082: Live Episode!!! Automating Your Business like Carl Taylor of Automation Agency.

Background on Carl Taylor of Automation Agency:

Carl Taylor is CEO of Automation Agency. He is a highly regarded and engaging speaker who speaks at events across Australia and the United States on the topics of Entrepreneurship, Online Marketing, and Personal Growth. Starting his first business at age 15, Carl has gone on to start, buy and sell businesses in varying industries from Gift Baskets to Marketing. He continues to run businesses and Mentor entrepreneurs, young and old, helping them grow their businesses.

In 2014, after years of running business seminars throughout Australia, Carl quit coaching and founded Automation Agency a Done-For-You online marketing agency helping small business owners actually implement the latest marketing tools and strategies and not just learn about them. Today Automation Agency works with hundreds of small businesses and online marketers all over the world including United States, United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.

As a passionate advocate of young entrepreneurship, Carl has presented at leading organizations like Tomorrows Youth, NSW Government's Young Entrepreneur Stepping Up Program, The Entourage, Warringah Chamber of Commerce, and University of New South Wales promoting youth leadership and entrepreneurship. His message – that we must all “get in the driver's seat and drive your life” – has inspired lives around the world.

Time-Stamped Show Notes:

[1:35] Carl’s Automation Agency company focuses on online marketing automation, WordPress, and graphic design.
[5:16] Carl started his first web design business when he was only 15 years old.
[7:07] Carl worked as an apprentice in home automation installation and their clients were mostly rich people. This experience motivated him to have his own business so he can become wealthy like his clients.
[9:22] When Carl was working in his father’s IT business, he and his father attended a group coaching seminar. This helped him and their IT business move forward and made him realize that he could learn a lot from other people.
[10:33] Carl is a huge believer in coaching and mentoring. Until now, he still has several coaches and mentors.
[11:03] According to Carl, a business is “A commercial profitable enterprise that works without me.”
[16:19] After Carl and his father sold their IT company, Carl wrote a book and he became a speaker.
[20:07] Carl was good at teaching people about buying and selling businesses.
[23:20] Carl advises that when buying a business, you need to look for those unlisted deals, which may have a lot of potentials. It’s better to talk to the business owner, instead of making a deal with a broker.
[25:58] Carl is not keen on buying franchises, but he sees it as a temporary training ground for entrepreneurs to learn more about running a business.
[31:05] Carl realized that he was not really that good at coaching, so he started his own Automation Agency business.
[39:16] The challenge for Carl at Automation Agency during the early days was that the money coming in wasn’t consistent. He describes it as chasing the work and doing the work, and doing it all over again. There were months when they didn’t earn any money.
[46:37] “The more complexity in your business, the more customization in what you sell, the harder it is to systematize and scale that business.”
[50:40] Carl created a Facebook group called By the Pool that is designed for entrepreneurs seeking financial freedom and business freedom.
[54:00] According to Carl, the secret to business success is to know yourself. He says that “having that self-awareness of who you are, is going to change everything for you.”

Fabulous 4 Questions:

📖📚 Favorite Books? Billionaire In Training by Brad Sugars, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari, Built To Sell by John Warrillow, The Lean Product Playbook by Dan Olsen.
🙌😎 Favorite Amazon.com purchase? I've only ever bought books from Amazon, since it wasn't in Australia until a few weeks ago.
🌱💸 Favorite Tool that's GROWN your Business? Slack.
💭💡 BIGGEST Challenge keeping your Business from GROWING? Based on our current model adding more Clients means adding more staff, so further client growth without raising prices significantly would actually lower profitability and even if we raised prices would bring with it challenges which I'm unsure I want to have to solve.

Key Point from the Interview:

“The more complexity in your business, the more customization in what you sell, the harder it is to systematize and scale that business.”

Resources Mentioned:

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