Why Happiness Is Good For Business

Luke Chant  00:00

My next tip is to show up, Woody Allen said that 80% of success in life is just showing up. Woody Allen also married his stepdaughter. So we should be careful what advice we take from Woody Allen. But in this case, I think he was I think he was right.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  00:12

So good morning, and welcome to another edition of better business better life. Today, I am joined by Luke Chant, who is the owner of hotwire heating. And he’s based over in Melbourne, and we actually met through a community called business Blueprint. And I saw Luke do his talk up on stage in he was in Fiji wasn’t it and just loved what he was talking about and said, Hey, you should come and join me on the podcast. So look, thank you very much for joining us really appreciate it. Yeah, so you’ve got quite an interesting story in terms of your business and where it’s come from where we’ve got to, why don’t you just give us a little bit of a teaser in terms of take us through your best professional, best and personal best so far in your life?

Luke Chant  00:50

Okay. Well, from a business point of view, I’ve I’ve had a couple of rather spectacular business failures before this one. So we were the bruises and all of that. So I’ve certainly been been on that side of things, as well. For this, yeah, so I’ve had a personal level, I’ve actually done all sorts of things I was I was training for the Olympics and rowing once, so played semi professional soccer. I’ve, from a nonprofit point of view, done all sorts of different things, run, run, help running camps for youth, Haven even spent a short amount of time in jail. That was to run all those courses, not because they didn’t, it does, it does get the exact reaction that you just gave. But for, for a good little middle class white boy, you’re having a having a two or three, jail was a pretty eye opening experience, as well. So I’ve done all sorts of different things over the years. And then I got into I got into this business nearly 20 years ago, nearly 20 years ago now. And, and we’ve been look moderately successful, though, I wrote an article which was called 10 Steps to Business Success by a moderately successful business owner, which is the origin of what we’re talking about. And yeah, that’s really, ironically, been done every successful article. And they need to be in our feeder and podcasts. And as you said, given the talk at a at a international business conference as well. So it’s, it’s interesting how these things happen. It is wonderful. So it’s been 20 years now. Wow. So started in 2004 years and nearly 20 years.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  02:30

And why did you why this business?

Luke Chant  02:33

I had two business partners early on. And one of the one of them was actually looking to find an underfloor heating product in Australia, they were happy with. And they couldn’t find one. And they found one in New Zealand that they liked. And so they thought that if there was, if that was their experience, it might be other people’s experience as well. And so they started a business to distribute their product in Australia. And then after about six months, I came on board.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  02:56

Okay, so 10 tips on what to do successful businessman, let’s, let’s get started share us share that with us. Please.

Luke Chant  03:03

Sure. So the origin is I was actually sitting around a fire in our backyard with a friend of mine. And he, he was he’d been in sort of an employee all his life. And when I shared some of the things I’ve done, and some of the risks we’ve taken as a business owner, he was just really taken and really surprised by some of the things we’ve done and encouraged me to write them down. And so, I wrote an article and I published it just on LinkedIn. And it was called the 10 Steps to Business Success by a moderately successful owner. And I guess, because I was self effacing, in the title, that certainly appeals to the Australian and the New Zealand culture. You know, we like that kind of thing. And I had no anticipation of success, but it really, I think it’s really run through with people because I’m not on this podcast to say I’ve, I’ve made $50 million. And here’s my here’s my secrets, I’m my story is one of, of being moderately successful, and sort of, here’s the things I’ve done to do that. So that’s the basis of the of the presentation. So the presentation advices on the article. So the very first thing I I’d like to say is to is if you’re a business owner out there, just to be proud of what you’ve achieved. Every, every small business owner knows this knows that the numbers we’ve all heard that 80% of small businesses are going to fail in the first few years of operation. So if you’re a small business owner, and you’ve been in business for longer than three years, you’re a rockstar. Like you’ve beaten the odds, you’re an absolute legend you won’t you know, there should be parties in your honor. You have been 80% of the people that have ever started a business. So you’re immediately fabulously successful. You when you when you get home from work, your family should stand up and applaud I mean, you are amazingly successful. Having run a business for that long like it’s it really is just staggering when you when you look at all we’ve all seen that slides of the different businesses that started with nothing the Disney starting in their garage, and we’ve seen the bears are sitting around his computer when he was just nothing but a little desk in a in a room, you know, all these massive businesses started small, but you don’t have to be massive to achieve something and the very fact that the very fact that you are you’ve been around for that long is is just as staggeringly successful. And I think we should, we should really remind ourselves of that and not be caught up in wanting to be this, this person that that we’re not because just the very fact that you’ve been around for three years means you are unbelievably successful.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  05:42

Completely agree. Yeah.

