Building your business from the ground up (part 3)

Have you ever stared at your social media feed, wondering if there's a secret sauce to branding success? Zeke and I have been there, and in our latest podcast, we crack open the playbook on elevating your brand's online presence. With the digital landscape in constant flux, we dissect the roles of different platforms and share our adventures in creating the perfect Instagram aesthetic. We get real about the fear of judgment and celebrate the unexpected joys of networking with a community that shares your vision. Our chat isn't just about pretty pictures—it's a deep dive into knowing your audience and crafting content that resonates, whether it be through information, allure, or sheer quality.

Turning the tables on traditional employment, we recount the adrenaline rush of trading the 9-to-5 for the entrepreneurial hustle. There’s something invigorating about crafting your own schedule and owning your outcomes, yet it comes with the need for unwavering discipline. We open up about the challenging moments and the exhilarating sense of freedom that comes with being your own boss. Hear about the life-changing power of accountability and how it morphs from a buzzword into a business lifeline. This shift isn't just about leaving an old job; it's about embracing a lifestyle that rewards boldness and self-reliance at any age.

Wrapping up, we don’t just talk shop—we get personal. Join us as we commit to a fitness journey, aiming to crush goals and meet icons like David Goggins. Our quest for physical excellence mirrors the acute attention to detail necessary in branding and the importance of aligning personal values with professional aspirations. It's not just about the bottom line; it's about the holistic experience of growth and the clarity that comes from aligning what you do with who you are. So, smash that follow button, subscribe, and share this episode—let's embark on this exhilarating ride together.

For any enquiries or to connect with Oscar, Zeke, or their company, Asset Road, listeners can visit the following links:

• Finance Bible Podcast Instagram
• Asset Road Instagram
• Asset Road Website

The advice shared on The Finance Bible is general in nature and does not consider your individual circumstances. The Finance Bible exists purely for educational / entertainment purposes and should not be relied upon to make an investment or financial decision. If you do choose to buy a financial product, read the PDS, TMD and obtain appropriate financial advice tailored towards your needs

Transcript

Zeke Guenthroth & Oscar Don: 0:10

Welcome back to another episode of the Finance Bible Podcast. Zeke here and your co-host, oscar. But before we get into it, please note that nothing in this podcast should ever be considered as personal financial advice. Of course, if that is what you are seeking, reach out. We'll get you in touch with the correct professionals. Get the job done properly, sit back, relax and enjoy the show. Let's get into it.

Zeke Guenthroth & Oscar Don: 0:38

Getting your company out there and today's day and age, the best way to get it out there is everyone's on their phone. So social media is perfect for brand awareness and building that brand awareness. So create social media profiles for your business. So I'm talking instagram, linkedin, facebook, twitter, tiktok, spotify for our podcast literally every single. The more you have the better, just so you're on there and start posting. Even if you don't have many clients, you might want to see which kind of vibe you're looking at. So it took us a while to figure out the Instagram grid. For anyone who does know Instagram, a grid is an important aspect of the account because it's the first thing that people see when they jump online to your profile. So you want that to look good. So I was trying to figure out which color of codes am I going to go? Am I going to coordinate between white and blue, which are our colors? And then slowly we started educating people and throwing reels out of ourselves and talking to people and talking about real life examples of client wins, and then that just builds up over time.

Zeke Guenthroth & Oscar Don: 1:49

Consistency is key when you are marketing. I'm not in any marketing company or digital marketing company, so I'm sure there's others out there who know a lot more about this than us. But it's pretty simple, it's like compound interest the more you post. If it's pretty simple, it's like compound interest, the more you post. If it's actually quality content, the better it is, because people will share that around. Like one of our first reels got a few shares around and I'm not sure if it was a about uh, because it was so informative. But I think it was shared around because everyone was looking at, look at me, like what an idiot this bloke is speaking to the camera. But the first time you do it, it's always going to be scary or you're putting yourself out there, unless you're just a natural and you love the camera. Well, a lot of people get nervous with what people think. Yeah, absolutely. But you just don't worry, it's your business. It's your profile. It's your profile, it's your life. People will always try and look at you and laugh or try and bring you down, but you just don't worry about it.

