Simon chats with Craig Schulze, Entrepreneur.

Show Notes

Craig is a successful Entrepreneur with a background in Engineering and fitness. At the age of 21, Craig bought his first business and in the 12 years to follow opened up 5 gyms and helped set up 22 franchises. In 2006 Craig moved into the Direct selling industry and now has a business in over 100 countries.

You can contact Craig Schulze here: www.wealthynetworkmarketer.com


Transcript

Simon Dell: So welcome to the Paper Planes podcast, Craig Schultz. How are you?

Craig Schultz: Very good, thanks Simon.

Simon Dell: And you’re down in sunny Melbourne today, aren’t you?

Craig Schultz: Yeah, nice and cold here.

Simon Dell: I keep bagging people in Melbourne there because the weather is just terrible. And I presume you didn’t watch the State of Origin last night because people in Melbourne have got no idea what the State of Origin is, really.

Craig Schultz: No, actually. Didn’t know that it was on, but social media quickly told me that it was.

Simon Dell: So look, give us a little bit of a background. Give us the 60-second elevator pitch about who you are and what you do.

Craig Schultz: I’m an entrepreneur, always been an entrepreneur, let’s say. I did go through the corporate world, got a good job, become an engineer with two uni degrees. I bought my first business aged 21 because I knew that working for someone wasn’t for me.

I spent 12 years franchising a business in the fitness industry, set up 22 franchises and I moved in about 2006, 2008, that sort of zone when social media was becoming a little bit more prominent and I moved into the direct selling industries. I’ve been in that industry since that time, and I’m doing that now. I’ve got business in a hundred countries, earned over a million dollars many years in a row, and just travel the world, just sharing the story about our company and product line.

Simon Dell: We will talk all about that in a minute. You just said one thing there that’s obviously quite important for people to understand. You started off your education as an engineer. What made you switch? Was there a light bulb moment? You said you didn’t want to work for anybody else. Was that one light bulb moment or was that an ongoing realization over a number of years that you didn’t want to work for somebody else?

Craig Schultz: I guess for me, when you’re brought up, it’s always get a good education, get a good job. And then when I was in that corporate environment where I was turning up at 8:00 a.m. and leaving at 5:00 or 6:00 p.m., that was always wearing me down. I’m not the type of person that can just be dictated the whole day with what you do.

I was always just open minded and thinking well and truly outside the box from even when I was in that job. We had flexitime project and I used to always work at, “If I could get this job done quicker, does that give me the ability to have time off?” I just think trading time for money for me was not the plan that I was going to follow through with.

Simon Dell: A lot of people don’t realize that until much later in life. I mean, it’s interesting that you learned that early on. Was there pressure on you to still go into that corporate vein at 21? Were your family telling you that, “You’ve done all this education as an engineer. You better start being an engineer.”

Craig Schultz: Definitely, I would say there was a little bit of disappointment. If I rewind before that when I was 13, 14 years of age, my next-door neighbour actually thought he was going to get a young kid doing a job for him for 5 dollars an hour, and I turned my whole shed into nearly a manufacturing plant and worked out how to get 25 dollars an hour and have family members working for me.

My mind was always ticking over at a very young age. But there’s no question, spending 5 years at university, you invest a lot of money and time into that. And I did that, and only spending 2 years in that profession was probably disappointing to many, but it was also a big driver for me to go, “Look, I’m giving up something good here that I worked hard for. I better make something of myself.”

Simon Dell: It’s one of those funny questions. When you speak to a lot of entrepreneurs, they started really early on. You say you had family members working for you. Were you doing things as a teenager? How early did you get that bug that there was something more to just working that 9:00 to 5:00?

Craig Schultz: I grew up in a mining town on the west coast of Tasmania. I had to leave home when I was 15 just to go beyond year 10 at school. I had spent a bit of time working in the mines and I knew the hard work that I was doing there, that was definitely no career. But I was always a creative thinker, and I’ve always tried to work out how to do things better, improve productivity. I can always just remember, that was the way my brain operated pretty early on.

Simon Dell: Is that something that runs in the family?

