Episode 4 – Tim Scott from Edison Digital

Chris Irving 0:01
Welcome to the seriously social podcast with your host, Simone Douglas. This episode is an interview with entrepreneur Tim Scott.

Simone Douglas 0:15
So, welcome to this episode of this seriously social podcast. Today I am joined by Tim Scott from Edison digital. So Tim, maybe if we just start with your cliff note version of your backstory, how did you end up on the red chairs today,

Tim Scott 0:31
The red chairs? Well, I met you through through one of our business interests with BNI the background to joining BNI having the marketing company and things like that was I was in franchising with the Jim’s Group, so I owned some master franchise rights in Dog Wash and also an interest in an appliance company. And recently sold those companies and, you know, in the last year started a marketing company joined you know, a networking group to try and build that referral base. And, and here we are.

Simone Douglas 1:03
Cool. And as much as you’re probably tired of people asking this question, and age shouldn’t really come into it, how old are you right now?

Tim Scott 1:11
I’m 23. But I’m 24 next week. Yeah, and then everything will be different.

Simone Douglas 1:16
24 and on business number three, for you for your career so far, so that I think it just goes to show that realistically, you can have whatever you want if you’re prepared to do the work and go out and do things.

Tim Scott 1:27
Take a punt.

Simone Douglas 1:28
Yeah, so can you maybe just start off; give me what the decision making process looked like for you when you first bought a master franchise because it’s not a small investment as a general rule.

Tim Scott 1:43
Yeah, no, it wasn’t, I think I really wanted to find a business. I wanted to work for myself. I haven’t really had I’ve never had a full time job. And so it’s doing some some contracting work in the space and then we had the opportunity came up to purchase a region. So region is a master franchise rights means that we can sell franchises and we manage the franchisees and things like that. And I, to be honest with you, like, I didn’t put too much thought into it other than this seems like a good opportunity. I went got a loan out at 27%.

Simone Douglas 2:21
Ouch.

Tim Scott 2:21
Because when you’re 19 or 20, and you’ve got no assets and you’re like, can I have you know, 10s of thousands of dollars for a business they like yeah, sure, but it’s gonna, it’s gonna cost ya. But, you know, I would rather you know, I was sort of prepared for it to go well or terrible. And luckily, it went better than not. Yeah, so there wasn’t there wasn’t too much. You know, the opportunity came up and I’ve moved on pretty quickly.

Simone Douglas 2:51
Do you think that a key success factor for most business owners. Like certainly for myself, my whole business life has looked like that and opportunity presented itself. you weigh up the risks a little bit, but really, if it looks like fun, you know, you’re gonna enjoy it. Yeah. Off you go.

Tim Scott 3:12
Yeah, you’re on? I think so I don’t think I’m adding time to a decision necessarily makes it a better decision. Like, I don’t think some some things you don’t need to be, you know, some people are scared of making decisions, so they prolong it, and they wait and they wait, and they wait. And they think that’s been prudent, but I don’t think it necessarily adds. Sometimes it’s important. I’ve always had people to speak to, so, I’ve never had to make big decisions by myself. I’ve always made sure I’ve got you know, people that I pay for advice. People that know me as a person, you know, friends and, and trusted friends. Friends, that can say, I think you’re a bit off here. Yeah, things like that. And so I think if you’re if you’re running it by people that know more than you and have more experience and they’re not having any massive red flags they might not quite see the vision of it the way you do. But if they’re not, you know, you’re looking to gauge if you’re missing any, anything. I think just, you know, just go for it. Obviously, it’s easy to say that what you’ve got, you know, I don’t have dependents or anything like that. So you know, but I think a lot of people miss opportunities because they wait too long to make a decision.

Simone Douglas 4:18
Yeah, I would absolutely agree with that I was having this conversation with my financial advisor, who also happens to be my best friend these days, thankfully. But we were talking about what stops people taking the leap, what stops someone who’s like, mortgages, debt, all of these things? And I’m like, none of that would have stopped me. Yeah, having kids doesn’t stop me. In fact, it almost places more importance internally, for me anyway, on building that business empire to demonstrate to them that they can do whatever they want to do, provided they’re prepared to work hard. And I think, you know, definitely the biggest thing that I see in business is with some people not all people, and mostly not people in my life, thankfully. But that culture of excuse where they’re just like, they’re busy, and they’re always busy in their business and they never have enough time. And there’s no joy in it for them.

