Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:03 Welcome to the culture of things with Brendan Rodgers. This is a podcast where we talk culture, leadership, and teamwork and plus business in.
Speaker 1 00:21 Hello everybody. I'm Brendan Rodgers, the host of the culture of things podcast and this is episode five. Today I'm speaking with Scotty Schindler. Scotty was the startup founder of a real estate software business called RayNet Scott. He retired from Rena in 2017 at the tender age of 46 at the time of his retirement, Rena managed over one point $1 trillion of property. Our focus today is the Scotty isms as he calls them around culture, leadership and teamwork. Let's dive in and learn some of these Scotty isms that created the foundation for the success at Rina. Scotty, welcome to the culture of things podcast. Thank you for being our guest on episode five. It's great to have you.
Speaker 2 01:05 No worries at all. Yeah, especially for you today.
Speaker 1 01:08 Right. Good on you. Well, I really appreciate that. I think there's not a lot that would get you out of the surf, so I'll take that as a Sophia compliment. How about we start with you, just give a bit of a bit of a brief overview if you can around your, your journey to date and where that's taken you and the experiences you've had.
Speaker 2 01:24 Look, I called insurance for 10 years. I then went on a journey of trying to better myself and start a company or actually at the time it was a business I wanted to stop Indian that became a company. So I went on entrepreneur journey that started in 2000 I did things a certain way or I had certain beliefs and philosophies that I wanted to have on that journey and those are the guiding light to steer me towards what I really wanted to achieve out of a business. And it worked out all of a sudden by 2000 and uh, I didn't know what school you exited any financial independence and more or less retired. Um, rather than rather than being fully retired, I guess now I'm semi retired, but I'm a self funded retiree having fun and now teaching people about, you know, philosophies that I've used to grow my business and that's where I am now.
Speaker 1 02:12 It is an unbelievable journey. Actually, you and I first connected back in March of 2018 I'm not sure if you remember that, but um, look we, we won't go into the details of that on, on this podcast, but we want to talk specifically around what you mentioned your company and and rename what you, that you grew. But before we do go into that, I'd love you just to share some of the stuff that you do in the community as well and your sporting background because that's been, yeah, that's been a big part of your life as well.
Speaker 2 02:40 Thing is, it's not what I do. It's who I am. Although for 10 years I didn't really surf either. So that 10 years of selling insurance, I was traveling all over the state and I was working long hours so I didn't really sure if it can be. So I became a born again. So it became a priority from a second phase of life as opposed to like a hobby or a sport. It became a priority for my life and to relate to supplies do competitively as well. I use it for fitness. The whole surfing thing has been very good tonight. And as far as other community things are used to doing the surf lifesaving club and do things like that. But I changed from the local bar but someone selling there are risks of yourself while saying and are responding to, you know, um, medical assistance. So that's my why getting back to the community as well.
Speaker 1 03:37 Yeah. Good on you mate. You came across from the moment I, I first met you through LinkedIn as a real giver and I think when I took some time to travel up and see you up in the lovely Sawtelle on the mid North coast, uh, you know, you seem like a bit of a local legend and, and very well liked and, and loved in the community. So well done on the work you're doing there mate. Fantastic. Thank you. Let's go into the, the renamed journey in that company and well actually before I go into that, I'd love to ask you one question cause I'm sure there's listeners out there that would love to know at what stage of that born again surfing lifestyle. Did you lose your long blonde locks?
Speaker 2 04:18 The insurance, they just might be a <inaudible>.
Speaker 1 04:22 I have heard that from other people actually there are no insurance. So fearful at FairPoint. But
Speaker 2 04:28 I had the whole thing happen and as I started reading it.
Speaker 1 04:33 Good on your mind. Let's tell it. Let's go into the renal journey. I mean it's quite a quite a story which I'll, I'll let you share a bit, but just to give the listeners, you know, you built a company from nothing to something and that something was in the region of, of quite a bit over $1 trillion worth of property being managed through that, through that software business. So how about you share a bit of the journey of how that started and, and where that went?
Speaker 2 04:59 Well, look there, I didn't know I was going to start the company it, but what I did do is when I left the insurance, I wanted to have a bet on myself and I wanted to start a company. You know it now with no knowledge or experience or degrees, you know, I tell you it was a pretty ballsy move. Right? But I figured I could learn it. So my first outing was a medical website or a medical coder and I was, because you know what? I went and we learned the mind, but he didn't really want it. So I got pretty fast and when I started doing local portals, you know, there's one running local search or something similar to that. This is back in 2000 um, and that didn't really take off. I mean it worked, but it was not really getting any real traction.
Speaker 2 05:49 I didn't give it a, didn't try to go into networking and security. So I studied two books on how to do PTP and networking and they're getting in will that work? Yeah. Really studying habits. I went out tonight when you guys know any it initiative in 2000 after I finished the job was such a, we're such a Brown, this is not going to be a Lauryn with any of my philosophies, even if it was not going to align with my business philosophy. But that was the third attempt at a proper business. This is apart from doing standard website design. And then, I don't know, maybe I'm not good enough for starting my business on the side of 2001 I started looking for work. I started to self doubt, you know, the watch was giving me pressure, not really, not really backing me in a sense because things weren't really growing or expanding and I was struggling and that was hard, really hard to be in their own.