Craig Schultz: Not necessarily, no. My parents, definitely not. My brothers are entrepreneurial builders, they’ve bought, build, and sold their house three or four times, but they don’t use any technology. They’re old-school entrepreneurs in a way.

Simon Dell: Do you think that entrepreneurs are made or they evolve over time? Do you think you’re born one or do you think that’s something you can learn?

Craig Schultz: I think everything you can learn. I mean, a good friend of mine, Jack Delosa who I do a lot of work with, he always says everything to skill and skills can be learned. Happiness can be a skill. I think entrepreneurship can be learned, but I think there’s something inside certain people that triggers and sparks. I think it can be something that can be learned, but I think natural entrepreneurship is where magic can often happen.

Simon Dell: What made you do engineering in the first place? Was that something that you generally had an attraction for? Because I did the same thing. I went to university and did a law degree, and I walked out of university age 21 and I just went, “Well, I’m never doing that again.” What was it that attracted you to doing that in the first place?

Craig Schultz: That wasn’t a career that I always wanted to follow. What happened there, the Tasmanian government, they had this elite program which was a special cadetship where they’re trying to improve innovation and tech. And they offer these cadetships where you would work on-site plus get a university degree and they’re offering six a year. And because I left home when I was so young, I was self-funded in a way. I just said, “I’m going to go and win one of those cadetships.” That caught me on that path, and that’s the main reason I probably went through that career.

Simon Dell: At that point, you’ve done that and you’ve gone, “Right. Well, I want to own my own business. I want to start my own thing. I want to be my own boss.” What’s day one look like for you there? I’m interested, for other people when they’re in the same sort of situation — you’ve made that decision, you want to go out on your own. What were the first things that you did?

Craig Schultz: I always say to myself, and when I tell my story, which I often do, I always say it’s fair to say at age 21, it’s hard to say you’ve really got any business skills to be running a business, but you’re probably even lacking in life skills at age 21. But what I always say to people is, what I lacked in business and life skills, I made up in absolute desire, and action taken, and a will to do whatever it took for success.

I was not a great reader, but I would read for an hour before I went to bed on sales. I’d read for an hour on leadership; anything I could learn, I learned. And I was very fortunate which, if this can happen for anyone, it can really help significantly. One of my first clients was an incredible businessperson, and he taught me everything from property investing, to investing in the stock market, to business, to money management, company structures, absolutely everything.

He’s still my mentor today, and every decision I make for business, I just cross-reference with him. So, a mentor at age 21 was very lucky, but day one, that was — where do I start here? It was just I believed in myself and I was just prepared to do what it takes for success.

Simon Dell: You’ve mentioned Jack Delosa. Obviously, we’ve had one of his team, Peter, on the show, talking about The Entourage and things like that, Peter Lackovic. You mentioned mentors. You mentioned Jack Delosa. The Entourage is very much built on that kind of mental ship. Do you think if someone’s out there irrespective of their age, whether they’re 21, or 41, or 61, and they want to go and start a business, how important is finding a good-quality mentor for you?

Craig Schultz: Pay for it if you have to. And I heard an interview with Janine Allis who just went and asked so many people if she could just sit down and have a coffee with them and pick their brains. Do that, but you need to really level up and have… I always talk about if I buy a property or I buy anything, business decision, whatever it is, I want to cross-reference.

And just in case it’s something I’m not thinking about, I always do that. And the one thing I found with The Entourage, it’s nearly a bit of a one-stop shop. Whether it’s marketing, sales, HR, finance, it’s a paid program… If you have to pay for it, you do it. Don’t try and work it out yourself because you’ll save yourself a lot of time and money for having really good people around you.

Simon Dell: Let’s talk a little bit about Jack Delosa. Obviously, you’ve known him for a while. If we go onto your LinkedIn profile, there’s a lot of interviews with him. I know this podcast is about you, but I’m just interested to get your thoughts on Jack and what you’ve learned from him over the years.

Craig Schultz: He’s an incredible entrepreneur, extremely sharp. He’s what I would call very visionary. He could see things happening, but he’s got his finger on the pulse of all areas of business. So, he knows business numbers. So, if your numbers aren’t working, he understands that. He knows marketing and sales incredibly well. So, I think he’s always at the forefront of innovation and world’s best practice. He’s still a young entrepreneur, too. He’s in his early-30s, but incredibly switched-on person.