Luke Chant  05:45

You know, and we can get so caught up in wanting to be Jeff Bezos and wanting to be these these massively successful people and, and I’ve stood in conferences, and it’s great to hear those stories. And I’ve been there and I’ve heard them and you get, and you do get inspired. But it can also make you feel just a little bit inadequate. And I’ve been there, too. And I think it’s really important to just to celebrate the successes you’ve had, I mean, I, I don’t have any photos, like those photos I spoke about at Disney and Jeff Bezos, I have nothing like that from when my business started. Because it was small, and I was ashamed of it. And I didn’t have it, I have nothing. And I don’t even live in the same state anymore. As when I started the service, I can’t go back and take them like, I don’t have anything to commemorate. And I really wish I did. I wish I had those photos to go look at how hard you were working. Look what you’ve done. And I and I just don’t, I just don’t have that. So celebrate where you’re at wherever your business, whatever your journey is, wherever you’re at, you should celebrate it.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  06:44

And I guess taking some photos along the way, too. I remember when I visited my event center, we literally started with this 500 square meter room that had nothing in it. And you know, we were furnishing it with secondhand furniture, anything we can find to get started. And I did take a lot of photos and I was quite proud of the fact that I’d taken this big leap. But it’s good to look back on those and they were ended up in the end where it was professionally furnished and everything was kind of running smoothly. It is quite nice. So yes, definitely celebrate small successes. And do take some photos along the way. Don’t be ashamed.

Luke Chant  07:12

And photos. Celebrate it. Yeah, really take something to remember where you’ve come from.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  07:17

Excellent. Yeah.

Luke Chant  07:18

My next My next tip is don’t spend what you haven’t got. Now, for those of you who who watching this online, it’s not not immediately, not immediately obvious. I’m not I’m not a small person. I’m I’m over 100 kilograms and nearly two meters tall. And that’s relevant for this story. Because early on in our business journey, we realized that we simply couldn’t afford to run two cars anymore. We had we had we got married quite young, we had four kids and six years so so my wife Natasha, she obviously needed a car to get around and get the kids around to school everything else but we just included that where she simply couldn’t afford to have to and so we sell on our second car and I bought a little 50 cc motor scooter. Now for those who don’t know anything about motorbikes that is only a tiny bit bigger than a Walmart is a tiny little motor like one of those little tiny scooter things I’ve got quite a bit that’s like a hairdryer, doesn’t it when it goes yeah, it was about 1200 bucks. I think I paid for it at the time, but but we simply couldn’t afford anything else and I had to swallow my pride. And as I said, I’m not a small person on a 194 centimeters and 100 kilograms. And you know, I looked ridiculous if you if you remember those clowns on the little pushbikes at the circus when we were kids within these were right up, that’s what it looked like riding mistaken. But I remember once I drove right across town to this business business meeting, and I had I had a presentation folder that I squeezed between my knees the whole way across and then I got there and I had to take my jacket off my helmet off and I sort of hid them under the seat and got my suit jacket out and made myself look as good as I could and and went into this when it is meeting but that was how I had to operate for a while because we just couldn’t afford anything else that was that was where we were at in life and and as time went by obviously in the in the business grew a little bit more we were able to able to change that and I bought my midlife crisis car a couple of years ago and I’ve got the big red forward drive twin cab up now that I don’t need but it’s, my it’s my twin brother’s car but for a long time they just had to go. We can’t afford that. I simply can’t You know, I had old computers I had, you know, we just did whatever we could to get through and to grow the business and and I’ve sat in cafes with business owners lamenting their cash flow. Well, there’s $100,000 car sitting outside. You just just because we have been successful and because we should enjoy and we should celebrate our successes when we’ve had them. It just doesn’t mean we should be stupid with our money either. And as business owners, it’s just really easy to get to get carried away. Absolutely. So don’t spend and what you haven’t got.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  10:01

Yeah. And just make do with things like you said older technology as long as it’s still functioning. Do what you can.

Luke Chant  10:08

Yeah, whatever, whatever you have to do. Yeah. There’s my suggestion, whatever you have to do to get through.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  10:14

Yep. Perfect. Okay, great. Number three.