Speaker 2 06:49 But anyway, look, I started applying for jobs and luckily for me, not only you not get a job, no one even actually gave me an interview. So now when I'm wanting to have a chat with me about where I was or what I could do or anything, and that was my, because I think what it did was a little bit different. I didn't mind, I did my resume, my online and the website and back then it was like, well there's all these printed material and I didn't present any printed material. I just presented it all on a website. So that's what I was doing. I was trying to be different, you know, I turned out to be to Dick and obviously not wanting to give me a job, but that was Blackie because I then went on another journey in my 2001 I went to the gold coast with my grandmother and I bought two books, one on PHP and one on my SQL and decided to have a crack at this online databases and my thing software, which was a big pivot, a big change.
Speaker 2 07:35 And I started writing three software packages, one for <inaudible>, one for accommodation and one for real estate. And I was already looking after people in all three of those areas. And the one that took off was the real estate one. Um, and two in February I realized the real estate one was the one I was getting the most traction really. So I formed the company ring that took six attempts to actually get something off the ground from when I decided to quit the insurance people and stop my whole business. And even then, it wasn't a company, it was just I had traction. It took another two years before I realized I actually had a company, you know, a lot of pivoting, a lot of challenges that the business philosophies had to ring through my beliefs of how I wanted that the company needed to ring true and I was prepared to I guess do whatever. But then again, like I said, I did want to quit at one stage but lucky enough for me, no one gave me a job.
Speaker 3 08:28 It's a, it's a, it's a great story. And that there's two things that sort of stick out to me and two questions. One of those is what sort of formal education did you have behind you around this journey? Uh, and also, and you can answer both these questions together. What, what was the sort of qualities that you believe you had that, that drove you forward on this journey? Cause there's obviously just in what you've shared there, there's a number of, I guess you could say bumps in the road the way,
Speaker 2 08:57 um, well formula cause there was not any qualities I had that made the business work. And I often talk to people about this and say, well, it was a long journey and you know, really four years into it, you know, two minutes sort of backstory. One of the, one of the ways I cheated the most was the fact that I had the ability to be able to walk into any business I love and do a presentation, any link with the chip. So what that meant was, you know, I had the ability to get silos. So a product might not have been the world there. And certainly my, my degrees and my ability to build software was not at the top level either. The product worked and how I really liked the product. And people liked the product too. So they paid me a roast. I wouldn't have paid me, but it was my ability to actually go out and talk to people, create those relationships and get a deal and look at people as clients a lot, not clients as a style that might company reading what reading that is. I was always after the lifetime value of a client, not after style. But in saying that, the one way I treated it was I had the ability to do presentations or selling, if you want to call it that got results.
Speaker 1 10:17 What I'd like to reinforce there, and I think you glossed over it a little bit as far as formal education on our set for a reason, cause I know the answer, but what I really want to enforce is that, you know, the qualities that you've seen through that process is that, you know, through your hard work, dedication and commitment and actually the people skills. So actually being smart around people, not so smart around books or needing to be smarter around books and that's really got, got you to where you are today. Make that commitment, that work ethic, that people, smart scenario. And I know myself through firsthand experience and having got to know you over the two years, I feel like I've known you for a hell of a long time and you just that, that great bloke to know and to have in your life. So, um, you know, I've, I've seen those qualities come through in spades over these last two years. So, so again, well done on who you are made. It's fantastic.
Speaker 2 11:06 Thanks for that and if I can hit you back on the education, but you know, one thing that was an advantage was, look, I did my, I went to high school. Of course I wasn't a high school dropout. I did finish it while I was finally finished it. So I could serve on the school team,
Speaker 2 11:20 take that out of it. High schools, I'm at a high school drop out. The reality was almost locked in my year so I wasn't reaching the end was an advantage for me because what it meant was on you. Everybody else was smarter than me. So I actually used the app as the tool to build the business. I hired people who were smarter than me, better than me, and then let them be smarter and better than me in that area. Whether it was website design, graphic design, marketing, computer programming, it matter. They were better than me. What they did. I actually went looking for those people to make sure that I empowered them and let them be better than me that way. One of the business philosophies was to build the business up to a point. We're always actually redundant, interesting philosophy. Most people make themselves the most important person, whereas I wasn't even all it was everything I did was because I wanted it to not have to do, which is a different mindset coming from an uneducated backwards indications. Important. The reality is education is only potentially like I spiraled economics in a sense, right? Economics. The girl. I got the thought in the economics class, right? She went on to become the international vice president of EMI records and I sat next to her one day where we would come down to Christmas, we're doing the local pub. Then she woke up on private properties and things around here we should have bought, we should have bought some properties. I turned around and said, well, I did,
Speaker 2 12:56 you know, I said, at the end of the day, you know, she said, we sat beside each other. He became the international vice president. She was one of the top in the class. I was one of the bottom in the class. I went on to create a company that education is important, but it's only what your potential is with that education and what you do with that education and then how you need food and prosper. Not only, not only once you get the job, but once you get the clinic, what you actually do with that and how you balance life out is also the next backed up education is just potential.
