Buyers and Builders
00:20:28 · Brett Kelly
[00:20:28] S1: So on the very first day of the business I wrote this book. I wrote this book as a training manual for our accountants to tell them how they should treat the clients. One of the things I love about Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett is Warren Buffett, when he's asked what he loves to do the most, he really loves to teach. He's a learner, I suspect, and I'm very much that. And so my real talent is learning and understanding and then putting things in a way that we can teach them to people and share them. And so I had this as the way we wanted to do business And I built what's called a critical activity network of the business that I had learned about in another book based on how IKEA had organized themselves. And I just basically sat down like an architect and designed what the workflow should look like, what the firm should look like, where people should sit, how the store should be laid out, what the SKU is. So I thought about how to retail accounting, You know, what does the office got to look like so people feel good or are attracted to working there and can work together in a seamless way? So talent led for the office. What are the workflows of the major pieces of work we do and how do we streamline them so that they can give efficiency and not be annoying to the staff like the team to participate in. And it was all about how do you make the human experience of our professionals better and how do we have a better outcome for the client. So I was an inveterate, still am an inveterate team for a on the system on the software on the process to try and make everything work better. If I come to your house you know and you ask me how you could let your bookshelf better I'll probably have an idea I I walk into businesses and I look at them and think how could they work better.
00:22:32 · Mikk, Brett Kelly
[00:22:32] S0: That's why great, you know... The companies you first approached outside of Sydney, how was their reaction when you first knocked on their door and said hi, introduced yourself? [00:22:43] S1: I wanted to check. Yeah. So one of the insights, Mikk, was firstly, I was organically growing the firm that I started in North Sydney like this. So they could see that I knew how to to to win business. So they were like this guy is serious about what he is doing. I had done a couple of acquisitions in the first nine months, my old boss and a guy up the road and then I went to areas that were unattractive to other people. So those firms were like, you really want to come to our area? I was like, absolutely. And they were like, okay, great. So there was less competition to get involved in those firms, to buy into those firms because other people didn't really want to buy those firms. But I did and they just wanted the money so they were like yeah I will take your money and then I had all these big ideas and they just treat you like you are crazy and that is okay because then they leave you alone and then you just do the implementation and then they're like, oh, this is great. This is better. No problem. So if upfront you try to explain too much then people will argue with you. I didn't explain. I just said, yeah, we'll make things better. Then people don't really argue with you. They just, they don't really believe you anyway. So why waste time arguing? [00:24:01] S0: I
00:24:01 · Mikk, Brett Kelly
[00:24:01] S0: I [00:24:02] S1: didn't really try to make the business case. I just said, look, we're really not open. And we work very hard. [00:24:08] S0: So... When it comes to the organic growth, winning business, what would you talk if you had... If you would have to give like a short presentation because I think that's... [00:24:20] S1: Oh, I just ask you, Mikk. I'd say, Mikk, do you have a great accountant? And most people would say, what's a great accountant? I don't think my guy's great. I go, what's his name? And they'd say, John. I'm like, okay. Well, you know, what a great accountant would do would be they'd give forward looking advice that was systemised at a fixed fee that'd be available to you twenty four hours a day six days a week and they'll change your life. Is that something that would be interesting to you? To which people would say yeah absolutely and then I would show them I'll show you here we have a system I'll just move my screen just there where we address in the people's personal business, wealth and estate. They get born, they go to business, they build wealth and they die. And then I've got a whole system which I will show you because it's secret that we roll out to the client. But I had thought about a system for the client that we give that to the client, sits in their study at home or in their office and it is cradle to grave and multi generational. I've never put even that on camera before. We have tons and tons of trade secrets that we don't share. Now we've digitized all that that's why I'm happy to show you.
00:24:20 · Brett Kelly, Mikk
[00:24:20] S1: Oh, I just ask you, Mikk. I'd say, Mikk, do you have a great accountant? And most people would say, what's a great accountant? I don't think my guy's great. I go, what's his name? And they'd say, John. I'm like, okay. Well, you know, what a great accountant would do would be they'd give forward looking advice that was systemised at a fixed fee that'd be available to you twenty four hours a day six days a week and they'll change your life. Is that something that would be interesting to you? To which people would say yeah absolutely and then I would show them I'll show you here we have a system I'll just move my screen just there where we address in the people's personal business, wealth and estate. They get born, they go to business, they build wealth and they die. And then I've got a whole system which I will show you because it's secret that we roll out to the client. But I had thought about a system for the client that we give that to the client, sits in their study at home or in their office and it is cradle to grave and multi generational. I've never put even that on camera before. We have tons and tons of trade secrets that we don't share. Now we've digitized all that that's why I'm happy to show you. [00:25:42] S0: This is remarkable. I've never seen a person so systematic man, honestly.
00:25:46 · Brett Kelly
[00:25:46] S1: Well, a number of our investors have come here. I'm here in Malibu, California, and they've sat at my desk and they've said, how do you do this? I opened a spreadsheet where I have, you know, one of my business heroes is Michael Hill. He built Michael Hill jewelers in, in Australia. Remarkable man. He collected Stradivarius guitar violins he was a violinist that would have liked to be a virtuoso that wasn't so he started an international violin contest he built a super yacht called VVS one which is the best super yacht in the world at the time it was built. Built a golf course where the New Zealand open was and he was noted by the Queen. Incredible guy. But he wrote a book called Tough Enough and he he talked about having a thirty year plan. He told me that more than twenty years ago I read that. And so I have had it similar since I did my book, twenty five year plans. And since I opened a spreadsheet, I showed people the twenty five year plan for Kelly Partners, I show them my own twenty five year plan and how it's aligned in a spreadsheet and how that all moves together. And a number of my investors have seen that and have been like, right, okay, this guy's got a plan. You know, most people, as Jim Rohn would say, the great American speaker, know, he said be a meaningful specific, not a wandering generality. Most people don't have a clear plan for what they're trying to do and so they achieve exactly what they planned which is not much. So we took all of that learning and just pushed it into the business. We need clear business plans. We need ten year plans. We need partners with ten year commitments. We have to have a long term view. We need a deep system on the people side or the client office side and on the ops side. So it's really how do you do Walmart in the back, right? Walmart McDonald's. So my headspace was we would be Walmart in the back of the business and McDonald's in the front of the business, right? In terms of clear offer, Big Mac, Cheeseburger, etcetera. We would be Disney where people love to go and work at Disney because it's the happiest place on earth. We'd be Ritz Carlton seven you know the the seven star servers offensively in Berkshire and then we just took those ideas and applied them to our own business.
00:28:05 · Mikk, Brett Kelly
[00:28:05] S0: Okay, there is this plan, there is this system. What if things are not going as planned? [00:28:10] S1: Yeah, so the good news is things tend to go more to plan when you have a plan and then if they are not going to plan you just have to reconfigure your plan. And now everything that is the best about our system today, we've learned from plans that didn't work out. So every time we had a problem, we had to work out the problem and then we put that into our system. Now if you think that we bought into, we bought all or part of 95 firms. And so those firms have hundreds of years of cumulative experience. And so we've been able to learn from every one of those transactions, but also from their history. What happened that was good? What happened that was bad? How did you deal with that? How did you fix that? And we've built that into our collective wisdom of our organization. [00:29:06] S0: You have this 50 oneforty 9% partner owner driver model. You are reading a lot of books. There is this eightytwenty rule. Have you ever considered any models? Eightytwenty, seventythirty, why 50 oneforty nine?