Luke Chant 10:17

My next tip is to show up. Oh, Woody Allen said that 80% of success in life is just showing up. But he all he Woody Allen also married his stepdaughter. So we should be careful what advice we take from from Woody Allen. But in this case, I think he was I think he was right. I, I sat down with a customer of mine recently was quite a quite a large sale. And he’d agreed to use us on an ongoing basis. And we were executed the agreement, I followed him off. And we’ve done all that side of things. And, and I sat down at the end of the conversation. And then I asked him why he’d gone with or, you know, I knew he’d spoken to my competitors. He told me about that. So so just why, why go ahead with hotwire. And he looked at me and he said, You were the one that kept asking me for my business. Now, I’ve sat through sales courses at the business Blueprint program where I met, she never would, I’ve said under some amazing teaching, I’ve, I’ve been trying to be a better salesman. Since I started working nearly 30 years ago, I have said, I’ve read books, I’ve said in sales courses, I’ve, I’ve done everything I could to be a better salesperson. And I won this business, because I was the one who simply asked. I didn’t use a closing line. I didn’t use any techniques, or I didn’t use any of the stuff I’d I’d learned about you know, mimicking body language when you’re when you’re when you’re trying to sell it as I didn’t do any of that I was just simply the one that kept ringing. Yep. And, you know, I, my, I guess my my superpower is is just rugged determination to keep following people up on. You know, there’s lots of other facets of my business that I’m not very good at at all. And I hire other people to do but but in this case, it’s just that follow up, and follow up, and follow up. So be the one that sends that extra phone, that extra email, be the one that makes the extra phone call. Just pick up the phone, even if you don’t know what to say the very Oh, I didn’t have anything to say I just said. Have you made a decision yet? Yeah. Anyway, and he went ahead with hotwire they still are customer and has been for some time since because I was simply the one that showed up.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  12:31

Beautiful. So just show up. That’s the next step. Got it.

Luke Chant  12:36

My next one is bite off more than you can chew. And then chew like hell. So for those listeners in Australia that we’re very familiar with, with a company called Beaumont tiles that are Australia’s biggest tile company. They’ve got some 120 Odd stores around Australia. And when we started the business now the owner was a gentleman called Bob Bowman has recently sold the whole company but generally called Bob Beaumont, who we knew personally and our business was tiny. And we had just started that we were a matter of a few months old. And we had a meeting with with Bob and he was he was renovating his home at the time. And so he took the opportunity to try our product in his house, which we thought was a great idea. So we we put out we put out underfloor heating. In his house, I put some guitars in and he loved it. He was he was sold immediately said it was the best thing ever. And he said, right, I want this through at that start at that stage, I had about 75 stores as an out of 120. But they said that I want this through all our stores across Australia. And we had we had a tiny little business just started our warehouse, you could fit in like a, you know, a tiny little garden shed. Like all our inventory, we had nothing. And we just said to Bob, yeah, sure, we can do that. No Vols. Let’s do it. And then we left the meeting. And I had two business partners at the time. I bought them out some time ago. But I had two business partners and we all looked at each other and just went How the hell are we going to do this? Like we’re just committed to this, this programs massive company. And so we started so we had we had to put salespeople in place around Australia and obviously Australia is a big place to to that geographically and we had to have sales agents immediately across the country. We had to trade installers we had to just work like crazy to make this thing happen and that we that we did. And I’ve actually just today last week, I was at their national conference at the Beaumont tiles national conference was one of the gold sponsors of the conference. And they’re still up there our biggest customer to this day and they’re a massive part of what we do all because we just bit off more than we could shoot and shoot like hell. We just said we could do it and then worked out how and it’s been an amazing opportunity for us ever since. So. Yeah, just just say yes and work out how you’re gonna do it later.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  14:54

Yep, that makes perfect sense.