Speaker 3 13:29 So I remember as, as you're talking, I remember seeing a video online, I think on your website where you talk about being, I think 70th out of 71 in your English class and you shared a story with me actually a little while ago around, um, I think one of your classmates who ended up working with you. You want to just expand on that a little bit so that I'm not telling untruths.
Speaker 2 13:51 Yeah, that's all right. So I wouldn't interrupt them. We went out for, like I said, that everyone was smarter than me and when people correct my spelling, I thank them. I don't know all, you know, what are you doing? You shouldn't be correcting me. And you know, I actually appreciate it. I embrace it. I love people to engage. In fact, in the end they call it deliberate mistakes. So if I make a mistake in something they did and I got perfect engagement so I don't have a problem with that. But what's interesting about the whole, you know, I got 71st or 70 out of 71 is I ended up hiring the ducks of the school to come and work for me. So you know, he read was that the smartest kid at school and he comes and works for me and becomes my website designer starting from the, from the kid that was probably the least expected to have a business or even succeed or any of that sort of stuff. The heart, the doctor, the school would be unheard of. And it was interesting that in the end, you know, as I, as I say, what the class did and all the car on the cross, well
Speaker 3 14:52 and that's where your story to me is just so inspirational. Maintenance, you know, you've just achieved above and beyond what, you know, what some of the people out there and the importance they play on traditional education so that there's so much hope for anybody if they've got the right work ethic, commitment and dedication to, to achieve and a focus on what they want to do.
Speaker 2 15:10 Yeah. And look, I don't look it, it's like homework with the kids. I don't value it at all. I don't do any homework with the kids and I know it's something that they're going to freak out about. I have no interest at all in, um, that side of their schooling. But at the end of the day, I know that when they leave school and I decide they want to do something, then I'll apply themselves and then they'll become the best person they can do the things that they're interested in brought in over my kids to do their maths or English homework is not going to achieve anything. It's just not, except for maybe potentially ruin their relationship if they wanted to do it. But they came and asked me to help. Absolutely. But I'm not going to force them to do the little ground and that they're not going to do it.
Speaker 2 15:48 Because I think, I think super important. I just don't think the school system up until year 12 or whatever, even university for that matter is the most important education you're ever going to get in your life. What matters? The bad for education is what happens when she leaves the schooling system and you start to learn in real life what needs to be done to apply whatever that potential is that you've got. That is the education that's important, not the school one as much as it's a good foundation. You know, I never had it, but what I do agree we, these education is important, but the education after you leave the system is by far the most valuable education that you can get.
Speaker 3 16:27 Like let, let's go into the um, Rena again, and the culture. You've got your own unique philosophies and I really like the connotation she used in the word you use around leadership and in some of your experiences there. So let me, let me ask you around sugar and cream leadership. That's some, that's a term that you use a bit. Tell us what sugar and cream leadership.
Speaker 2 16:52 Well, I'm glad y'all got to get them and it's one of the few things that I came up with as a terminology post that now I already knew about it already. You are doing it. I just didn't have a way of describing it. One day on it, I worked it out over a cup of coffee.
Speaker 3 17:10 Okay.
Speaker 2 17:10 A lot of people go looking for the crime. Right. And a lot of people are the crime when they come and apply for work, but I was never looking for the cream when it came to hiring staff, I was always looking for the shoe with the people out there that were motivated. They were inspired and they wanted to be someone they wanted to get to them because I pulled up her paid to do whatever it takes. So sugary people were just a little bit of steering, a bit of motivation, a bit of a push in the right direction and opportunity and they become the best assets that you've ever had. And that were the people that I was looking forward all times, so when someone came along we had the cream of the crop and that was that whole degrees and I had only experienced, well, I actually went to people I was looking for.
Speaker 2 17:50 I was looking for the people that will, that they could have been then, but mostly they already had arrived. I wanted people that wanted the journey and wanted the destination and I can help them on that journey through the business, so reading, it wasn't so much even that was a real estate software company reading. It was more of a system with a system to help real estate agents grow their business. It was assistance to staff that I could hire and that could come along and grow their careers. Everything about ring, it was a system that just the vehicle we used was real estate software, but everything about rain, it was a system from, from leadership through staff and how I develop them and hide them right through to the software itself for the real estate agent. If I helped enough people succeed, I would succeed too.
Speaker 3 18:34 You've mentioned system a little bit just in that explanation. And so it reminds me again of your system one, three, five, seven, tell us a bit about that cause that that's also something you've made freely available on your website to people you know, part of your giving nature. So tell us about system one, three, five, seven, how that was developed and what, what is it about?
