Be Your Own Boss: Module 1

Dr. Marcus Powe & Guest Speaker (32 mins)

Video Transcript

Now I'd like to introduce Paul Kingston, Managing Director, VIXTRO. Welcome
Paul, and welcome fellow entrepreneur.

Thank you, Marcus, for the introduction, and what a great insight that you've
given into possibility. I have to say how true it is, once you hatch an idea and
have the success, how important it is to reward yourself. This is something easy
to forget, but my personal reward is a break. It's as simple as that. That always
triggers my creativity and new ideas.

So just to start off, I want to give you an understanding and a bit of journey about
how I got to where I am now. I was born in London, moved to Melbourne at the
age of 3. I went to my local public school that was Ringwood Secondary College,
and whilst I was there, I had a passion for IT. I had so much of a passion that I
was there day and night to the point that they couldn't get me out of the place.
That ended up leading into being awarded the community shield by a member of
local government. Later on in that schooling career, I ended up getting awarded
with the IT prefect position. That was the first time that the school had
implemented an IT prefect.

These two things ended up allowing me to apply for and be awarded the Andrew
Jackson Cisco scholarship at Box Hill Institute of TAFE. Whilst I was there, I
gave myself a job by creating a business. How did I know how to start a
business? We'll go into that later on. But I gave myself a job so I could implement
the skills that I was learning whilst studying. Once I finished my studies at Box
Hill Institute, I then continued on to getting a full-time position as a staging
technician at Cadbury Schweppes.

Whilst I was at Cadbury Schweppes, I was asked by my high school, Ringwood

Secondary, to teach CCNA for them after work. And then on Saturday, to teach
CCNA 3 and 4 with Box Hill Institute of TAFE. So I was instantly being thrown
into working with people, as well as having a really nerdy position as a staging
technician and being surrounded by hundreds of pieces of Cisco equipment. So it
was the best of both worlds. It was later on that I was then offered an opportunity
to go and teach with Monash University that I stayed with full-time and then part-
time for around seven years. After that, I was given an opportunity to then go and
teach with RMIT University for a following three years part-time for industry
students.

I started VIXTRO in 2003, but it has been a journey, and it was only until around
about 2006 that everything started taking off. 2007, I employed a full-time trainee,
and then in 2008, I employed my full-time mastermind that's still with us today.

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Be Your Own Boss: Module 1

So having a look at the springboard to the future, I didn't just start VIXTRO. I had
my own business to start with. So I invented my own job whilst studying. This
created the climate to gather the skills, the knowledge, and it also included a trial
and error period with an organization that was willing to support the educated
change that I was putting into place, but not necessarily the experienced change.
This allowed minimized failure, with other customers moving forward. My
greatest investment dream is, was not time-- was not money, sorry, but was my
time.

In Australia, you need an Australian business number to be able to trade

products and services, which I knew from work experience with an IT business
owner back in school. I went into the city to register my business and my trading
name, and the establishment that my first business led me into contacts with
accountants, and also my first set of customers that are still with me today.

Prompting the change was about having a look at a bigger picture. I saw an
opportunity to support an unsupported community of customers. Through
teaching of the Cisco program and general IT, it was obvious there was a unique
set of customers who I could look after in education. I felt that I had the skill and
positive drive to be able to make a difference in the community where no else
could. As I went to conferences, events, I met more of the community, who later
became loyal customers and screaming fans. What I've learned is, you should
treat every customer like someone would treat their grandmother. Grandmothers
will be screaming fans. They'll talk to all of their friends as long as they're happy
and excited, and that is exactly what my customers did.

There were major struggles in balancing the cash flow coming-- cash coming in
and cash going out, for operational expenses as well as equipment needed by
customers, which today is still an ongoing demand. Honestly, at the start, I would
have said that I would have had more money in my pocket if I went and got a job
with somebody else. But my vision was not about what I make in my pocket
today or in a month or in a year, but long-term, and the impact that that company
can have. Building company cash flow can feel like buying a house before you
even know what it costs. I just have to make sure that at the start, I wasn't buying
a mansion.

The metaphor for VIXTRO became to bring people and technology together. and
that was the focus. VIXTRO created partnerships with corporations, product
distribution, and other businesses. Most importantly, I build great relationships
with everyone who became a part of what we did. And I acknowledged them in
helping the success of our company. It was important to create symbiont
relationships because those around you will help you grow your business, not
just you alone. We spent time to understand the customer's needs in depth, and
also where they were struggling. We created solutions to enhance the
experience of technology and to overcome their challenges. We are a service-
orientated, not just technically-minded, company. Service takes time. And when I

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Be Your Own Boss: Module 1

say time, that's time for research, for knowledge and up-skilling, for gathering
people that are smarter than you, to be able to make sure that when you do a
job, that it's done right the first time.