Luke Chant  14:59

Yeah, absolutely. Right. So my next tip is to put your family first. Now, this might sound like obvious, super simple, but I recommend everybody listening to this, I’m sure would say the family is more important than their business. This is not going to be anyone that doesn’t say that. But how do you practically achieved? For example, as I said, I’ve just come back from the Beaumont tiles national conference now, because of COVID and rescheduling the conference and venue availability and all that sort of thing. I had to fly up the conference on Father’s Day. And it started the conference started that that night wasn’t their fault. As I said, it was rescheduling and all sorts of things that we’ve all had, we’ve all had to deal with. So I had to go. And my kids are all adults now. But, but they still want to see that dad on Father’s Day. But I had to go to a conference on Father’s Day. So yes, my family is more important. But how do I practically achieve that, you know, in a business environment, I couldn’t not go the conference. So it’s a really practical one and might not sound like a business tip. But I really think it is if business is if your business is going to be successful, your family has to be in order. And if one is not, then the other won’t be. And so what I did when the kids were really little is I started something super practical to so that my kids knew that they were important, no matter what else was happening. So what I did was one day when there are super little when I drove them to school and the school had a drop off say or sort of a kissing drop zone, you drive through the school, kick them out the car and keep driving. And I got an already fiscal well they put the uniforms on lunchboxes, the whole deal. drove through the school I just slowed down but never stopped and just kept driving at the school yard. And in the back of the old Commodore station wagon. I had all this stuff for a date with each body goes a whole lot. And we just went to the beach today and is driving at the school yard because they don’t want you doing that that’s too hot. Let’s go to the beach. And I’m going to the beach of the day. And every year since then, I’ve done the same thing. We just had a surprise day off and the kids grew to call it the secret special day off school. And every year they start wondering, you know where the secret special day off was going to be in. Depending on where we were at. Sometimes it was just something that was free. It was a day at the beach, it was a picnic in the park. Other times as the business grew a little bit and we had a bit more financial capacity. Sometimes it was at a theme park, or something at the aquarium in Melbourne as you can see once and and we’ve done all these different things. But always as a surprise, always without having any idea what was going on. And towards the end of the school of actually we’re catching a bus to school that I had to put them on the bus and then race the bus to school of the school to achieve the same the same thing I waved goodbye to their friends as they as they got in the car and off we went through the day. And but what that did is is it meant that it achieved a couple of things. So on the day we went out for the day, they obviously were reminded, this is great. That statement is out. But every single time throughout the year they thought is this the day when I drove them to school

Debra Chantry-Taylor  18:03

Because you didn’t tell them it was a surprise day, right? They know which day it was

Luke Chant  18:07

They never had an idea of what day it was every day they thought  this a day. It also reminded them that there was the day. So it reinforced it time and time again, that that the dad for our it’s awesome. And it was one day and I turned my phone off and I take them out for the day. And that was it. And they were the most important thing in my life for that day. And so when I had to one last week, go to the Beaumont Charles conference on Father’s Day. They had something to hang their hat on to know that they were super important in my wife still and even though I had to go to work. This was something that I done so so it was something really practical that I did when the kids were quite little and started the process. And it was it was it was really great. I asked recently, about a year ago I asked one of my daughters what I’ve got a son and three daughters and I asked one of my daughters what what her most favorite part of my parenting was. And before I could even finish the sentence she said the secret special day of school because it was just me this is something I did. Yeah, my wife doesn’t work in the business. So, so this was just something I did to with the kids once a year to show them how important they were and yeah, it was it was really amazing and something that are really special. Yes, secret special. They have schools that really encourage everyone to do it.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  19:22

Love it. Absolutely love it. Okay, so family first Yep, got that.

Luke Chant  19:26

My next tip is choose your business partners carefully. Now, we might not all have business partners, but almost all of us at some point in time will have an opportunity to to possibly engage a business fun or have an opportunity to expand to get bought out to do whatever and as I said I had two business partners at the start and it was a interesting relationship right from the right from the get go. The one of the partners I just couldn’t. We got on personally find within the business and the practical level. It was just really challenging what from the start and we got to about eight years into five or seven years into the relationship, and it was becoming just more and more difficult and a lot of strain on on all of us. And, and one day, one of my ex partners called me into his office and, and he said to me that, that locally, we’ve lost, we’ve lost confidence in your ability to run the company. So we’re going to be exiting you from from a business. Now I owned a percentage of the business, so they couldn’t take that away from me, but they could accept me from a practical day to day role, basically losing my job. Now, my business partners were very two honorable guys. And I have, whilst I disagreed with their decision that I don’t have anything negative to say about them as a as businessman or indeed, as people. They’re both honest, upright, great, great men of integrity. But obviously, I disagreed with the decision. The process they then followed for me to exit the business again, was was quite generous in the in the way it was playing out. But it still meant that I was going to be out of time growing and I’d be out of a job. And we were halfway through renovating a house, we certainly hadn’t started to make much money out of business out of the business yet I was very much the junior as the three business partners. And we were, we were, we were stuffed. The, you know, we were really financially difficult situation, our house was said, half renovated, we were trying to work out what our next step was, and I was applying for jobs, I was looking at other business opportunities, and I was just getting absolutely nothing. Not any opportunities, I was getting Junior salespeople jobs paying not even paying me as much as my school fee bill was was at the time. Just getting nothing. And we were we were very close to to having to put our house on the market and going probably moving with with my wife’s parents who didn’t really have the space for us. And we would have been literally sleeping on the floor of their home than what our wife and I are people of faith. And we certainly prayed a lot during that period of time. And at the 11th hour and the 59th Minute, one of my ex partners called me up and he said, look, look, we’ve we’ve lost faith. Sorry, there’s a previous conversation, he said that he said, we don’t, we don’t actually want to sign the business. We’ve talked about it, and we’re going to sell it to you on vendor finance. listeners who don’t know what that means it’s where you pay for business out of the ongoing profits, you don’t actually have to have any money upfront. So I jumped at the opportunity primarily because I had no other choice.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  22:39