Simon Dell: What’s one thing you’ve learned from him, aside from the numbers thing? Let me talk about that, because I think that’s probably a lesson that I see a lot when I sit down with businesses, is that people don’t know their numbers. One of the big excuses you get from entrepreneurs is they always say, “Well, I’m not very good at numbers. That’s not my skill set.”

And again, I’ve had conversations and discussions with people to say, “If you don’t know your numbers, you should learn them. You should live, breathe your numbers.” And then some people would say, “Well, you don’t have to live and breathe them. You just have to find someone that you trust that can understand them and help explain them to you.” Where do you sit in that thought?

Craig Schultz: I think you need to know the numbers. And I know in Jack’s story, there was times when he had to know the numbers in his business, but it’s not his bread and butter. It’s not something he’s passionate about. So, he has got someone in that does do the numbers. And I sit in that camp, too. I probably really have that honed from listening to Ray Dalio’s audiobook Principles where he said, “Fire yourself from anything you’re not very good at.”

And for me, one of the lessons I’ve really taken out of Jack was, “I’m not great at tech. I’m not great at doing imagery, videography, any of that stuff, but I know how important it is for me. So, I now have people that can do that working with me and for me.”

Simon Dell: On a complete sidenote here, I often have a long conversation with people about that Ray Dalio book, because I hated that book. And I am in a very small minority about that book, because everyone else says what a great book it is, but I just did not enjoy that in the slightest.

Craig Schultz: I got a lot of value out of it, but yeah.

Simon Dell: I think it’s because I do a lot of writing, and I would like to consider myself a writer now. I just find the way that Ray Dalio writes was so irritating that I just lost the point of the book by the time I got to the end of it, because I was so frustrated in the manner in which he was communicating. But anyway, I digress because I have made this point several times before and I shant go off on that tangent again.

Craig Schultz: I’m a slow reader, so I consume by listening. I listen to the audiobook.

Simon Dell: The last couple of podcasts, we’ve had quite a few conversations about audiobooks and the benefits of audiobooks, but I tend to do both. I’ve always got two books at once, one that I’m reading and one that I’m listening to in the car, which, when I’m doing what I’m doing now, which is unfortunately they’re both science fiction books, the two stories tend to merge into one another, so I can’t remember what’s happening either one.

Anyway, I digress again. Look, I guess one thing I really wanted to talk to you about today was network marketing, direct sales, or whatever you want to call it. And the reason I wanted to have a conversation with that about was two-fold. Number one, the lady that organizes these podcasts for me, Sarah, she’s very big into that network marketing, direct sales area. She’s building a business in that space.

The second thing is that it tends to have a negative connotation, again, potentially more from its history in previous players back in the past. So, I wanted to ask you a nice, broad, overarching question first up: How do you see that network marketing industry in 2019? Is it healthy? Is it growing? Who are the big players that we should be looking at?

Craig Schultz: I’ve worked in the corporate world. So, product and services moved. There was an audiobook called The Next Millionaires by Professor Paul Zane Pilzer. He talked about where are the big growth trends were in 2006 to 2018, and he talked about e-commerce, businesses, direct selling businesses, product distribution businesses, information businesses, and wellness businesses were going to be the five big trends for the next millionaires.

That was when the light bulb went off for me that network marketing was an industry that was going to really be one of the players to create the next millionaires. So, I basically really started to learn and understand that industry very well. So, I’ve worked in the corporate world with a big business that can ship and move product. I’ve owned a traditional business, I’ve franchised businesses, and I’ve been in the direct selling industry.

So, I’ve been in all categories of way product goes to consumer. And the thing that I always say to people about network marketing: it’s no staff, it’s low-risk, it’s low entry level, unlimited opportunity and unlimited leverage if you do the business behaviours correctly. Now, the thing is, like any investment, there’s due diligence that you have to do. There’s 10,000 different companies to choose from, so you can choose buying a bad franchise business or you can choose going into selling DVDs in a traditional business.