One challenge that we came across was the ongoing growth of advanced
technologies, or better ways technologies could be used. An example of this
would be with virtualization. This is around using technology smarter, where, on
the other hand, unified communications was bringing people together. We
needed to get ready for having that for our customers. When you have
relationships built in industry, access to advanced technical and sales training
resources becomes a lot easier. You won't see it now. It's hard to say where
you'll get it from, but when you're in the moment, and you have those
relationships around you, they'll naturally come into where you are to be able to
move forward. With training, became further partnerships. Hence being able to
offer more to our customers and recognize-- and have our--sorry-- have our skills
recognized. VIXTRO was the first recognized top performing Cisco small
business partner, SMB partner, in Australia. This was partially luck, but it was
partially a lot of hard work.

What I want to do is share with you how have I grown the business within these
three dimensions that we're looking at here in an upward cycle. VIXTRO
consistently grows and adapts around customer needs. We sell our time to make
money-- that's cash flow -- to purchase products for customers fulfill their
solutions. We also need to pay our operational expenses, such as staff,
resources, equipment, training, travel, innovation, and investment in R&D. We
sell products to increase the size of our cash flow. We have recently in the past
few years invested in internal research and development of software we're taking
to the market. The goal is to increase the growth of each one of these circles
without affecting the other.

Working to build our own cash flow and have a slow but steady growth that has
lowered our risk. This has been deliberate to gather finance and to have growth
with that low risk, focusing on a long-term goal for being around in the next 10 to
20 years. The other options would have been taking out bank finance, finding
private investors. However at this stage, this is something we have not yet done.
Strategies around higher risk credit with higher interest were available to
increase our cash flow. However, we have created strategies internally to insure
that we have a minimal risk and 0% interest of the money that we borrow. I
always move on opportunities when they arise, such as during high sales cycles,
applying for higher credit limits, which is easier than applying when sales cycles
are low and you may need that finance at that point.

So you're probably sitting there going, "Well, this is great." You've got to
remember that it's our 10-year anniversary as of February. We've been around
for 10 years. There's a lot of things that have been put into play between the time
now and over the last 10 years. So when I look at resources that might be helpful
to you, I had to ask myself, personally, what do you need to look at as a business

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Be Your Own Boss: Module 1

owner, and as a company, what do you need to look at in your growth there as
well? I see these two things as two completely separate objects, or objectives,
but they have to meld in with each other at the same time. So let's just go
through a couple of them.

Skills and training. I went and did neuro-linguistic programming training, or

practitioner training, that gave me a greater insight of myself, but also people
around me. I looked into books, CDs, and seminars that would allow me to
achieve my own personal goals. On a business sense, books, CDs, and
seminars are also there, but online and face-to-face training is where most of our
skills and training happened.

Around family and friends. Friends are great to get a balance between work and
play. They're also great to create connections inside a business, but I've found
that family was a great grounding point to get me to remember where all of this
came from. There isn't a business. It's people, and it's people that you were there
with as a child. Sometimes family can bring you back to where you started, and
that will help with you moving forward. Meditation was something that I brought
on personally as well, that I'd practice on a daily basis, and I make time to insure
that I have that.

Creating a life balance certainly around owning a business is very hard to

achieve, but it can be done. And what I would say is, not everything's about
business, not everything's about fun. It's a balance between everything in life that
you have to try to create as you move forward. Around business, you will create
friendships, but what you have to understand is where the line of your friendship
and where that works separates, and you have to be very clear about those two
things.

In terms of mentors, I have a number of personal mentors. Over time, some have
been paid and some have been good friends that have turned into people that I
have leant on to get my knowledge. In business, business coaches have been
around and mentors, but the one thing that really helped me through this process
was by finding something fairly recently called the Wealth Dynamic profile. This
helped me understand the people that were in my team, and also customer's
teams, and how we could all work with each other moving forward. What were
our pros? What were our cons? What would the things that we needed to focus
on as an individual and as a group, and what was missing? That Wealth Dynamic
profile run across the team was something that really helped me recently
understand where everyone sits.