Why the change of heart from their point of view, they suddenly realized how hard it was to run.

Luke Chant  22:44

Well, and I think they both had other business interests as well. And it just was the decision, they decided that they didn’t want to run this, this business with their other the other interests that they that they had. And so it gave me the opportunities to purchase it from them which which I did in a heartbeat because I as I said I had no other I had no other choice. So a somewhat of a happy ending, but the about the stress and the the difficulty that put on my family relationships on on my relationship with my wife, if it was so difficult during that period of time that even with the success we’d have, we’d have we have had since if you told me when I started, when I first got involved, the stress and the pain it was going to cause I I don’t think we would have we would have done it. It was it was just so hard and so challenging, because that relationship with my partners just didn’t work.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  23:37

So so I liken it to a marriage, right, if you’re going into a business partnership is just like getting married, you’ve got to have the same values, you’ve got to share the same vision. You’ve got to be able to work together in a partnership. And sometimes, you know, it’s not that they’re not good people. It’s not that they’re not lovely people, but they’re just not the right people.

Luke Chant  23:57

Yeah, and that was a situation here, we just weren’t a great team. It looked good on paper, the skill sets that everyone had. But when it came to a day to day, day to day working together, it just didn’t. It just didn’t work and and the three of us have actually been quite successful going our separate ways doing doing things since it’s, it’s worse, like it’s far it’s quite well since but it was still just a really challenging and super hard situation. So yeah, if you kind of get in business or someone you’ve got to make sure that it’s the right person, you’ve also got to have a really clear exit strategy, particularly if you’re going into business with someone you know, and you like it’s even more important to make sure that the exit agreement on exactly what you’re going to do if one of you wants to get out is clear. Yep, fantastic. My next tip is you don’t know what you don’t know. So about five or six years ago, I realized that the business was starting to grow at a good rate. And it was it was kicking some goals, but it was also equally obvious that I didn’t actually know what to do next. So that was I just this business was happening. And it was it was going and I didn’t know. So I looked around and and I actually went to a a one day free seminar by by a guy called Dale Beaumont who, which is the conference where Debra and I ended up meeting. And, and I will said something at the start of this conference. And this is not at all an advert for his fees program. But he said at the start of the this, this free day that he does, as his sort of lead into joining the program, he said, if you knew how to take your business to the next level, you would have already done. And I thought, yeah, Europe, signed me up, though. I signed up and I this was right at the start of the day, right? There’s a whole one day free thing of all this stuff to try and get you to sign up for the program. And he could have sold me in the first 15 minutes. Because that point was the clarity I needed. And he was absolutely right, if I knew how to do what I would have done it. And clearly I didn’t. So So I joined up the business Blueprint program. Now, in your industry, there might be something completely different you might have, whatever it is, there’s there’s always something that we don’t know. And don’t be afraid to go, Hey, I don’t actually know how to do this, I need a business coach, I need to join this industry association, I need to whatever the group is in your field, and it might be something like business blueprint. It there’s a lot of different things. It could be but you don’t know what you don’t know. And sometimes you just you just got to acknowledge, hey, I don’t actually know the answer that I’ve got. I’ve got any clue, let’s let’s let’s solve that. Let’s find out what the solution is. And as it I joined somewhere like, like business Blueprint to to make that.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  26:41

Perfect. Yeah, no, it’s very, very true. I mean, we often come from us, or passions and the things that we get excited about, but doesn’t really know how to run a company. And so you know, there’s things that you can learn across the many different areas of the business as well. You might be a specialist in sales and marketing like I am, it doesn’t necessarily mean your budget, finances or great operations or customer service, whatever it might be. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Okay.