Speaker 2 18:53 Well, I haven't really leading um, the insurance business and starting the company. What I didn't have was the package of saying it was system one from five, seven, I think the one trade seven is it's all a business philosophy over techniques that allow people to grow their business in a way that helps them work smarter rather than harder. And I had all those things before I started ringing it. So essentially if I just go through the five business philosophies business, Judah, that was a very deliberate and conscious business method that I was implementing when I first started reading it. Nobody had, when they breached the way out of collaborated, very deliberate actions, Tom duplication. So time duplication meant that I had to actually hire staff that were as good or better than me cause I needed to protect myself. I needed to duplicate products, I need to duplicate everything.
Speaker 2 19:40 So Tom duplication, it's the one thing that every successful person understands. He's time duplication, the business. The third is a little bit different. That's about your strike rate and things like that. So it's an example. You know, top 30th staff are always your dedicated ones. The bottom 30th staff, the ones they're going to turn over and they come and go. It just doesn't work out for whatever reason. What I move on like that come and go. Some reason the same thing happens with the product range. The same thing happens with you. Um, everything. That's just the bigness of the room of 100 is the timeline. The first hundred seconds, a hundred minutes, a hundred hours, a hundred days, a hundred weeks, and then a hundred months and everything goes to the cycle of the rule of 100 and that's it. Business philosophy, business philosophy was the sugar and cream. And that was how I sold, how I hired people and how I grew the company. So see if the one three, five, seven is a collection of things like that that helped me go from a concept and just a bunch of business philosophies that I implemented to turning into a business, to turn into an entrepreneurial journey and then to create wealth. But that's what system one, three, five, seven beautiful way of describing what the methods were that I used to grow a company.
Speaker 3 20:52 Couple of times you mentioned around staff and, and you know, many times you've talked to me about, you know, it's all about the people in your business and how you grew that culture. Tell me a little bit about what you believe the culture was and what, what was the strength in the culture of arena and why it was so successful as a business with the people that you had?
Speaker 2 21:12 Uh, well I guess the cultural, when there was times where it got toxic and there was times where I had to deal with that. Uh, there was a time where I had, uh, one of the better word, assigning a brain fog and you know, and go cranky at the time and I lost key people overnight. I had to reset was it perfect? Hell, um, but was it, was there some foundations and some basic principles in there that, that we relied upon you? There was things like, uh, how to notify policy. So if I hired someone also it is my responsibility to look after that person at all times. If they left, it was because of something that I have to do. And um, so I didn't know if policy, if I got through that first month and it was my job, I hired them for the right reason and I needed to follow through in that right reasons and give them that opportunity.
Speaker 2 22:01 As an example on numbers. For example, if I've paid someone $50,000 a year for two years, if after two years they leave and I haven't got a return on that a hundred thousand dollars, that's my fault. So I need to make sure that investment in staff that I'm doing pays off. And so I sorted my responsibility to get that return on investment, not their response enough to do their job. That's a given, but it was my responsibility to get the most out of these people and create those opportunities and have that deleted. So that's, that's an example of the notify policy and you know, I didn't have quarterly reviews. I had no office hours. People could come and go as they like to even pick their own holidays. In the end, the teams were big enough. You have somebody that's important, wanted to have some time off.
Speaker 2 22:44 I just have to speak to the other people and support Mike turret work and come and tell me what that open eyes and they always could take away. I call it out in advance. I just let people have full autonomy. Once again, my philosophy was to make myself redundant. All my people all had a business within the business. Like I said, it wasn't perfect, but I think that was the strength of the business. And I also had financial systems in place with every single person, every single person that do this go to the incentive or reward for the success of the business. That was a game changer for my business over the years. Completely changed everything. That financial system, there was heaps of things like that. And you know, having staff and leading people is always difficult. There's emotions, there's people with their own challenges in loss and they bring them to work and sometimes it gets toxic and you've got to sit back and try and work out how to solve it and how to get the best out of the situation. And sometimes I couldn't and other times I could, you know, it's understanding that. So as a leader, as an owner of the business, it's still the buck stops with me and I had to plan all those good times and the bad times.
Speaker 3 23:52 Look, there's, there's a few things to unpack there. And probably the first one I want to ask is around with the bonus structure that you had in place, and again, not necessarily about the specific specifics of that, but you're in a sales orientated organizational. That's what you built and it's pretty not common. And believe me, I've worked with some sales oriented to businesses and they have a tough challenge getting their mind around setting incentive structures that a team orientated as opposed to being individual orientator, which is more the stock standard. How did, you said that was a real game changer for you, how everybody was incentivized? What? What do you mean by that? Dive into that a little bit.
Speaker 2 24:28 Well, every single person has gone. Luckily as a South person it's easy to pay a salary and the bonus on the side totally qualified. How do you pay a software developer who doesn't sell you sort of count, right? I still got a bonus on every sale we got. Why? Because I wonder myself with developers to create a better product, which meant we got more sales. Pretty simple, right? So if we got 10 sales for the mountains, and I might say I'm Bose Sabina, I can't remember the exact figures, but the point is, you know, they, they've got a thousand dollars and I didn't have anything to do with those styles to make sense of $20,000 extra because of the South. We thought, and sometimes you'd have something to do with the South, so someone would come along and go, well Scott, we like everything but we want to get this product done on the side as well.