Goal-setting. Where do I want to be in five year's time? As a business, where do I

want my business to be in five year's time? There may be an overlap between
those two things, but as an example, I might want three houses in five year's
time, but for my business, I may want to have three software packages on the
market in five year's time. They're different goals. Going into industry seminars,
this is more around business, but you'll find that when you create partnerships,

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Be Your Own Boss: Module 1

there'll be a wealth of seminars that are opened up to you, and usually at no cost.
In terms of networking, social events such as charity events, an event you might
host, or your friends might host are certainly worth investing time around. In a
business sense, you've got Cisco Live if you're in the technical world, such as
VIXTRO, and in there you'll meet thousands of people that are in the same
industry that you are. LinkedIn I've also found is a great resource because there's
hundreds of thousands of people that are joining groups that might be relevant to
you, not just in IT.

As a skilled resource, personally, an accountant is someone you definitely have

to have. whether I started making $100 on my wage or $100,000 on my wage, I
didn't want to know about the finance. I didn't want to be filling in the forms. I
didn't want to spend the time doing that. There's professionals out there that can
do that for me. So the accountant, in a personal sense, was someone that I used
as a skills resource. In a business sense, you have an accountant, a bookkeeper.
This will keep the paperwork off your desk. When I started, I had paperwork all
over my living room. That's not the case anymore. I needed support staff to then
start booking meetings as I got busier and busier, and marketing to start branding
our company and giving us a vision or a visual to what we looks like. In the
thinking space, over the holidays, that was where I started to get creative, and in
a business sense, I utilized the teams around me and the resources that I have
to help paint that vision of the company, although I may be the one actioning it.
Board memberships, taking reviews, being at the forefront of change, being
involved in community, and staying in touch with your industry and having an
input, I find, has been extremely important. Government incentives will also allow
you to look at where you could potentially get cash without actually having to get
that out of your cash flow.

So there's a lot of things out there on the market. All you need to do is a Google
search or contact people in local government or state government, federal
government, to ask what are the opportunities that I have at my side right now? It
may be that there's nothing there right now, but in six months from now, you ask
the same question, in 12 months from now, you ask the same question. You
keep asking that question until you find the opportunities, and you take them
when they come. VIXTOR, for me, right now, is about creating my own drive,
motivation, and vision rather than living the life of somebody else's. If I had to
leave you with something that resonates with me, I would say, be active, be
involved, have a vision, action ideas, and think of when you could take off. You
can always figure out the landing when you're in the air.

Thank you for coming on my journey, and I wish you all the best in yours.

Thank you, Paul. And thank you, too, for sharing not only the technical, the
financial, but the emotional and also more about you, because I'm of the view,
and we are in agreement, that people do business with people. That's who we
interact with all day, is people. And what we do now is think about how we can
make the most of the opportunity.

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Be Your Own Boss: Module 1

I've got some questions that might trigger off some thoughts, might trigger off
some reactions, and it might be interesting for those listening, about, "Hmm, I
wonder what they meant by that," or, "Hey, maybe I could this." If I go back to the
webinar series, of imagine, think, start, build, test, implement, and review, let's
start with imagine.

How did the idea of your business come about? Did you see a need? You
touched on it. Did you fall over the opportunity? What happened, Paul?

As I was sitting inside of one of the largest universities in Melbourne, it was

extremely hard to find the resources required and to be able to not just put that
equipment in the classroom, but also someone that would understand about what
you were doing in the classroom to be able to provide, I guess, information about
that as well. And I got so frustrated that I couldn't find anyone else out there. So it
was a frustration to a point where I said, I could do something about this. [laughs]

It's that old saying that the only people that do the really good work is if you do it
yourself. And it seems to repeat a lot, but it's hard when you're working regionally
or internationally. But that's interesting. Well, frustration was a good driver. And
there's no such thing as the best way to start a business. What about thinking?
And I've been working myself, as I do, and I'm fortunate to run several
businesses. I own several businesses here and out of state, so I do it as well as I
write about it, and doing things like this exciting initiative with Cisco. Is that
curiosity, interested? How did you develop and network? Because I think we
agree that people do business with people. Why do some people get a bit, I
suppose, shy walking into a room? What is it about the network? You've talked
about LinkedIn as one sort of network. Tell me your experience with networking.

My experience with networking is, I used to just sit in Melbourne and, you know,
connect with the people that were here locally. But what I found out is that you
can get on a plane and end up anywhere. And once I got on that first flight and
ended up in another state, it didn't stop. I'm still flying now, and I'm not going to
stop, because that face-to-face value and the information and the feedback you
get live from customers is so valuable that you end up getting new ideas and new
ways that you could be helping them as well. So the network is about taking a
leap in just saying hi. Hi, Marcus. [both chuckle] We only met today. It's another
connection.