They’re bad business decisions. You can join a bad company. But the thing that gives network marketing sometimes its bad perceptions is the way people approach people. Because 97% people do it the wrong way, and they would come up to you and go, “Simon, hey, you have a podcast, you have a big audience. Join my business and you’ll make all this money.”

And you’ll join, and you’ll do nothing, and then you’ll go, “Oh, I just got burnt by a network marketing opportunity.” And you didn’t get burned by the network marketing opportunity. It’s a business you did nothing, you made nothing. But the person that introduced you really didn’t set you up to win. If you get the due diligence right and you become a professional, you can do this industry incredibly well. I’m eternally grateful.

Simon Dell: Great point you made there about there are bad franchises in the world. Nobody really looks at the franchise industry and goes that it’s a dodgy industry or it’s a questionable industry. People just accept that franchises exist and franchises are out there, but there are some terrible franchises. There’s a lot of franchises that are going through some major issues at the moment.

Some of the retail food group franchises, 7-Elevens, those kind of things. People never question the franchise model because it’s a model that’s been around for a long time. But it’s funny that people question the network marketing model and the model has been around equally a long time. It seems to attract more criticism than some of the other business models out there.

Craig Schultz: Yeah, but that’s changing because of the way the internet operates now and social media. And so, you now no longer have to go and drag a bucket around a product, knocking on people’s doors, more social selling. But the industry’s been around a hundred years.

Back in the 70s, franchising was nearly deemed an illegal business model. But now, a highly popular business model that I spent 12 years in. If you adopt a franchise mindset to network marketing, when I say that, you’re looking for the individual that would buy the franchise. So, they’ve got the hundreds of thousands of dollars. They want to get ahead in life, so they’re going to buy a business, but then you provide them with a franchise-style training model and set them up to win, you’ll have success in this industry.

Simon Dell: The question I wanted to ask around network marketing, direct sales: What do you guys prefer to call it? Is it more network marketing or direct sales? Is there a terminology that you prefer?

Craig Schultz: I’d probably say network marketing because it’s network and it’s marketing. It’s funny how people will buy a product that Kim Kardashian will promote on her social media that she’s got no alignment with, doesn’t probably even know that it works but people just trip over themselves to buy it. But they don’t buy a product off a friend, or a colleague, or a contact. It’s a mindset shift that’s changing. It’s a funny thing.

Simon Dell: The question I wanted to ask you about this was, I wanted to look at it from the other side of the coin and look at it from a business perspective. If you’re a business and you’re looking to go out into market, and you’re looking at all the options that you’ve got… We’ve got a business at the moment, one of our clients at the moment that sells confectionary, chocolate. And they have opportunities to take their product to market in maybe five or six different channels.

So, you white label the product, make a product for another brand. You can sell it direct in store. You can sell it online. You can license the recipes out to someone in a different state, et cetera. There’s all these options and all these opportunities and different channels in taking the product to market.

If you’re a business owner and you’re sitting there going, “Right, well, it might be a new product, it might’ve been around for some time.” And you’re thinking about how you’re going to market. Why would you suggest to them that network marketing is a good opportunity, and does it suit certain products over other products?

Craig Schultz: I think the second part of the question, if you look at the top 20 biggest companies in the industry, they’re probably 80% fit into the cosmetic, nutrition, wellness, anti-aging umbrella. They’re probably more popular products, but there have been companies that have had chocolate and they have marketed phone plans, and travel deals, and things like that.

I would say stick to what the numbers say.  So, all the big billion-dollar companies are in that wellness, nutrition, cosmetic beauty, anti-aging. I wouldn’t necessarily start a network marketing company to do that. I would go to a company and see if you could do an arrangement.

And the reason you would do that is because the distribution’s already in play. So, if you’ve got a million distributors out there, and you’ve got your chocolate there, and they add that product line to their basket, you’ve got potential instant sales, low-cost, low-risk, and mass upside in the company Jeunesse global, that’s happened I’ve seen a lot of times.

Interesting biotech companies bringing a product to them and saying, “You’ve got the distribution. Let’s do a commercial arrangement.” And bang.

Simon Dell: That makes sense. Is there a space in network marketing that isn’t exploited? I mean, all the things that you’ve listed there are very B2C consumer products and I guess to a degree skewed to the female market as well, that anti-aging, wellness there. Is there a space that’s not been exploited there that you think is an opportunity?