Zeke Guenthroth & Oscar Don: 2:51

Actually, my man number one, mr Worldwide Pitbull, he actually had a real pop up on me today. He was saying he loves the haters, the naysayers and the people like that, because they're the reason that he does what he does. They add the gasoline to the fire, yes, so they motivate him because he's like I'm gonna prove you wrong, chico, I'm gonna, I'm gonna teach you a lot. Well, we're not. We're not saying if you make an instagram account you're gonna get hated, but uh, well, I never know. You just never know.

Zeke Guenthroth & Oscar Don: 3:21

So if a lot of people are scared to create instagram accounts for that reason, but there's so many people out there who want the best for you and want to, you know they're like-minded, so they want to, you know, build their wealth, they want to build their career, and you end up noticing that community so much more. Actually, it's insane. Like when I was before I met you, I obviously have, you know, a few friends who are like that. Like when I was before I met you, I obviously have, you know a few friends who are like that, but a lot of people you hang out with aren't really. It's hard to find the same mindset and then, once you put it out there, people will message you and you know you'll figure it out yourself and then you connect with them and that's when networking happens. You meet someone who introduces you to someone else and you've got referrals, you've got clients, you've got business partners, happy days yeah, it's unreal.

Zeke Guenthroth & Oscar Don: 4:10

But with the marketing stuff like not only do you need to know your demographic and who you're targeting and what you're putting up and stuff but you need to have a good idea of what actually sells and what people actually look at. There's certain things that sell. Like if, if you're trying to market clothing to females or something, you're not going going to have a male there putting the clothing on or something. If you're trying to sell lip balm or something, you might be doing a little sexy advertisement like you know, hayley Bieber loves to do it with her road. Jesus Christ, it just came to mind because I put lip balm on earlier and I was like, oh, lip balm. You do love Hayley Bieber and Justin Bieber.

Zeke Guenthroth & Oscar Don: 4:43

You need to actually think about, okay, what is a product, or what is a good or service or whatever that you're actually selling, and how do you actually market that? So you know, some things need information, some things need appeal, some things need sex appeal, some things need, like, quality a whole bunch of different things to think about, and that is specific to you, your industry, your product, your good, whatever it is the good end, the bright end of the tunnel? Yes, after all those things you've got to look at, there is an ending, but I guess when you end the tunnel, it's basically the beginning of another one. Yeah, maybe it is, maybe it is. It's another tunnel. It's an endless mountain you now have to start climbing. Yeah, but now, instead of going through the Sydney Harbour Bridge Tunnel and going 20km an hour, stuck behind traffic and waiting on this and waiting on that and being frustrated, you're now in a tunnel where you might be able to reach the full 80km an hour. Enjoy it, drive along, and you've got some financial independence about you, so you know you might be transitioning to full time at your new company and you can generate enough income to cover your salary or whatever.

Zeke Guenthroth & Oscar Don: 5:52

It is a little bit of expenses here and there. You're stable, you've left your job. You're happy You're able to book a flight to here because you need to go do something there, and then you're able to come home and pay rent and book a flight there or pay your mortgage or whatever it is. It's just being able to actually do things. You're living a normal life. You've got the income. It's like you're working a normal job. But you're working your own job. Yeah, it's a I.

Zeke Guenthroth & Oscar Don: 6:18

I still remember the first morning when we were like out on our own, the, the feeling of waking up and it's. It's a weird feeling because you're so excited and you've you've got all this free time. Well, it's really not free time. It's how you make your time. Really, it's free time in the sense that you're not having to get up and drive to work and then, yeah, you've got all this extra time. But it's the responsibility. You've got a responsibility your income, your life. If you have a family, your family as well.