Speaker 2 25:13 And that might cost them a thousand or $2,000 extra work or sometimes more so that the developer would then get a bonus on the work they did. They did 10% or 15% of the work they did as well. So they got incentives for their hours that we're doing as well as in support of when a foul comes in. That's not the end of the job. Right. Just because the sales person sold the product, that is not the end of the line. It's only the beginning support had been, make sure there was the transition from non-client. The client was painless as well. They had to make sure they looked after his clients and if there was something in the file and needed rectifying or looking after the clients with the most important people, their support staff also as a bonus from every style cause they joke with the onboard clients in a, in a successful way that we tend to decline.
Speaker 2 26:01 So, and here's the caveat, if we lost the client within 12 months, the bonus got called back. So in other words, we didn't get a client to by other corns. Everyone had the bonuses cord back. And you know, there's always a churn, right, of about 5% a year for whatever reason. Sometimes it's no one's fault, sometimes it is people's fault. But if I had pain as a company, I lost a little bit of their bonuses too. But if a client side, I put the bonuses so everyone had the benefit and everyone had the pain and that's why the bonus system completely changed the business and everything. He will put us in the business. Getting sientes for the success of the company.
Speaker 3 26:39 Yeah. Again, I love that story. Just around the team. Everybody is involved in maintaining a client and everybody's working together. And in a probably meant that, you know, people would sometimes take their sort of role responsibility department had often and they do whatever they need to do to make sure they're serving the customer in the best way because it was doing everything for the team. So again, my w well done with its philosophy. There's a lot, a lot of people in sales that really struggle with that mindset. You're, you've led the way you've, you've been doing it since 2005 in your business. So great job.
Speaker 2 27:11 Yeah, thanks for that. And you know, no one finds that attendant was perfect and the one time I had a tenant work, sometimes someone would go, well, there's not bonus on that so I'm not doing it. So I had to deal with that as well. And um, you know, that's when I was, I, it could have been 90 times out of a hundred it was good. And one time out of a hundred it wasn't that. The point was, it's not, it wasn't a perfect system, but I can tell you that the system though, it completely changed the business because everyone had had a vested interest in the success of the business. The business was, it was a massive pivoting point. The only reason why that happened was because I work at one Monday morning with no money in the bank. Well not true, like $1,700 in the bank, not enough to pay.
Speaker 2 27:48 Why does that wait? I didn't get any money. I said, this isn't going to work or I have to change the business so that why it's better for everybody. And I essentially gave everyone a pipe top, but a pay rise at the same time. So I'd worked at what they did and said, I'm going to reduce your wages, but if you do everything that you've just been doing, nothing extra, you're actually getting a pay rise, but it's going to be based on bonuses as opposed to just the turning out. We changed the business, people got paid more and they also then did more.
Speaker 3 28:18 Yeah. Great, great learning experience and great example of teamwork. Thanks for sharing, mate. You also talked about the no fire policy. Just tell us a little bit more about that and what I'm really interested to know is how did that or did that change your mindset around you as a leader and how much time you invested in people that you bought into your business?
Speaker 2 28:39 Oh, absolutely. Like I said, if I look at the return on investment now, if I'd spent a hundred thousand dollars or $200,000 on an investment property, I'd want to get a return on our block stop when they wrote an investment and it was up to me and I sort of my responsibility to teach and train and nurture, stop to get that return on investment. So they did two things for me. Staff obviously helped me duplicate because they were better at the job than I was and if I fired them, I also then lost my return on investment. So the four things when we call it talk about white red flags and things like that. Well before we got too deep, you know, I would then try and invest time into doing what I call personal development interviews and PDI can be done at any time at any stage.
Speaker 2 29:20 They don't have to be done in like quarterly reviews. They can be done any time cause it's development interviews and people can have those. We can have daily with these ridiculous beginning, daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly or yearly. Uh, that can be formal or informal, informal over coffee or formal in the boardroom. But at the end of the doll development interview and understanding that you are there to develop your style to become better at their jobs so you can achieve what you want to achieve is a basic philosophy. And that's why I had to notify a policy. I never fired anybody in the business arena unless they didn't make it in the first month. So they didn't make it cause they hit all the right things and then turn up and didn't do it. Well then I'd let them go and there was only a few of those. But mostly once they coming on day of a fight. Anyone that role there for the long run, I had them.
Speaker 1 30:04 How did you look at people that did leave your business? Cause I'm sure that happened but but not for bad reasons. You know, you'd, you'd seen them grow, develop and they wanted to move on to two other opportunities. How did you look upon that as a leader?