Craig Schultz: I’ve seen it happen with chocolate. I’ve seen it happen with wine. I’ve seen it happen with travel. I’ve seen it happen with phone planes and electricity. None of them have lasted the test of time. They’ve come in as something sexy, something interesting. You’ve got to call people anyway, so why not get a commission for referring people phone plans? It just hasn’t lasted the longevity card to date.

Simon Dell: I guess a phone plan really is, you buy it once and it might last you a couple of years. It’s not something that you’re continuing to buy.

Craig Schultz: That’s right. The opportunities are just really new breakthroughs in anti-aging spaces. It’s got to be unique, and the company has to be really global, have a really good global footprint. Because if you can get on to social media and your business is open in India, you’ve got 1.2 billion people to market to.

Simon Dell: I really like what you said about the fact that you guys have an established network. This is a lesson whether you’re talking business through network marketing or anything, is that building valuable partnerships where you can reach exponentially more people than you could if you were just doing it on your own is a massive opportunity for anyone looking to expand their business.

Craig Schultz: Absolutely, and that was one of the key points from The Next Millionaires. Professor Paul Zane Pilzer talks about product distribution over product creation was going to be a good opportunity for people. There’s more money in getting the product out to people than there is in creating it, because there’s always a cheaper way to create the product and you just cut your margins.

Simon Dell: Looking at it now from the other side of the coin. We looked at it from the business side, and I completely see that that stacks up from a distribution model. There’s no doubt in that, especially you’re trying to target that kind of demographic and you’ve got that sort of product. Looking at it from the other side of the coin, from Sarah’s side of the coin, one of the challenges with network marketing as I’ve seen it in the past is that, as you’ve said, people approach you in the wrong way.

The challenge that I’ve seen is that you end up turning that network of friends that you’ve got into customers. You sometimes don’t necessarily want a friend as a customer or a customer as a friend and vice versa. You want to keep them separate. How do you tackle that challenge?

Craig Schultz: The thing is, for me, everything I do is all around belief. I’m a natural referrer. If I go to a gym and I like it, that gym’s going to have 50 new clients. If I drink a wine and I like it, if I go to a restaurant and I like it, there’s two restaurants in Melbourne that would probably earn six-figures after the amount of business I brought them over the last 10 years just off my referrals.

If I looked at, say, the Jeunesse Global business opportunity which I’m in, so I’ll talk about that, and if I took the youth enhancement products out and put cigarettes in, I wouldn’t be able to be in business there because I haven’t had a cigarette in my life and I don’t believe in it. But I believe wholeheartedly in the health benefits of our product.

So, at the very least, I want to be letting my friends, family, my loved ones, at least understand and know about the product, then I’ll leave the choice with them whether they want to join. There’s no confusion about the relationship. I’ve told you the information about the product. You’ve made a decision that you’re a customer and there’s no line. 90%+ of your network in your business will be customers, not distributors. If you explain it correctly, you believe in what you’re telling people, let them make the decision and then it’s all good.

Simon Dell: This is a question not just for those people in network marketing, but this is a broad business question. When we see a lot of clients who are successful and they’ve grown to a certain size, they often say that referrals and recommendations has been the backbone of their growth. How do you teach business people to generate referrals and recommendations? Is there a sort of magic formula or things that they should be doing in order to get people referring them?

Craig Schultz: Let’s say I’m asking you, Simon. I’ll be coming to you and explaining what I’m doing. I say, “You know a lot of people. If you know anyone that might be interested in looking at some youth enhancement products, or weight loss products, or want to make some extra money, can you keep me in mind?”

So, importantly, you need to make sure that you put that in play in your sales pitch. Peter Lackovic who was on here, he’s great at sales. We went away to Hawaii, and that was one thing he said. He said, “Look, you just always remember to ask everyone for referrals.”

Simon Dell: I think that’s something that people are terrified of doing, is saying to a customer or a client, “Can you pass my details on to anybody else that you might know?” That is probably one of the most fearful things of people in business. Why are people scared of doing that?