Tim Scott 5:14
Yeah, yeah.

Simone Douglas 5:15
But if you talk to them the excuses, oh you know, you don’t understand I have to work hands on.

Tim Scott 5:20
Yeah. Or in my industry. It’s different or Yeah, I just can’t find good people or now you know, if you want a job done well, you’re gotta do it yourself, we heard all of this all the time in in franchising, you know, different. You want to catch yourself if you’re making excuses. Yeah, step up to the plate. I think that’s, you know, because we all do it right, you know, everyone just has different thresholds of, you know, some people everything is too hard. Yeah, but everyone has a moment where they’re like, you know, they’ll delay something, and you still want to catch yourself and say. Hang on. you know, am I playing at 100% here or am I you know, looking for a reason why not to rather than why to do it.

Simone Douglas 5:58
Tamara, my general manager and I, we have, we use the term as Brian Tracy term about eating the frog. And so you know, I will always say to her, what’s the frog your not eating? Yeah. And she’ll say the same thing to me because it’s the thing that I’m avoiding doing the most is usually going to make the most amount of impact to your business. So it’s the first thing that I do every day. Yes, whatever that thing is that I’m avoiding doing. This morning, it was writing up the whiteboard that leaves behind my desk with all of the businesses and everything I want to achieve. For the following like 90 days because that roadmap stuff is really important. But now that you’re in the digital marketing field, and you’ve got your own marketing agency, what has been the most I suppose interesting learning curve for you. Watching your clients navigate the current environment and as we’re heading into, or if we’re not already in a recession, depending who you talk to.

Tim Scott 6:52
Yeah, I think um, I think there’s sort of guys that are buckling down, ready for it and stepping up to the plate. I think, you know, looking to improve as leaders, I think like, I think a climate like this is really going to expose the leadership of the company. And when I talk about leadership at the company, I mean, you know, are you serving your employees, are you serious about, you know, getting through this? Has it been, have you posted on the fact that it’s been quite a good market in in most industries for a long period of time. So I think it’s exciting when you see a – when you speak to someone who is sort of gearing up for it, you know, ready to get their hands dirty and ready to sort of get through this thing? Because I think, you know, the businesses that say or the business owners that approach it with, no this is we can’t get out of this and the business owners that approach it with no we’re definitely going to get out of this, that they’re both going to be right.

Simone Douglas 7:45
Yeah, absolutely.

Tim Scott 7:47
So I think it’s Yeah, definitely. And, and that’s interesting in itself, because it sort of is a reminder that actually what you say about what’s happening is more important than what actually is happening. And the way you approach it, it’s sort of you know, the circumstances can be whatever they want, but one person can describe it as if it’s the worst thing in the world. And for them, it probably will be the worst thing in the world, another person can describe it as an opportunity. And it probably will be an opportunity. So I think, um, it look, whether they’re in marketing and in growing the business and things like that a lot of it does rise and fall on, you know, the leadership and the willingness to sort of take a punt it and think …

Simone Douglas 7:47
Do you think that there’s an opportunity now? So, you know, one of the conversations I’ve had with a lot of our clients is, now you need to be more human like, now I need to really know who you are the business owner, who are the families that you feed …

Tim Scott 8:38
Absolutely, be a community person, yeah, communities are built by community owners and business owners. And it’s, I think, um, I think there’s been a lot of businesses have grown a little bit and felt this need to present as if they’re a much more bigger business than they are, and so you know, that what they lose is that local community element like it’s a bit rough around the edges because I’m a real person. In a real business, who’s you know, got a family that I’m managing and you know, things like that. Whereas we’d love that I think it’s been really cool to say on the back of, you know, this, whatever you want to call it, is the people are trusting community backing a lot more, a lot more jobs are starting to stock local, yeah, local ingredients and sourcing local product. And that’s a great thing, you know, because at the end of the day, at the top end of the economy, those businesses can’t have as much impact in your local council area, your local community, as you know, if you put half a dozen committed business owners together in each Council, who said, you know, we are just going to help build this community. Like you would have a big groundswell, I think, and then local sporting clubs and things like that.