Zeke Guenthroth & Oscar Don: 6:49

But it's all about taking the leap and I think, risking something like that, like risking a bit of short-term. What am I trying to say? What was the quote? While you think of the quote, I know what you're trying to say. You're trying to say taking that risk and a bit of short-term turmoil and possibly getting set back three or six months, is worth it when you could be long-term, just living, happy, working for yourself. And I think, if your goal in your life is to work for yourself and be on your own agenda and have a flexible life, you've got kids or family or if you don't have kids or family, you just want to work for yourself.

Zeke Guenthroth & Oscar Don: 7:33

What's the worst thing that can happen if the business goes wrong? One of the worst things that can happen if the business goes wrong. One of the worst things is it doesn't perform well and then you're going to have to go back and get a job which you have been doing your last 20 years. It's really not that bad. It's kind of where you were before you started your entrepreneur shift. So that's kind of what we, that's kind of our mindset. That's reminded me of what I think you were going to say, which is one of your favorite things what if it doesn't work? Yes, what if it does work? Yeah, I was so. On instagram, you always see these quotes and reels of these people saying is that what doesn't work? No, I actually wasn't, but I'm glad you brought that up. Yeah, what if it doesn't work. Everyone always that. Everyone's scared to jump into a business that they're passionate about because they think, oh no, what if I fail? I lose all my money and people laugh at me and this. But the other thing is, what if it does work? I'll tell you what happens if it works.

Zeke Guenthroth & Oscar Don: 8:29

You're independent. You can do what you want. You got the income. You got the freedom come. You got the freedom. You can look after your family members. You can spend a full day on a laptop at a bar working for the whole day. You can do what you want. Your boss isn't there going, mate. You should be in the office. I am in the office. It's portable. Exactly right, you're hybrid, mate. Yeah, I could ask last week for a few minutes where's your office? I said, oh man, I'm hybrid. I said what's hybrid? I said I'm hybrid. Good, that's my response. That's good. But, yes, what if it does work?

Zeke Guenthroth & Oscar Don: 9:00

Is so many opportunities for you, especially if you're in your 20s and 30s, perfect time to risk it or give it a go. So many people want the best for you. Even if you're not in your 20s and 30s, it's never too late. Like there's people, the Colonelel kfc wasn't he like 50 or something when he started kfc, I don't know, but it was something. He's good.

Zeke Guenthroth & Oscar Don: 9:23

But, yeah, take the leap and focus solely on your business. And another thing is you will find free time or extra time, but make sure it's pretty easy to derail. So get into a structure. Maybe wake up, as you were. Wake up at 5am if you're an early riser, go to the gym. Have a structure to your day and open up your laptop at nine, finish at five and if you really want to finish, shut the lid, don't open it to the next day, which is difficult. It is difficult. So I think it's important to actually lock yourself in and be strict, because a lot of people don't really do that, and then that's where businesses fail, because you just see them at a pub just having fun because they've got no, if you're at the pub, you should have your laptop. That's how I feel you do you feel like that.

Zeke Guenthroth & Oscar Don: 10:14

If you, the main thing really is accountability, like at the end of the day, if you have no job, like let's think about people and I'm not bagging people out here, but let's look at people when they have a day off, work, like you know, they might get a friday off every second week or something. I know so many people like that and they'll be like, yeah, yeah, get my friday off. And I'm like, okay, unreal, what are you going to do? I'm like, oh, just relax. What do you mean? I'm like, well, you've got the day off, mate, what are you going to do? You're just going to relax? What's that mean? Oh, just, you know, I can sleep in, I can watch TV or whatever. I'm like, okay.

Zeke Guenthroth & Oscar Don: 10:53

So if you get in that habit when you're trying to make the business and you know the first day or the second day or the third day, you might be like, oh, I can just have a sleep in, I don't have to go to work. And you get in that negative cycle of, you know, sleeping in, staying up late, you might go out for a lunch here, you might do that or this or whatever. It can really really be a negative effect. It can negative effect, it can, it can. It can spiral and compound negatively, like even I myself.