Speaker 2 30:17 Well, there's two ways of looking upon that as a leader. I mean the truth is when someone leaves in the business, if they didn't want to prosper you were pretty good. Like I want her to file it brings you Brent. Very good as a leader anyway. So that's one way of looking at it. But secondly, I expected people to leave. So when they did finally one day, so it looks good. I'm going to go and have a go in my eyes. I'm going to leave and I work for different company. Look like this, let them go with it. Thanks. Thanks for being me. Thanks for being part of the journey and that's all I can be. Does that make sense? I never really celebrated it. Some people celebrate and do all those sorts of things. I never really celebrated pickle lady. Um,
Speaker 1 30:49 you supported them
Speaker 2 30:51 well. I didn't. Yeah. I didn't make it hard for him. Depending on how they lift, you know, half the people seem to leave nicely and the other house seemed delayed. Not nicely. I don't know what that's all about, but some people seem to wanna have a go at you all the time and something one day they say, Oh, you know, I worked really hard and everything else and not that well paid and everything. Sometimes sometimes when won't have a gallery, but I just like bought off a Duck's back. I just let it go. Some of those people actually tried to rehire again and one of the staff that left 10 years ago, I was actually back working for it again now. So people do come back and people do go up and try and leave. But one of the goals, email member of parliament, he's gone off in profit really well. He's gone. I knew he was running a company up North and actually pivoted to politics. You know, I want people to prosper. I want them to leave the nest as well and have it go on somewhere that people leave the Tod.
Speaker 1 31:40 But there was another part I just wanted to to mention. I'd love you to, again, I'm sure there's a video on your website around a funny story and staff of flexibly how as you mentioned the flexible hours and and time off and stuff like that. Do you want to just share a little bit more about that? For our listeners,
Speaker 2 31:58 I only valued their results and their outcomes and their productivity and that was all along when it came to office hours. I mean people just, I mean obviously it was a typical nine to five office, but the people need, I had that if I was turning up at seven in the morning and lady Trey in the afternoon, if that's what they want to do. I said I wanted to start at 11 and finish at seven at night. I what I said yesterday, at the end of that, I let people do whatever they wanted and most people that were hired on that basis and most people respected that and did everything I needed to do. So it was really good. So the office hours were completely flexible. If I wanted to go, what I wanted to do was make sure everyone knew what they were doing.
Speaker 2 32:34 They didn't just disappear and we're part of a team, but everyone was under the same boat anyway. So <inaudible> see you tomorrow, you know, it was easy. There was no hassles. It was not dramas. There was not no Bundy clock. There was no micro watching the hours. Once again, that comes back into the financial system that I had in place. And then people would always send in work at night. People would sit down, you'd see the tickets come through with jobs completed, cause that'd be good. Just like the one that's measured a few jobs or a few emails and no one felt guilty about that because everyone had incentives to do their job and do their job to the best of their ability. Number was a system reign. It was really a system. The real estate software was just the vehicle.
Speaker 1 33:15 When did this flexibility start in your business?
Speaker 2 33:19 Ah, from the beginning?
Speaker 1 33:20 Yeah, so early two thousands
Speaker 2 33:22 yeah, it was always this. The moment I started hiring people in 2003 I was up on the sunshine coast at Coolum when I was just trying to go to business in the caravan traveling through Queensland and the business was growing right at the right that I couldn't keep up so I flew home to cross. Sorry, I drive home to, anyway, I rented the space $75 to wake up with two desks are hard. Someone to answer the phone, the lady and her to do simple portfolio and a young guy that wanted to be a website designer. I hired the space for two people, put some desks in it's goodbye and said I'll talk to you on the front.
Speaker 2 34:01 All I needed them to do was come in and just help keep up with the workload that was coming. But that was the sort of style I wasn't even there. I mean that were coming and going as they wanted from the very start and that never changed that whole Hey, what's time they turned up. I didn't pay as long as I got what I needed done, done. Everyone was happy. So that prolonged the whole life and there was no real, there was no office hours, there was not a typical all your 40 hours a week or 38 hours a week or you know, your nine to five or whatever your job is. It was, it was flexible to Hawaii.
Speaker 1 34:33 It's fair to say that you were pushing and actually living flexible working conditions long before it was fashionable and just in typical Scottish Schindler humor, I suppose I just pulled up one of your videos and the office hours States for Reena. It open most days about eight or nine, but some days as late as 12 or one we close about five 30 or six but occasionally about four or five some days or afternoons. We aren't here at all. And lately we've been here just about all the time except when the surf is good. Absolutely fantastic.
Speaker 2 35:09 That was actually on the front door of the office from the very first office I had to the last office and that was on the front door. But it wasn't, it wasn't just a, you know, a bit of a, uh, you know, a bit of a fun thing. It became a bit of a tourist attraction. People would come to the coffee shops, you'd open the door and they'd be taken photos of your office door. That was actually a fat, that was every word. And you know, I guess as a leader, I mean I never made before 11 o'clock cause you know, if the surf was good, I wanted to surf and it wasn't on the road some way like New Zealand or Melbourne or when I wanted to surf it. I used to be the first one in last one out a lot of time as well. So it was totally flexible, but I was offered say I was, might've been a bit of fun, but it was actually the truth.
