DYB Podcast EP81 Mindset Changes to Grow Your Business With Rob Vuckovic Down Under in Australia
SUMMARY:
The DYB Podcast is connecting with our mates Down Under as we bring you Rob Vuckovic, owner of Fusion Painting in Canberra, Australia!
Rob shares many mindset changes he went through after starting his business, Fusion Painting.
Like many of us, he learned painting from his father, but unlike many of us, his dad had him working from the age of 12 so that he would be persuaded to never paint, but to work hard in school and avoid manual labor and get an office job.
Rob’s father taught him how to work hard and he excelled. Rob became a mechanical engineer only to hate it and want nothing more than to be out painting.
Rob then worked for his dad until his dad recommended he start his own company, which Rob willingly and excitedly did.
Feeling like he couldn’t fail, he took on what he thought was the best job and best market for him on millionaires lane—only to find it was nightmare lane.
After losing $27,000 on that job, receiving no referrals, and not even being remembered by the home owner, he went to work for many GC’s. Having an awful time with them, his amazing paint rep help him and told him he should break into the residential market (avoiding the Big House on the Hill clients from then on!).
This was one of many mindset changes or mind-shifts Rob went through and he shares them with us today.
WHAT YOU’LL LEARN:
- Many mindset changes for Rob that we can, no doubt, relate to, including: from painter to business man
- How Rob curates his culture amongst his team
- How Rob pre-sells so that the estimate is almost sold before he gets there
- What Rob does to focus on the customer experience, leading to Endless Referrals, as Bob Burg taught him
- The importance of following up and how his mindset changed from dreading it, to feeling helpful in doing so
- How Rob takes lessons from Jacko Willink’s on Extreme Ownership and applies them to his company
- Rob’s mindset change from Superman Complex to Delegator and how that builds up his team and morale in his company
LISTEN HERE:
QUOTES:
09:29 “After a little while, I was able to join a group and learn about the business side of painting. That was the thing that was a real mind shift: learning about knowing your numbers, understanding a profit and loss, understanding how to track jobs and learn costs and things like that, learn how to read a balance sheet, print out a profit and loss statement at the end of every month and read it and study it and understand it. That was really the shift, the transition from a craftsman painter into a businessman.”
12:21 “I think it was Richard Branson who said, “Look after your staff and they’ll look after your customers.” And really, really the team is everything to our business and it should be to everyone else’s business. They are really the engine room of the business. You know, I go out and sell a job and do all that and generate leads and stuff, but really, at the end of the day, if you can’t produce a job, you’re not gonna make any money. So these guys are out there, they’re at the coalface, really producing the job. They are the ones who are interacting with our customers day to day, they are the face of your business. They’re the guys that have got the branding on the tee shirts, branding on the vans. They are really everything in a business, you know, without them, we don’t have a business really. … Really that is so important to me that’s where the company culture has to come into it. So it’s strong, it’s a very strong thing. And I’ve always, always, always valued that.”
18:55 “(Following Up) This is something you read about in books, back when I started, many years ago: follow up, follow up, follow up. It was something that I was resistant to do. I could have given you 20 reasons why. I didn’t want to do it. It was only when I had people come over and bid to do things around my own home. And the guys that followed up, it really, really left an impression on me. And that was it. That was my mind shift. The way I felt when I got followed up, because I almost (used to feel) it was a bit cheesy or a bit almost like a used car salesman thing, but really, it’s the way you do it. And these people will follow me up because they were genuinely interested in the job. It really left a great impression on me. And I tell you from that moment, I’m following up.”
HIGHLIGHTS
09:14 Learning the Business Side
09:49 Good Painter, Bad Businessman
12:05 Company Culture Strategies
14:50 Traveling to US and comparing US to AUS businesses
16:04 Pre-selling to Clients
17:15 Focus on Customer Experience
17:58 Importance of Following Up
19:06 Influence
20:02 Endless Referrals by Bob Burg and the impact on Rob’s business
20:37 Extreme Ownership by Jacko Willink and the impact to Rob
22:56 Overcoming the Superman Complex
LINKS & RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
Extreme Ownership by Jacko Willink
ADDITIONAL FREE RESOURCES: