeah. Considering it's school, I hated school. Like, I generally hated school, hated learning, but nowadays love it. Well, and I think it's I I I truly think it's not a case of that you didn't like, it's not that you were opposed to learning, it was not learning in that particular way. Right? And let's see, you see so many successful people that you see nowadays, and by success I mean
Unknown: either
a big company or successful in whatever they've put their mind to it achieving in in different formats than the usual what you'd see in everyday life. Yep. Usually like that. It's like they rebelled against the normal systems, but in a more open system, all of a sudden, they they can make it work because it's under their own terms and their own things. 100%.
It's interesting. The piece about Lewis, I've, I've tried to get him on this podcast that he's he's opposed to doing any sort of podcast conversation. He's not one. I know he's not one. I actually
Unknown: went and talked to him and Robin. He had their car. And he still he still said no. He's up. Yeah. He's very I'm like, well, it's funny. Like, obviously, I've got the ambitious lifestyle that I don't wanna do. I've got him on my list.
I haven't asked them yet. Yep. Haven't asked him yet just because I I know how he feels about that. And, you know, I'm not gonna force somebody into something that they don't wanna do, something. But I think he's got a great story, and he's got a great message
to put out to the world that a lot of people need to hear. Yeah. And
Unknown: expanding from that, so if you don't know Lewis, go check out Lewis' mouth after. I think the the way that he approaches
brand,
story,
Unknown: very clean on what he wants to do, what he doesn't do. Business model. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was just very clear on it. I was like and I learned that from, like, a a lean business model was like
very, very lean. You don't need to have, you know, thousands of employees. And, like, the fact that he's, you know, turning over 7 7 figures a year, multiple 7 figures a year, and it's him and Robert. Mhmm. That's it. Yeah. Like, Lee, you wanted to be like that. Like I said, reduces the stress in the things that you wanna do. Yep. What has you excited for the rest of 2024?
What has me excited? Oh, look. I wanna go on holiday at the end of the year. Like, I've got a big holiday that I wanna go on. Okay. Honestly, that's probably one thing that I'm really excited for.
Look. I'm excited for
just the growth of the business. Like, I've got some pretty good big goals that I want to achieve this year. Mhmm.
And I've mapped them out so clearly
that if I was the car kit tomorrow, touch what I don't, anyone could pick up that
it's not even a piece of paper. It's actually binder. Like, it's about 10 pages long. Yep. Pick up that that binder Mhmm. And read it word for word and just follow the steps, and you'll be good. Like, that's how clear and I literally carry that with me everywhere. Like Wow. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. With me everywhere. Yep.
This is, like, your the master plan basically. Essentially, my master plan for the next the next 12 months. So, yeah, essentially, like, just the growth of
not only LivCo Mhmm. But my personal brand because that's obviously something that I'm trying to double down on Yep. This year, which you've cc more over social media. And what's what is kinda let you go without asking you this. What is a blocker
Unknown: to that? Do you see
in 2024 to achieving any of that? So some of that's gonna stop me from Yeah.
Unknown: Some of that's probably probably belief.
Really? I wanna set the okay. Yeah. Yeah. Probably belief.
As an entrepreneur, like, I've never liked class myself as an entrepreneur, but I guess I am.
When you're inside your own head Mhmm. Like,
you can, like,
come up with some fucking crazy stories, like, just not believing in yourself. And I think that's probably
why I think I've
had such a bit of a growth spurt in this Q1 of the year is I was like,
I I believe in what I'm doing now. I'm like,
because I had so many different things on the go before from, you know,
Livco, Livin Media, ambitious lifestyle, commercial cleaning, you know, all that type of stuff. Mhmm. That I was just so spread
thin that I didn't have a chance
Yep. To
believe in myself because there was so many things going on. And so when that goes wrong over there, and that goes wrong, and that goes wrong, I'm like, well, obviously, it's me. Yeah. Obviously, it's me. I'm obviously doing something wrong.
That would probably be my my biggest my biggest thing, but I've got
most friends around me that
believe in me, my partner believes, and my parents believe in me,
Unknown: that I that probably shouldn't stop me from what I'm wanting to achieve. Yeah. Yeah. Well, there you go. To 2024. Andrew, really appreciate that you kept jumping on, man, into the podcast as well. Now for those at home, if you didn't check into the previous podcast, how can they find you today? That's gonna not gonna be very hard, sorry. And if you listen to this Yeah. You, undoubtedly gonna get an ad for the lift code. I will work over it a 100%.
But if that doesn't happen Yeah. How do people go and reach out either to yourself or the companies that you're
Unknown: looking through? Probably just find me on my personal Instagram, which is Andrew Taylor, underscore, underscore, underscore, or Livco.
If you just go to www.lvc0.com.au,
Unknown: you're gonna get retargeted that many times that you're gonna probably gonna get sick of me. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which is the the right way to do it, Simon. I appreciate it. Just thanks so much, man. So much. Appreciate it.