Craig Schultz: Again, it’s belief. If I believe in what I’m doing, I should be confident and have the posture to actually ask a question. Because if you don’t, it’s a no anyway. Let’s just say you do it a hundred times and you get three yeses, that’s three more than if you haven’t asked… no is just next opportunity. At least people know what you’re doing.

Simon Dell: I think there’s also an element of imposter syndrome. A lot of people are saying, “If I ask people for a referral, if I get a no, that’s going to expose me that they weren’t pleased with what I did or they weren’t pleased with the product they bought from me.” All of a sudden, this kind of idea that I’m in business and successful comes down like a house of cards. I think people are scared that all of a sudden their confidence is going to be shattered by somebody saying no.

Craig Schultz: I 100% agree. Being in this industry, I see fear holds a lot of people back. People are not prepared to get out of their comfort zone and wear a badge of honour. They’ll be in for a rocky road. I would know.

Simon Dell: How do you deal with rejection? Do you still get rejection at this point in your career? What instils that confidence in you every day?

Craig Schultz: Again, I always talk about take action, learn the lesson, evolve. And if I’m getting a no, I’m taking the action, at least. I’m always refining my approaches. For me, again, it’s your loss. I’m trying to help you. If you have that sort of attitude that, “I’m just trying to help you here. Your loss.” It’s sort of okay.

Your dreams need to be way bigger than the odd no here and there. If you think about where you’re heading in life, and the long game, and what that would mean for your family, a no here and there is not that bad. I get a lot of them, so it’s all good.

Simon Dell: Interestingly, I want to ask you now about your own personal motivation. This is a personal question from my side of things. Because after we had Peter on the show, we actually met up with him the week after. He happened to be in Brisbane at the time because he’s based in WA, and we sat down with him for an hour, and we talked about our business. Me and my business partner Matt, we talked about our business.

One of the dangers that he said to us, he goes, “The danger for you guys is you’re doing it right.” We don’t scratch around for clients. We’re not living day-to-day in terms of revenue. We’re comfortable enough. He said, “The danger is complacency, that you get comfortable that you’re earning that revenue, you’re earning that money, and you just keep going, ticking over.”

You’re in that sort of position. You’re earning good money, seven figures, growing a business. What keeps you motivated? What keeps you wanting to get up the next day and achieve more?

Craig Schultz: I always set myself. I’m a big property investor. I’ve probably got 10, 11 houses, over $6.5 million worth of property, but I always have many goals financially I want to achieve. One of my goals last year was to buy a holiday house on the Mornington Peninsula just off the beach where I could just duck off for the weekend, and come back, so I can work quite remotely.

When I’ve added effectively a million-dollar house just sitting there, waiting for me to go to, it sort of keeps you motivated to keep working. But I think for me, when I’ve transitioned into different careers or different businesses, I’ve lost the passion. For me, right now, as passionate and as hungry as ever with what I do, I love what I do. I spend a lot of time with Peter and Jack. They often ask me similar questions that you’ve asked this year.

I say, “Hey. My heart’s aligned to what I do. What I’m passionate about, I do it. And the day I’m not passionate about it anymore, I’ll go and do something else and I’ll get back to the top of that anyway.”

Simon Dell: Is this something you’re passionate about outside of what you do from a work perspective? What kind of gets you motivated beyond work?

Craig Schultz: I really love property as an investment strategy. I love getting online, looking at what’s available, and is that a deal, is that not a deal? So, I spend a bit of time doing that. I’ll go to auctions all the time. I’ve got a few houses that I could do developments with. So, I may go down and do a little bit of that down the path. I love that.

But travel and experiences, I would classify myself as a foodie. So, I’ve been to over 100 different cities around the world, and collecting… The one thing about travel is it’s great for conversation. So, you can merely go into any room, anywhere, anytime, meet some random stranger, and all of a sudden, you’re best friends for Bora Bora, you know?

I love to travel, and experiences, and more luxury experiences at the moment more so than adventurous, but it’s good if you can go into a restaurant that you dream to go into and you’re not worrying about looking at the bill. That does keep you motivated to tick off some more bucket list items like that.

Simon Dell: What’s your favourite city in the world, then?