The other interesting thing about, I find, the two forms of network, there's the
giving network and the taking network. And when we start off, we go to meetings
and we go to events and we gather all these business cards, and we get back to
our office and we've got a great rack of cards or electronic contacts. How many
people do you know-- probably not many-- you might be shocked-- my network
and my database, I suppose, physical or electrical, would be 10, 15 people. But
they know another 200. And it's funny, because what I've learned the hard way,
'cause I'm a bit slow, is, what can I give to my network without any expectation?

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People are thinking about what to do. So do you have any specific examples of
surprises of networking?

I think if you treat customers right-- I mean, I'm based in Melbourne, but quite
honestly, my customers are almost like salespeople in each state. And it's all I
look after them correctly, and that's what I have done. You end up with someone
in Sydney-- Australia-- that'll turn around, and in that region, they'll go and tell
everyone-- - Ring Paul, - ring Paul. And that became this thing that, if anyone
wasn't ringing me, they were out of the loop. And that went through Sydney and
then Perth and Northern Territory, even, up there in Darwin. But every state that
you touch, if you do the right thing, you implement an entire sales force that
you're not paying. But it's a symbiont relationship, and it's a win-win between you
and them.

I mean, part of being part of the audience at Cisco, a global network, really, to
me, if there is an opportunity to ask a question, ask for help with that. The next
thing is about starting, and one of the controversial areas, which is about the
business plan-- and I've been involved with a very large business plan and
competition, and I'm quite excited, because next week, I open in Singapore-- is
the, why is it that some people write plans, some people have plans in their
minds, some people don't like plans. There seems to be this myth around
planning. I started two businesses with plans, one business without a plan. I can't
believe I just admitted that to this webinar, but I did. But I now write plans
because, not only do I teach it, but I insist on it now because it gets all of this
space out of here down onto the paper to see what more thoughts for
opportunity. Tell me about your planning adventures, Paul.

I think my creativity isn't organized, but when it ends up on paper, it has to be

organized. So I started with a mind map. I started off with putting ideas down
onto paper.

Yeah.

I didn't do an official business plan because it was only me, and I really had to
put the feelers out there to understand where it was going to go as well. [laughs]

So an unofficial—

So it was an unofficial business plan, would be the best way of putting it. And I
think you do have to have a plan. What I would say, though, is, my vision is
understood by everybody around me.

Okay.

So, you know, the vision is in where we are in five years from now, not where we
are right now. So everyone's moving towards that vision, but we're currently
looking at putting that plan together officially.

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Be Your Own Boss: Module 1

All right, and just for the audience, I'm making a note here. Paul sort of
answered that question quite well, and I will be asking all our guests during the
webinars about, did you have a business plan? Maybe I have an obsession with
them. Anyway, we'll move on to the next question about building. And building to
me requires all forms of energy-- emotional energy, physical energy. And you've
grown your business. It's been successful 10 years. To me, growth is growth is
growth that changes over periods, that changes over time. I'm interested in-- and
you remember that picture we shared with the audience about the bicycle with
the dials, or the motorbike with the dials. How do you keep your finger on the
pulse? How do you know what-- are you reactive, or do you get surprised, or you
know what's happening?

I think that-- you know, and I've worked with customers very recently around this
as well, is, there's proactive and reactive, and you have to have both in there to
be able to move forward. Reactive is about more dealing with the noise as it goes
along, where proactive is about having a look at the vision and how to implement
it. You know, for me, I think that life balance is something that I've had to learn as
well. I reckon I was probably close to a workaholic at the start, and it was all
about business, to be honest. But over the time, you know, you do need time to
yourself, and that's where, as an example, meditation came in, as well as having
holidays and having rewards for successes and milestones. And you have to
have that to be able to put your pulse on-- have your finger on the pulse, but also
be able to see where that vision is going along the way. Because if all you're
doing is, you're in the job, you won't see what's around you and the opportunities
that are there to move forward.

So there's really two pulses. There's your pulse...

Yeah.

And the pulse of the business.

Absolutely, yeah. That's where I split the two areas.

That's not bad. I'm interested in how you felt when you got your first order or your
first contract. You know, some people go, "Ah, yes, that's what I'm doing," but
when you take that first step into doing something for yourself, and someone
said, "Yes, Paul, "I want what you've got, and here's my order"-- if we could stop
time there, tell me what happened.