Luke Chant  27:06

Next one, the next one is the one that I think when I was telling my friend around the fire, what I’ve done, and started this conversation, this was this was the one that made his eyes, babe a little bit, I think, and that was around your affinity with risk. And if you’re going to be in business, you just, if you’re not someone who likes taking risks, then you probably shouldn’t be a business. And we, we had an opportunity to get into one of Australia’s largest largest retailers, and it was a, it was a huge opportunity for us, it sort of came out of out of the blue, just from an excellent networking type conversation, just chatting to people, and then this opportunity comes up. And it was it was too good not to do. But it was also a massive cash investment for me to buy the stock, I needed to stop their stores. And I just I just simply didn’t have it. So it was I was talking to my wife at length over what we’re going to do, I said, we have to find a way to make this happen, it’s going to be great for the business, but we just don’t have I don’t have the money and their existing credit facilities don’t aren’t adequate to start going. I negotiated some very good payment terms with them. But they’re obviously not going to pay to like got their stock. And I had an I had to buy it and import it and get it manufactured and get it into Australia. So that house we were talking about before being half renovated, we then we finished renovating that, and we’d sold it and we will move into a different part of Melbourne. And we were renting for a year or so while we found the house we wanted to we wanted to buy so all our equity was actually sitting in the bank. And so, I sat down with my wife one night and I said, you know, all that money we’ve got sitting in the bank, I think we should put it back into the business so I can buy this stock until we get paid for this product. Which sounds like a great idea. And it was, you know, instead it was it was a big company, it was a good opportunity for us. And my wife eventually agreed and so we took pretty much every cent we had, and we put it back into the business to buy this stuff. Which all sounds well and good. But we bought the stock and it arrived in a good amount of time and we packaged it up. In the meantime, we found the house we want to buy and we had we had enough left that we pay the deposit but settlement was coming and we had to pay the balance of the property. All right. Well, we would have lost our deposit and we would have lost the house that we’ve been looking for it for a year. So these started to cry a little bit of a little bit of stress in our in our little world and the goods arrived we packaged them up. We sent them out to our client who rejected the packaging because it wasn’t good enough and they were right. We didn’t actually do a good enough job and so they sent up and had to be repackaged and then sent out again. And in the meantime, the payment dates and the date, that’s only the money for the house getting closer and closer and closer together. So we said we sent the goods out for the second time they arrived, they were approved, and the bill was eventually paid. And then money arrived into our account on the day before settlement, as well. Our house

Debra Chantry-Taylor  30:28

Was an unconditional contract, right, there was no room for changing the date.

Luke Chant  30:33

And by that stage, it had, like I was never, I was never worried about getting the money. It was a reputable business we were dealing with. But the timing of it was tighter than I’d anticipated, obviously, and we got right to the end, as you just heard within 24 hours of losing the house, so but if you’re going to be successful in business, perhaps you don’t put everything you own back into your business and take that sort of risk, perhaps. But for us, we decided it was the right thing to do that. If you’re going to be in business, you’re going to have to take some sort of some sort of risks. And if you’re if you’re a risk adverse person. Maybe you should, maybe you should think about perhaps a different a different course of action. Sure.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  31:17

No, that makes perfect sense. And I understand I actually do some of the things sadly I lost all my money but you know that happens.

Luke Chant  31:24

Yeah, well, I haven’t ever lost, lost at all. We were that obviously was was the biggest risk we take in life that were where it was certainly a certainly a possibility. But it was also risk and reward. Um,

Debra Chantry-Taylor  31:38

Yeah, you’re telling this story. That’s great.

Luke Chant  31:41

So that was that was what we chose to do. And it worked out so nice. My next tip is to I think I’ve only got to lift my next tip is to choose great stuff. This goes without saying but Steve, Steve Jobs said something about the quote here it says it doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do. We hire smart people, and let them tell us what to do. Now I’m I’m dyslexic, I am great at sales. You know, I can fiddle around with the computer a little bit. But that’s kind of where my where my real business skills, my real business skills. And so I’ve got a you know, I don’t pay any bills, because I’m just lifting I won’t say they pay their electricity bill by $5,000. Long numbers in there on the fly. So right, okay. Yep, yeah, no, I don’t do that, because I’ll get it wrong. And if I ever do I have someone else come and look over my shoulder and check it a dozen times to make sure that I’ve got it got it. Alright, so really grateful keeper, I’ve got a great accountant who, who I trust implicitly to do with that sort of thing for me, because I’m just gonna get along. You know, I’ve got I’m great at winning business, as you heard about before, following, you have been making all those phone calls and being the person who kept showing up, I’m great at winning business, that I’m actually not that great at keeping it. You know, I’m a very competitive person. So I just want the next sale and I go, go go, and then I just get a bit bored. So by my sales manager is actually x by my tiles. And so and he’s amazing customer service, he is an absolute Rockstar, and he, he will just people just everyone loves it. They just think he’s the best person in the world. And, and he is amazing, where I’m where I’m not, you know, I’ve got I’ve got some great backup, you know, back end office staff here who do amazing work. And they’re all better at what they do them than that I you know, I hire people who are great at doing that. And, and I’m not threatened at all by that because it’s the only way I can succeed and go forward is to is to have all those people as a part of my team. So don’t be afraid to hire someone who is better at something than you.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  33:41