Zeke Guenthroth & Oscar Don: 11:19

I'm very, very productive, I'm very accountable, love to get up and go and do things and if it's work oriented, I'm straight there like there's no question about it. But there's been times where I've had like a late night or I've been hanging out with friends late at night or something, and the next morning I'll wake up quite late, might snooze my 4.30 alarm. Next minute it's 10 o'clock. Oh crap, I'm hungry. Go get breakfast or whatever, because it's like a weird in-between. You don't want to cook, you're tired, you're feeling a bit different, you're out of form, you know. You go get brekkied, you do that or whatever. You come home and you're like all right, well, it's midday now. Literally Half the day is gone. And then you're like oh shit, well, I've wasted half the day. I might as well waste another half. It's such a weird concept.

Zeke Guenthroth & Oscar Don: 12:14

But I started missing the gym in the mornings and that's kind of like been my thing. Kind of puts me in the right mindset. Yeah, because you get home early before you have a shower. You do your whole morning routine if you have one and you're ready to go. Like when I go to the gym and have a shower and read and go in my notebook or whatever, I feel I'm ready to go Bloody good, but feel I'm ready to go Bloody good. But if I sleep in and miss all that, I am on the back foot the whole day and I'm out of it, like my head. Actually, I just feel like sluggish and yuck. Yeah, you do, and then you've got to go to the gym. If it's a gym, you've got to go to the gym in the hour of the night and then you waste time during the day when the business hours are on, and then you're just catching up. It's horrible.

Zeke Guenthroth & Oscar Don: 13:00

So, yeah, it's exciting being on your own, but keep yourself accountable, because it's easy to fall off. Yeah, that's a massive thing. People that you're sitting there like oh, I know that I probably wouldn't have the self-motivation to actually do that kind of thing. It could be as simple as getting a friend, getting a partner, accountability partner, an accountability coach or something where you're like, wow, I've got this really great idea. I could do it. I know I can make money and do it, but I just don't know if I'll have the motivation to get up and do this and do that. We're each other's accountability partners. Until now, until november, that's also true.

Zeke Guenthroth & Oscar Don: 13:40

Oh, yes, goggins. Yeah, we're meeting, if anyone knows, david goggins in november. So we said look, we want to be in our best shape possible, best shape of our lives. So from now, which is time of recording, 19th of march at 7 20 pm, tuesday night till november 2nd or 3rd one of the days. We have to send a selfie, every single day, of each other at the gym and we're in different states and not, if not at the gym, running or in the pool or doing something whatever, you're eating a healthy, healthy meal. But that's our goal, that's. That's gonna happen.

Zeke Guenthroth & Oscar Don: 14:11

Every, every meal, every meal, everyone's going in your mouth. I want a photo. Every fight. Oh, none of that man, none of that um, but I think that's. That is everything in our journey. I've got more, you've got more I do from our journey, or just just add it on. Just add it on. All right, you go, the mic is yours, hello, um, no, so just a random few things.

Zeke Guenthroth & Oscar Don: 14:36

Like you know, when you're doing this, you're going to start noticing so many different things and thinking differently and your whole life actually changes. It's very weird, but as you go through each phase, you'll notice different things and different things, or like, you'll dream about different things and think about things. When you go to bed and wake up and everything. You'll still have those occasional ones that you used. You go to bed and wake up and everything. You'll still have those occasional ones that you used to have or whatever like as in thoughts.

Zeke Guenthroth & Oscar Don: 15:05

But when we were doing just an example, when we were doing the branding, the next day you and I were walking to a Kami beautiful all-you-can-eat Japanese restaurant in Rose Bay, goodness. And on that walk there we walked past like five or six or seven different shop fronts I do remember these and we were like looking at the logos and looking at the branding, that logo's horrible. What about the colors? Yeah. And then, like the fence with the construction sign and they had their branding on it and I was like, yeah, it was like Asset Line or something. Yeah, it was something very similar.