Speaker 3 35:57 That sign just epitomizes you and I think where again, the traction you've got obviously through the business, but even you know, life after Rena and what you're doing now in similar retirement, you know there's people just love you. They just, I can just relate to you a year, just a real person and that signs absolute Testament to that realness of you.
Speaker 2 36:14 Thanks for that.
Speaker 3 36:15 Let me ask you about your, you know, we've spoken a lot about leadership and culture and, and some of the teamwork dynamics in, in Rena and what's been achieved there. How about your own leadership style and what you've learnt over that process and there's also something that you call a leadership report card. So just tell us a bit a bit about that.
Speaker 2 36:34 I just had a philosophy, no beliefs. I might be could call it a style. I probably need an expert like you to help me out with what that style was. It was really just about the empathy and the willingness to invest in staff and understanding that velocity is just location and one thing that every successful person understands. If I can't do it on their own, they have to do it as a successful thing. And you know, being the captain of a team doesn't mean you have the best team in the world. Having the best team in the world, everyone gets along, everyone does what they're supposed to do and everything happens like magic. So it was having that understanding that that's what I needed to do was probably the style if you like. But I don't know how you categorize it. It puts it into a sentence.
Speaker 2 37:15 But that's definitely one thing that I had. I looked at that from an insurance business. It probably helped enough people with a lot of shape mine. So that's the business I created. The real estate software wasn't really the product, it was just the beak of the we used. What I did was I created the systems for both sides. So the systems internally with stock and development around that as well as systems for agents. Agencies used for exactly the same thing. If I help enough agents become successful real estate, I can car and truck. That's how I grew the business. And as far as the relationship report card goes, that's really that, you know, once you finished your people, go on and do people succeed or do people file. And if more people leave your business and succeed and file more when you're doing a good job, but if everyone leaves you a business, he's not a good woman. You really weren't doing a good job with him. He, he's a rock.
Speaker 3 38:02 You talk about the same qualities of success in business and sport. What are those qualities?
Speaker 2 38:09 Uh, well they give a simple thing like your education, you know, and we talk about education is really district potential. This show many superior, uh, sporting people. It's a potential. Just keep the win, win, win, win and just don't get that grit and determination to see it through when they become adults. One thing, exactly what the sign, like grit and determination to do what it takes to achieve what you want to achieve. And turning with that determination and focus day in, day out through good times, bad times. You know it's easy when things are going good, but when things aren't in gallon Ghouta how you double down and how you focus or pivot. You know I took six goes to get Reno going. You know it took nearly four years to grow that company. It wasn't an overnight success. And you know a lot of people with lots of skills don't have that same grit or determination to actually double down and do what it takes. And that's the same thing in sport. It was one thing we lacking in sport and I talk about it a lot when I do sport coaching, it's called carpark disease, CPD. So let's use the real estate industry as an example cause I'll pick on, I'll pick on real effects how people, Hey Johnny, right? He'd been in the real estate business for two years and I hit the goals and he's doing really well. You guys and boys and so forth.
Speaker 2 39:22 Does he draw a random park and he's kind of everywhere at the coffee shops and everything else. Cause I picked some of these Northeast BMW or Mercedes or lakes and he's no longer doing the activities that he did that got him to be where he's gotten to. So we started to get these little things called safety cop running around sort of that equity is have what he was, instead of doing the things that needed to be done and continue doing or development, making it even stronger to get to the next level. And that's what's a little thing called safety day and that's where it happens in sport down to get the 21 he's down the pub, you know, everyone's patting him on the back and telling him that equity is, and instead of bringing up training and things and a lot of that included sports people and some of the sports people that might've been the ones that were dedicated and focused.
Speaker 2 40:08 I want the ones that were always the ones that were disciplined, that were training or exercising or focus. And you know what? The same thing is in business. It doesn't matter how much potential you go to Tamar, you want to grow and develop your own skills and get to the next level that does go and do whatever it takes to achieve the goals that you want to achieve. You have everything that I can tell you is why more chances of success or whatever. Do you want to say six 18 and whatever you would be emerging as you're out there doing whatever it takes and that's the one thing about sport that is so similar to business. It's exactly the same grit and determination has achieved. Why more for anyone in business than anyone in sport and potential ever has.
Speaker 1 40:53 Where are you going next? Like what? What's, what's the next few years hold for Scalia and what sort of impact are you wanting to have on the world?
Speaker 2 41:02 I had absolutely no idea what I had a goal to when the universe took me and if it didn't align up with anything, I was happy to go surfing all day. But as it turned out, I then started getting asked to do speaking and talking and mentor and that then went to the next level and almost little Scotty isms like sugar and cream. When I talk to people about it, people related to it. So I thought tried trademarking and registering nodded. So I figured that, well, I really do enjoy when I share with people and they have a profound effect on them and I have, they run into Tiffany and they go off and start doing the things I need to do to succeed from that came one of the most pleasing things have done in a long time.
Speaker 3 41:46 I know you're having a massive impact. I also know you're really enjoying and loving the journey.