Simone Douglas 9:48
I’d agree with that because it’s a massive, like we’ve done that with the Duke of Brunswick. So, you know, I’ve actually I’ve just done anything that I’ve always wanted to do in a pub. I’ve just done it.

Tim Scott 9:59
Nice.

Simone Douglas 10:00
And when I used to work for ALH Group a long time ago, it was all about the numbers, right? Like, what are you sales? What’s your bottom line EBIT? What’s he labour tracking? Whereas now it’s what’s the weirdest quickest thing we can do to make people comfortable? Yeah, you know, and so I know, let’s train all of the staff in conversational Auslan so that we can be a deaf friendly venue. You know, let’s, I’m working on now becoming a veteran friendly venue so that, you know, staff have training and how to work with assistance, dogs and all those kinds of things. But it’s, you know, when I launched BNI chapter out at Gawler, which we’re in the middle of working towards now, that’s the same thing. It’s that groundswell like you said of committed business owners working together to grow the local economy. Yeah. And help each other.

Tim Scott 10:45
Yeah, totally. I think that’s the answer to a lot of the community problems I think he can’t rely on, you know, can’t rely on the government or things like that. I think it’s it’s local leaders and local community businesses that impact their local world, and if everyone, you know, everyone just for how can I make sure that people in my world? Yeah, you know, how am I supporting them and positioning them to support others and things like that. And I think that’s a big impact, I hope to see sort of more of that rather than sort of, I think there was this gap where people would got to big, would want it to be this, you know, problem that they weren’t really responsible for. Yeah. And more could make an impact in but, I think the local is huge.

Simone Douglas 11:26
Do you think that there’s a lot of lip service when it comes to that, in terms of so not … so sometimes when I’m having conversations with other business owners, they’ll be like, Oh, yeah, I know that person, I’ll hook you up or whatever and then nothing ever comes about like it’s … whereas I’m really be going if someone asks for some help with something or needs a connection for something doesn’t matter what it is, if they’ve asked for a specific introduction, and I vaguely know that person, I will send that person an email asking him for permission to make the introduction like it’s a five second job, you know, but so that’s what I mean by lip service.

Tim Scott 12:02
Yeah, I think there is I think it’s, it’s, um, it’s tough because I think you don’t want to be too hard on the well meaning people, that dismiss it but, I definitely think, yeah, people have motives on stuff. I think if it’s if it’s well, meaning, it’s important to do that I think it’s important to follow through. I think it’s really important to follow through I think, for me, if I think of the people that I trusted the most not a performance thing, but a trust thing. Yeah, it’s people that are, you know …

Simone Douglas 12:34
Do what they said they would do.

Tim Scott 12:36
With the little stuff, the stuff that doesn’t make sense, like, you know, I one thing that I want to, I’m always looking at where I’ll drop the ball at was is, you know, if I say, Oh, yeah, I’ll flick you an email with some information. That is so important to get done because people even if they didn’t ask the information, even if they didn’t, then it’s not really going to … it’s not a massive thing. To do it. It will say a lot to them about the way you offer it. Like that.

Simone Douglas 13:00
Yeah, I have so I did a post on LinkedIn about it the other day. What are the deal breakers in business relationships for you? And you know, I think I personally have five so you know that big one is consistently late to meetings and bearing in mind for me late is five minutes not 15 Yeah. So because I’m always 10 minutes early to everything. Yeah. And so if people are consistently late in the back of my head, I’m like, well, how are you going to be with my clients with my connections? So it’s a respect thing and then I’ve got if you’re at the top of my list, if you return my calls, same business day, yeah, sometimes you’re not going to be able to do that’s not a deal breaker but you get two business days to return the call. Yeah. And then once once you on the other side of that I’m not so sure that I can really can’t rely on you because I can’t communicate with you so that I’m a bit the same with email so phone an email and that but the big one and the one that went off the charts in the poll on LinkedIn was promising and not delivering. You know, say and little promises, like you said.