Zeke Guenthroth & Oscar Don: 15:36

And like you just start noticing so many different things and you pick them apart and you're like you just analyse so many different things and it's just weird, like you'll be sitting there and you'll be talking to your family and you'll be like, oh, like this logo, blah, blah, blah, and they're like, what are you talking about, mate? Like go to bed, you are drunk, yeah, but yeah, it's funny how small things like that you pick up on and you get nightmares of. You had a nightmare the other night of we got we were bankrupt, zero dollars in the bank account. Yeah, you woke up stressing. Apparently I wasn't there. But you said you're stressing and look straight to the bank account. Like You're like oh my God, oh my God, oh no, I woke up.

Zeke Guenthroth & Oscar Don: 16:19

This is like 2.30 am on probably a Wednesday morning and I woke up and I've gone. I'm that can't happen. Like there's no way. I've been doing the numbers. I know what's going on. There's no chance. So pull up the revenue calculator, grab the laptop out 2.30 in the morning, punch in every calculation, double check it all, every expense, every income, and I was like all right, we're all good, back to sleep at 4. Yeah, just things like that.

Zeke Guenthroth & Oscar Don: 16:46

Like it's just funny what goes through your mind and keeps you up at night, like I had when we weren't making money but weren't paying ourselves. Geez, some thoughts going through the head. That was a tough time. Like, not like bad, like suicide thoughts. You shouldn't laugh at that. Yeah, not like bad self-harming, but actual thoughts of the business. What am I doing? Am I wasting my time? What's happening? Why are we taking so long to do this? Am I going to be a failure? I'm going to be a failure. You never know.

Zeke Guenthroth & Oscar Don: 17:21

At that stage, obviously, we knew what was going on. I never had that thought. Well, I had it once when it was like 2 am. It was just things going through my head. I was like, well, I'm not. That must be when you have your worst thoughts. I have my best thoughts. At 2 am, as you know, you might wake up to a random text. Hey, thought this. Yeah, you do, I have my best thoughts straight up. I actually have my best thoughts at the gym. Yeah, that's fair. Another one as well.

Zeke Guenthroth & Oscar Don: 17:46

Like people out there who I I don't know if everyone's like this, or I dare say there's a lot of people like it, but with me I, I really despise. Like, um, I won't say authority. You know how school is like. You're sitting there, the bell rings, you're like a cow, you've got to go and do this. And then you're like a dog come on and you walk to the next class. And then you walk to the next one and you got to sit down. You got to cross your legs and you walk to the next class and then you walk to the next one and you got to sit down. You got to cross your legs and you got to do this. And you can eat at this time. You can have lunch at that time, you're allowed a drink of water, not you have to sit down and do what you're told. Yeah, I really don't like stuff like that.

Zeke Guenthroth & Oscar Don: 18:21

So for me, being a business owner now, it's like the freedom to actually just do what I want to do get the job done, get it done properly and just be able to be on my own clock. Like you know, even for people who are at work and you know you got to sit down at 8 am on the dot you can't leave your desk until I'm getting sidetracked here. Call center jobs especially, I work. I started one, yeah, I started there. You know, you that that was tough. That was literally like you cannot leave your seat until lunchtime.

Zeke Guenthroth & Oscar Don: 18:56

Yeah, you clock in at this time and you're on the phone, you're picking up every call that comes through and if you're like Even if you're hang up time, like we used to leave notes in half of the call, yeah, and if you were doing that typing for more than like 30 seconds, it's nearly an official warning and it's like oh, okay, so you call, call, call, and you weren't allowed to miss your break by more than like a three-minute window. Yeah, it was just chaos. I was a standard employee, so I actually did my notes on the call. I had zero for the notes afterwards, as you can imagine. Well, that makes it a lot easier as well, don't forget it. Yeah, but stuff like that just frustrates me.

Zeke Guenthroth & Oscar Don: 19:34

And if you're out there and you're like that, owning a business is the best thing that you can ever do, because your blood pressure will go down and you'll be sitting there going well, life's not so bad. Well, it won't always go down. It'll go up at times. It will go up at times it will go up. It will go up. Definitely, it's not all Blood pressure does go up occasionally. But I think that about sums it up.