Yeah. And it takes so much pressure off you don’t you know, we’ve struggled with these things that we’re not particularly good at. And it takes up energy, it takes up time in federal freeing yourself up, get the opportunity cost to free yourself up to do a whole lot more things that you’re really, really good at and that you love.

Luke Chant  33:58

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I on my wife and I had a month long trip to Europe in April of 2020, which obviously didn’t go ahead. So we’re taking that we’re taking that next year. And I’ve got absolute confidence that all the people I’ve hired to do the things in the office, we’ll keep doing that. And I’ll be able to go for a trip to Europe for a month and just say, Say see you later and they’re all very capable of doing things and even business running, running without me. Because we’re great at what they do.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  34:25

That’s what business should be about, which shouldn’t be reliant on you as the owner. Okay, cool, great, great people. Absolutely.

Luke Chant  34:31

Absolutely. And my very last tip to everyone is to actually give stuff away. And I think it’s, I think it’s beholden on us as individuals, you know, in a community to support those that are less, you know, less less fortunate, less fortunate than ourselves. And we support an organization called Southern Cross kids camps that run camps for three underprivileged and socioeconomically disadvantaged kids. And it doesn’t matter what your charity is and what you support, but I think as, as just responsible members of society, nevermind business owners, I think we just simply have to find a charity that we support, find a community group that you can be a part of, and give something back to the to the community give something back to the to everyone else in now that we, that we share this planet with, there’s so many different charities out there to do so many good works, that there’s bound to be someone out there that, that, you know, whatever your passion is, whatever really brings a tear to your eye. You can that you can help them with and, and we said, we support an organization called Southern Cross kids camps, I’ve actually got their CEO coming in this week to speak to my staff so that they’re really aware of what we what they do as a group. And we’re going to sit down on Thursday morning, and just spend some time with them. So that we really appreciate more about the organization that we’re that we’re supporting this point. But yeah, I just think it’s incredibly important, even particularly when your business is small, if you create the habit of giving money away when it’s tighter, and when it’s harder as you grow, you’ll be able to be more generous, and you’ll be able to give more money away, and it won’t be as much of much of an issue. So even if you’re smaller, you can afford 100 bucks a month to somebody give give, give 100 bucks a month somewhere, and just make sure that we are giving back and leaving this planet a better way.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  36:23

I must admit, I’ve been a trustee for the life Education Trust for almost the last 15 years. And I I’ve given two ways I give money. And then I also give my time as well to help with that. And, and even through the tough times. There was times I was thinking, I can’t really afford this. I’d be better off having this money myself. But I continued and yeah, it just it’s the whole Go Giver concept. Right? The more the more you give, the more you shall receive. And they Yeah, it didn’t really harm me that it meant I had one less coffee a week. Yeah, sure. But it was really good. It made you feel good that really genuinely did.

Luke Chant  36:54

Well, that’s it, of course, the other flipside you’re doing you’re doing something good, but it also makes you the benefit rather than if it is there, it actually makes you feel really good.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  37:01

It does. People love to help people, it’s in our nature to want to help people. And so for me, it was it was knowing that even though things weren’t going as well as I would have liked for myself, I was still able to make a difference in other ways.

Luke Chant  37:12

If you’re there’s one charity, I will give a shout out to that integrates really well with a business and it’s called buy one give one. Yeah, I know a lot of businesses that use it. And what you can do with buy one give one is when someone pays for a service from you, you can buy goats in a rural community, you can do this sort of thing. So every time a transaction happens, that triggers an equal transaction as a giveaway. And the the internet provider I use us uses them. And every time I pay a bill, I get an email back going hey, thanks. That’s awesome. We’re pleased you’ve stayed with us. And you’ve also just done this. Yeah, nice. You You’ve done a well, you’ve like you’ve done a different thing. And so they’re they’re a really great one to integrate with with a with a business transaction. So this called by one good finding this Google that. I have no association with them. I just know that they happen to to have a really good system that integrates well with businesses.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  38:10

Yeah, I’ve got a few more businesses actually use it as well. And it’s fantastic. Okay, cool. Wow. Well, there’s, we certainly covered a lot there. And I know I was just looking at your LinkedIn thing. And I can see that if you just Google Luke Chant and 10. I didn’t even quite get the title, right. But I put 10 Steps to Success by modern successful business owner, and it comes up there on LinkedIn. So if you want to find out more about each of those individual things, Greg’s article is there on LinkedIn, sorry, Luke Chant Articles there on LinkedIn.