Speaker 2 41:53 It's funny, someone from Philadelphia sent me a photo of her assistant Mark from five seven that she was mapping out for herself the other day and she was starting this business and she had system <inaudible>. All the things that you'd learned from the software and I'm sitting there going, wow, this is the reason why I do what I do. It's the profound effect it's having on people. And that is like a drug on a time. It's just like winning an Australian surfing title or a world title.
Speaker 3 42:21 That's a great story. Might again, just a pit of mind as you, as you're giving that information away for free at the moment and people are using it, it's not about the financial reward for you. It's a satisfaction that is actually helping people and to me that's what real leadership is about. If you could give emerging leaders, aspiring leaders, current leaders, one bit of advice that you've learned in your journey, what would that be?
Speaker 2 42:44 Ah, well, let me give an example around sales manager or sales leader, but it's the same philosophy for every single department except fuel to South manager and you're the number one sales person. You're not the sales manager. If you have a salad managering, you're the most important person in the team. You're not the real leader. I later develops people. A leader inspires people, creates things. A leader creates an environment for people to succeed in. If you're the number one in your running a sales team, well then you're not the leader.
Speaker 3 43:18 We're going to close up now might, but I'd love you to share with the listeners because I'm sure there'll be a number of people that already know you and are in contact with you, but they don't know you and they're gonna listen to this and think, geez, I've got to meet this guy. How can people get in contact with you?
Speaker 2 43:33 Antibody or website? <inaudible> dot com that's just my name. You can Google me. I'm the only Scottish in there in the world. Apparently the follow on LinkedIn and a lot of the material you talk about is freely available. It's up there. I just share it and people can learn from her old. I can ask me to advise or mentor them as well and talk about implementation if they want to, but a lot of it's put on in such a way that people come along and apply the same philosophies that are used like an apply them for free in their own business.
Speaker 3 44:08 My, I want to say just a massive thank you for giving up your time today and I know you said earlier the service pretty good there. So you're able to, uh, to come in and pull yourself away from that and spend some time with us. I really appreciate that your experience, your knowledge, you know, you're walking in, you know, doing things actually that are real, uh, real life. You actually, you know, you've used the term, walked in people's shoes and you've done, I really appreciate
Speaker 1 44:32 what you are, what you've done today and sharing this. Thanks for your time today, Mike. Really appreciate it. Anytime
Speaker 1 44:48 Scotty Schindler is an amazing bloke and a real Aussie larrikin he has real life and real business experience. He is the real deal. His business and leadership education was learned on the job. He was willing to try new things and not follow the norms. Scotty did things his way as he said. He failed a few times and things weren't always perfect. But through pure grit, determination and focus, he built a great culture, a great team, and developed as a great leader and all these things combined help create a hugely successful business. These were my three key takeaways from my chat with Scotty. My first key takeaway is around culture. Focus on building strong relationships. Scotty focused on building strong relationships with his team and building strong relationships with his clients. In relation to his team, Scotty mentioned the no fire policy he had, which helped him think about how he invested time with his people.
Speaker 1 45:58 One of the tools he use to invest time was what he called <inaudible> personal development interviews, which he had with his team. He saw it as his personal responsibility as a leader to help get the best out of his people and the strong relationships with his clients. Scotty talked about focusing on the lifetime value of the client and he had his whole team focused on creating lifetime value. He wasn't just after the sale. This thinking on both fronts really demonstrates the value Scotty placed on the importance of building strong relationships in business. My second key takeaway is around leadership. Leadership is not about being the star performer. In fact, Scotty says, if you are leading a team and you are the star performer, then you are not a real leader. He used the example of a sales manager. The sales manager shouldn't be the number one sales person in the team.
Speaker 1 46:58 If they are number one, then they aren't a real leader. A leader develops people, inspires people, builds teams, and creates the environment for people within their team to succeed. My third key takeaway is around teamwork. Nothing drives teamwork like a collective goal. Even in an individual results driven world like sales, teamwork is achievable and will help your business thrive. Scotty is proof of that. Focusing on the lifetime value of the client was their collective goal and their bonus scheme supported it. Every single person shared in the success of the business, but they also shared the pain when they lost a client. Scotty said this was an absolute game changer for his business and it drove teamwork right through the organization. So in summary, focus on building strong relationships. Leadership is not about being the star performer and nothing drives teamwork like a collective goal. I have to also mention, and this is Testament to what a great bloke Scotty is, Scott, he's now giving away his complete system one three five seven training package. If you want to learn much more from Scotty, visit www.systemonethreefiveseven.com to sign up and start learning today. If you have any questions or feedback about this episode, please feel free to send me a message@brendanatbrendanrodgers.com.edu thank you for listening. Stay safe. Until next time,
Speaker 0 48:42 thank you for listening to the cultural things podcast with Brendan Rogers. Please visit Brendan rogers.com to access the show notes. If you love the cultural things podcast, please subscribe rate and give a review on Apple podcasts and remember, healthy culture is your competitive advantage.