Zeke Guenthroth & Oscar Don: 19:54

Unless you've got anything random that you want to just throw on, like any random bits of advice or tips or just something you feel compelled to say, I just think enjoy the journey, because when you're on the journey, you're always thinking of the end product and wanting to get there. But looking back, I made sure to actually enjoy the journey. And we're still on the journey, obviously, but it was actually a lot of fun building it from scratch. You've just reminded me too, when you're doing the work. I said this was going to be all over the shop and I'm here we go. When you're doing the work, like the point, this was going to be all over the shop, here we go. When you're doing the work, like the point we're at now, for example, you've got out, you're paying yourself, everything is good.

Zeke Guenthroth & Oscar Don: 20:37

The money is not the problem. What does become the problem is a balancing act again, but of working on the actual business while working in the business. So that might sound a bit confusing, but it's like being. There's a difference between being an employee of your own company and running the company while working in it. No, there is a big difference.

Zeke Guenthroth & Oscar Don: 21:05

You know, instead of just being like, all right, I need to go do this and I need to go do that in terms of work, you know, signing clients or selling this product or sending emails you also need to take a step back and go okay, well, hang on, where are we actually heading as a company right now? Like, yeah, sure, I've got that deal done personally and like this, that or the other, but what are the overall trends with the business? Like, what can I actually work on outside of it? Because if you get too busy working in it, then you can't work on it and then you're just stuck. Yeah, you gotta balance being in the middle of both.

Zeke Guenthroth & Oscar Don: 21:38

Yeah, and that's why I think it's good having more than one person in the company to help that if you're overloaded trying to get deals done personally for the company, you can actually have someone working in the company or working on the company. So I think it's that's where it is important having more than one for myself, and I think two is a perfect number. If you made so, if you actually got an idea. Yeah, two is a good number, but I would, I probably advise three, and the reason for that is you and I have actually never had this problem, which is a bit rare. But what does happen is, generally speaking, if there's two people, what's a good example?

Zeke Guenthroth & Oscar Don: 22:21

One of my, I would say One would disagree, one would agree, and then you get someone to kind of say, yeah, I'm not going to say friend anymore, I'm not going to say friend anymore, someone that I am acquaintances with their parents and then their parents, so their grandparents passed away. Now, these people there's only two of them and they were given, like the will and everything. It's 50-50, a lot of assets and family. Oh, I get this, you get this, you get that blah blah. They haven't come to an agreement for over five years. So all of those assets and that money and stuff is still just sitting there and they're like well, I don't want to budge on this, so screw you. And they're like, well, I don't either, so screw you. And they're both losing. Yeah, literally.

Zeke Guenthroth & Oscar Don: 23:07

So in business that can happen as well. Like you know, I might disagree on spending money on um, I don't know, it's never happened with us, but I might disagree on something, then don might, and you hold your ground, whereas if you've got a third person, guess what you can get over. Majority, yeah, majority rules so, but you got to make sure they're not teaming up. No, find a bit of bit of advice before we. Uh, we cook some dinner. Yeah, we're gonna cook some steak tonight for anyone wanting to figure out what we're gonna eat. But uh, there you go. I think I was a.

Zeke Guenthroth & Oscar Don: 23:38

I think we touched on every aspect of it, especially for ourselves, what we went through, but everyone's different. You might switch the orders around for some, but that's generally the way and the process of it, and it can take a month, it can take two years to do all that, but the journey's fun. Enjoy the journey. And if you're on the fence about it, what happens if it pays off? What's the worst that's going to happen? The fact that we spent an hour talking about it a lot, and we've probably missed a bunch of things and not even thought about we're passionate about.

Zeke Guenthroth & Oscar Don: 24:14

We love it. That's how you guys know, on the other end, how much work you have to put in. So that is true do the work, do the hard yards, and it'll pay off. Enjoy it. We'll catch you next time. See you later. Goodbye, we hope you enjoyed the episode. As always, you know exactly what to do. Hit that follow button, subscribe whatever platform you listen to this podcast on. Also share it to friends, families, co-workers, whoever you think may benefit from it. But unfortunately it's the end and we'll see you next week.