Luke Chant  38:37

Yeah, the cup of cup articles I wrote two about things I learned after being attacked by kangaroo was another article. Oh, really. And just a couple other ones as well. So I got my moderately successful success.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  38:52

As a sudden joy to be able to write these things and share them, I think I have a bit of fun with them. So obviously, normally, we ask for three top tips for you’ve given us 10 Top Tips, I don’t need to ask you about three more tips. I really appreciate you sharing that those 10 tips. And I suppose what’s your parting thoughts for the listeners out there who are just generally kind of established business owners who might be feeling like they’ve hit a bit of a ceiling and and maybe not getting everything they want out of both their business and their life? What would be the your parting kind of message for them as a moderately successful businessman?

Luke Chant  39:24

My first, our first thing is, is I think the most most important is just to be proud of what you’ve achieved. Because even even if you’ve had some difficulties and your business is not maybe where it used to be, we wanted it to be you’ve still you’re still taking a risk that most people in society have not have not done this vast majority of our population have not taken the risk of starting a small business and it doesn’t make us it’s not that doesn’t make us better than anyone else. It’s just it’s just you should be proud of what you’ve what you’ve achieved. If it’s not what you’ve what you really wanted to then University As big as you want it, if you haven’t achieved everything you wanted to achieve, you should still be really proud of the fact that you tried and that you that you stuck your neck out. There’s a there’s a quote that I haven’t it’s my screensaver on my tablet with speech, Scott, The Man in the Arena by by Franklin Roosevelt be familiar with that?

Debra Chantry-Taylor  40:18

Hi, yeah, but please share it, I’d love to.

Luke Chant  40:21

All right, I’m gonna, I’ll share it quickly as my as my, as my parting thoughts. My parting thought if you if you’d like to look this up, you can just look up the man, the man in the Man in the Arena. Just trying to get it up here. And it says, It’s not the critic who counts, nor the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could actually have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who was actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly who errs, who comes up short again and again. Because there is no effort without error and shortcoming. But who does actually strive to do the deeds, who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause who at best knows the end of triumph and high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with soul, those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat. And I read that almost every day, it’s it’s the screensaver on my on my tablet, and the code called the man and men in the arena, read that once every morning, get up, get up and going.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  41:41

And of course, that that sort of fit into all the work that Brene Brown did. And her book Daring Greatly was actually from that particular quote, and she talked about vulnerability. Well, you’re absolutely right. I mean, I think that we’re often quite hard on ourselves as entrepreneurs, because we have such high expectations of ourselves and people around us, and we don’t take enough time to celebrate those small wins. So I think you’re absolutely spot on. It’s important that we actually are kind to ourselves and actually recognize the things that we have done that, like you said, most other people have not actually put themselves out there and done that. Yeah. So thank you. What a wonderful way to finish hey, look, apart from obviously finding your article online, Luke, how can people get in contact with you if they wanted to? Either get some underfloor heating or if they wanted to just talk to you about life, the universe and everything?

Luke Chant  42:25

Yeah. So LinkedIn is probably the easiest way. It’s the easiest way to internationally, particularly with the with your audience in New Zealand, as well as Australia to find me. I don’t think there’s any other loop charts on LinkedIn. I think it’d be even if you just search for live chat moderately, you’ll probably find

Debra Chantry-Taylor  42:41

It did. It came up pretty quickly. So it’s great.

Luke Chant  42:44

So yeah, my business is hotwire heating. We provide a floor heating and heated showers and distribute distribute around Australia. So yeah, anyone’s anyone’s out there in that selling those sorts of products. I’d certainly be happy to talk to you.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  42:58

That’s fantastic. Hey, look, thank you so much for giving me your time. Really appreciate it. I look forward to seeing you at the next business blueprint conference. And I look forward to seeing more of your writing as well. So keep it up.

Luke Chant  43:09

Thanks Debra.