Craig Schultz: I love Italy collectively as a country through all the cities. There’s beaches. There’s history. There’s wine regions. There’s beauty. But probably, there’s a buzz about being in New York. Everyone says that. I love going there. I’ve been there a handful of times, and I could go back tomorrow. But as a country, I love going to Italy.

Simon Dell: Last few questions, then. I normally ask people about brands, but I think the opportunity I’ve got here with you is that you sound like you consume a lot of audiobooks, and books, and things like that. I’m interested to get your suggestions about a couple of books, or audiobooks, that people should pick up and read that you would recommend.

Craig Schultz: I think for me at the moment, I’m spending a lot of time on YouTube, watching YouTube shows. I’ll go to the gym and I’ll put Gary V on for half an hour, or Jack Delosa, or Gerard Adams, or someone like that that’s really prominent on YouTube. But audiobooks… Rocket Fuel is an interesting book if you’re in business about visionary and integrators and how important they are for driving a business forward.

I love How to Win Friends and Influence People. It’s old, but the value you get out of that in terms of building relationships is priceless. Something a bit different, if you want to improve culture in your business, the Fish series, Fish book series. I adopted a lot of the principles out of Fish into my franchises for gyms, and it was all around building culture, keeping customers, creating raving fans.

The tipping point, I was talking to someone the other day about the tipping point. I learned a great referral strategy which I’m happy to share with you from that book. Every customer that comes into my gym in their free trial, I used to ask them, “You’re obviously local. Who’s your favourite hairdresser? Who’s your favourite masseuse? What’s your favourite cafe?” Based on their response, I knew straight away if they’re a good referral or not.

If they just rattled out, “Oh, you’ve got to go to this hairdresser.” I’ll let them know about the potential of my referral program. I would drive referrals crazily in my gym by asking and just waiting for their response. If they sort of said, “Oh, I don’t know. I don’t really go to a cafe.” I sort of go, “This person is not really going to be a good referral.”

Simon Dell: Nice one. Second to last question, then. We’re almost halfway through the year. What have you got lined up for the rest of the year? Anything sort of big on the horizon that we should know about or keep an eye on?

Craig Schultz: I’ve got network marketing, which is a pure word of mouth, social selling concept. But we’ve been involved with Jack, and Peter, and The Entourage Group. I’ve really taken the approach of adopting world’s best practice. So for me, I’ve launched my own YouTube show. I’ve set up all the marketing funnels because I feel that social media is now really gearing a lot more towards paid advertising if you want to get seen. I’m following that trend.

I’ve got a content machine happening where I’ve got people working on breaking up my keynote speeches into the micro content pieces. I’m sort of trying to adopt the main thought leader processes into my strategy for business. But travel-wise, I’m just off to New Zealand on Bora Bora next week. I go through Europe on a 1-month tour, go to China, India, Africa this year, Singapore. I’m going to countries that I’ve never been to before like Lebanon, Russia, Latvia, Sweden as well. I’ve got lots of good experiences in the horizon.

Simon Dell: Cool. Last question, then: If people want to reach out to you, if they want to ask you a question or just generally bug you a little bit, what’s the best way for them to do that?

Craig Schultz: Probably Facebook. The main social channels are Facebook, Insta, YouTube, LinkedIn. Quite prominent there. I have my own web brand where I adopt the approach of providing high-quality content which is… It gets into shareable style content. So, I’m not a big, heavy, daily blogger. I’ll write some big and very useful… So yeah, just the usual stuff, email.

Simon Dell: Cool, awesome. Mate, thank you very much for your time. It was a little bit of a slow start with us in technology. It sounds like neither of us are particularly good at technology. And quite frankly, I ought to be a lot better seeing as I’ve done 60 of these shows, but I appreciate your patience at the start. I really enjoy talking to you, so thank you for being on the show.

Craig Schultz: Thanks, Simon. I appreciate being on the show. As they say, low-tech, high-check. But yeah, I love what people are doing out there, we’re educating on that, so I enjoy being on shows like yours, and I wish you all the best. Get it up over 100 episodes soon.

Simon Dell: Hopefully, I’ll have worked out the tech by that point, yeah. No worries, mate. Thank you for your time.

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