If you could imagine a visual of me running down the street screaming with my
arms waving around, I think it would be a good start, I would say. When you get
your first order and especially your first contract, as well-- because a contract is
about a long-term commitment, where a product is something that, you know,
when you sell it, you go, "I'm in business." So, you know, and that wasn't starting
off by selling a $100,000 device. I mean, we're talking about a $10 order. That's

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where it started, a few cables. And in terms of the contract, it was around
support, and I was the one doing that support, whereas now I've got a brilliant
team that look after that. So, yeah, the contract is about a customer saying to
me, you know, "I'm putting my trust in you." - Okay. - "And this is long-term." So,
yeah, both of those, I would have my arms in the air, and I couldn't even explain
the excitement.

That's great. But there's another area, part of this, about, you get the order--
before that, you had to commit to a price, about what do you charge. I'm of the
view-- and I'd be interested in your reaction to this-- is that, if you're good at what
you do, and you are proud of what you do, you should charge accordingly. I've
seen a lot of great people start their business and apologize on price. Like, it's
almost, "I've got this wonderful approach, "great solution, and here's a grand
opening discount." What is your approach on that sensitive area of how much
should you charge.

Yeah, first off, my approach is that I put myself in the shoes of the customer, and
if I have to work with other companies to get those products-- and Cisco would
know this-- I will go back to them over and over again, and I will barter them
down until I get to a price that I feel comfortable taking to that customer. And,
yes, even though I have to put services around that, if it's about our time, and I
also have to put a profit margin in on that equipment, at the end of the day, I've
done everything for that customer that I could have done before putting that
margin on. And if that margin has to be slightly higher because of the effort and
work we've had to do for them, the customer's still better off. I'm never going to
selling equipment or services unless it's a win-win situation for us, and also the
customer. In some situations, I've had to walk away from deals because they
haven't valued that, and it might have gone anywhere. We made $10 out of a
$50,000 order. You can't survive long-term as a company around that. You know,
it's more about what we offer with that product.

All right. But I just have two more questions as this webinar is coming to an end.
Where has the time gone? It's about the idea of providing professional services
under sort of a contract. And in one of the webinars, we're gonna talk about
contracting and the difficulties, the tricks and techniques. But is it a hard thing to
do, or do you now have your own approach, your own style, your own company
effort around contracting? So the mechanics of contracting.

Yeah, I mean, we've contracts. We went on--and there's an online website in

Australia called Lawline that gives us all of the legal resources, not all of them,
but it gives us a good start. But around those contracts, are these personal? To
be honest, most of our customers, a handshake means more than a piece of
paper. But what I would say is that you need to-- when things go wrong, you find
sometimes the handshake didn't quite work. - Right. - So I guess, you know, how
we work with those contracts, and also getting people into those contracts,
sometimes we have them, sometimes we don't. You know, depending on the

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commitment that we have to have, and the expectations that they have at a
particular job.

Okay. Last question. And I've really enjoyed this first webinar because of two
things-- we've gone across so many topics, and it's been lucky for us and those
listening that we're talking to someone that's taken all those steps over a great
deal of time, 10 years, a business that's idea to opportunity to reality to growth to
reputation. And that's why you're here today. It's time to review how you're gonna
maintain the growth. And when I compare you to a competitor, are you different
on the service? Are you different on the way you think? Are you different on your
team? Because if I'm a customer, and I look at you and I look at your
competition, why will I choose you?

We're very customer-focused, and other business are too. We've got a very--
we've got a niche inside of education, and that's really where we place ourselves.
So we have a look at, you know, where we can benefit from the skills and
resources that we have onboard. But the one thing that differs us from every
other company is, basically, the software development we're going into at the
moment is about a product that is about maintaining the identity of people in an
organization, and it's something that we don't see anyone doing across the world
except for maybe one or two people. But the way we're wanting to do it is better.

Okay. All right, well, thank you for that. And thank you for sharing your time and
experience with us today. Before I hand back to Emma to wrap up this webinar,
I'd just like to thank everyone for participating. Thank the Cisco team in front of
and behind the scenes for all their effort, organization, fine-tuning, and polishing.
I think we're off to a good start. And as I always say at the end of every webinar,
lecture, or seminar, I ask my audience to repeat after me-- happiness is a
positive cash flow. Thanks, everybody. Looking forward to speaking with you at
the next webinar.

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