Tim Scott 14:09
It’s the little ones. It’s the ones that that get catch people off guard when you do it. They’re pleasantly surprised. Yeah, well, this person really if they say they’re going to do it. I saw a video about how they, when they’re talking about Navy Seals and things like yeah, and what do they look for? And, you know, if you get to Seal training, you know, they look at it in a graph where you know, your x axis is performance, your y axis is trust. And they look, performance gets you so far, but not when it really matters. And so if you if you look in an organisation, in terms of the people that your other, you know, staff and colleagues and people involved in your world want to be around. It’s not the high performance low trust people. Yeah, high performance, low trust is, is you know, that they’re not friendly in the, in the world of, you know, whatever they’re involved in, but high trust and medium performance or even sometimes high trust and low performance is actually most people would value that more than someone who’s, you know, big on, you know, whatever it is they’re doing good and things like that, but they can’t be trusted. I think and so, you know, I think that’s a good metric to look at is, is, you know, even if you’re looking at your team, who the performers, but also who the ones that you trust, like, we’re the ones that, you know, they they’re responding in a way that’s beneficial to the company in times, like, you know, we’re in at the moment. Yeah, and that trust thing is,

Simone Douglas 15:29
I think trust is massive. And I think too. I’m a really literal human being, which sometimes works for me and sometimes works against me. So you know, some of the things that I notice, you know, I will never say something unless I mean it, because I’m very careful about what comes out of my mouth. The problem with that, is I assume everybody else works the same, so other people will tell me like I said, I Yep, I’ll flick you that information or Yep, I’ll get that done for you on this day. If you told me you were going to get it done on that daybest you stay back six hours if that’s what you need to do you know what I mean? Cuz he gave me a timeline. The minute you give me a timeline, you’re in trouble the minute to tell me that you’re going to do something for me by whenever. But by the same token, I am that person who will stay back for six hours because I’ve said you’ll have it close of business tomorrow. And I know the only way that I’m going to get that done is if I work till 10 o’clock tonight to get it done. So I would rather put myself in discomfort for a matter of principle when a person of my word. I think there are lots of business owners successful ones out there that are the same. But how do you think, Well, how do we work with the ones that are not?

Tim Scott 16:45
I think being clear about your expectations. I like I think, you know, if you’ve got a conversation, someone say, you know, I don’t want to make a big deal out of this, but I’ve noticed that there’s a pattern. And to me, it’s to be honest, that makes me feel like I’m not sure whether, you know, I’m not sure the longevity of working work together, you know, like, because for me, I and I and I might not just be, you know, super high strung about this, but for me as well, you know, this is a big deal to me. You know, this is something that’s important to me, because there are some people where it’s not going to be important to them. And so I think you can’t be can’t hold someone to a standard you don’t communicate to them. Even if you think it’s very simple. If you’re like, I don’t understand why this needs to be explained, but please don’t be half an hour late to every single meeting. So I think the best thing you can do is give them the chance to say, you know, hey, for me and dealing with me, this is an expectation of these are the standards and you can hold me to these and, and that’s reasonable because I don’t think people might people, no one likes, you know, take being late. For example, no one likes being like, yeah, that’s why they always come in and frantically apologise. Yeah, the thinking of how they can explain it. No one likes it right. So if you can be someone who actually draws a line and pushes them to not be late, they’ll be more pleased with themselves because they’ve become someone that they like a bit more.

Simone Douglas 18:07
Yeahh, that makes sense, actually. So I think that that’s a really good section to end on in terms of just to recap so, and it’s something that hadn’t occurred to me is like be proactively communicate your standards when you’re building business relationships with people or with your staff. And don’t be afraid to be honest about what your expectations are. Oh, cool. Thanks, Tim, for joining us today.

Tim Scott 18:32
Thanks so much.

Simone Douglas 18:32
Cheers

Chris Irving 18:36
Thank you for listening to the seriously social podcast. See our website for more details at www.socialmediaaok.com.au/podcast.

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