From Zero to 8-figures - How Alex Cleanthous Overcame a Stutter & Built a Global Digital Agency: An EOFire Classic from 2021

0:01Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire. Brought to you by the HubSpot. podcast network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like A Business Made Simple. Today, we're pulling a classic episode from the archives, and we'll be breaking down how to go from zero to eight figures. To drop these value bonds, we are brought to Alex C. into EO Fire Studios. Alex is an entrepreneur, writer, marketing leader, and co-founder of Web Profits, Australia's largest private digital consultancy. With over 17 years of experience, Alex is at the forefront of digital innovation and growth.

0:36In today, Fire Nation, we will talk about the challenge in scaling a service-based company, the hardest part of your journey, which is constant learning and constant change, and so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Alex and our sponsors. The Next Wave, your chief AI officer, hosted by Matt Wolf and Nathan Lance, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Matt and Nathan are leading AI creators in your guiding light in the AI and technology frontier. AI technology is transforming the way we do business and the media landscape is fragmented.

1:11The Next Wave strives to be the leading podcast on AI technology and how you can apply it to growing your business. Listen to The Next Wave wherever you get your podcasts. Ever thought about giving a TEDx talk? It's one of the most powerful ways to share your message with the world. And four-time TEDx speaker, Taylor Conroy from Thought Leader can help you get there. Visit thought-leader.com slash fire to join Taylor's free training where he teaches you how to land a TEDx talk and spread your message to millions. Alex, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something interesting about yourself that most people don't know.

1:49What's up, Fire Nation? Excited to be here today. Something that people don't know about me is that I play the piano. And it's not something that people often think about when they see me or when they talk to me because I'm quite fast and quite aggressive in how I just move in general. And so piano is much more of a relaxing, calming, soft experience. And so when people see me play the piano, they're like, wow, I just wouldn't have picked you as playing the piano. One thing I realized is that a lot of people who I do talk to have some form of interesting creative outlets. And it can be in all these different areas.

2:27I've actually found for me recently, and this is very recent as you and I are talking, it's actually been a sport. It's been pickleball. And I've really gotten into this new sport. I've been playing all the time. But for me, it's really been this outlet away from work, away from, you know, just the rise and grind kind of mentality. So I can picture you, Alex, at a piano, just strumming away, making beautiful music. So that's really cool stuff. And Fire Nation, as I shared in the intro, we're talking about going from zero to eight figures. And Alex had to overcome a stutter and he was able to do so.

3:03And he built a global digital agency. So let's talk about starting as an entrepreneur. You have a formula, Alex, that I would really love for you to share with Fire Nation. Number one, to be persistent. I certainly wouldn't say I'm the smartest person and I certainly wouldn't say that I'm the best across the board, but I am very persistent. So I think number one, persistence. I think number two, Surround yourself with good people. A big part of my success is through my co-founder and kind of finding through a number of ventures the importance of having the right co-founder. And number three is just continuous learning.

3:47Back when I was at school, I didn't do too well. And I thought that I didn't like learning. And it was only after I started my first business that I was like, I think I got the book Selling for Dummies by Brian Tracy because I was like I should learn how to sell and I did this book and I was like wow I actually really love learning and that kind of started this lifelong experience of learning where I was like actually learning can be fun it's not what they told you at school Fire Nation be persistent surround yourself with good people and consistent learning I mean honestly that's why I still love doing these podcasts after all these years because I'm sitting here I'm learning from Alex.

4:27I'm learning from the guests that I'm talking to and having conversations with. And guess what? I'm also surrounding myself with good people and being persistent. That's something that we all have to work on. We all have to work on that persistency. So I love that. Let's talk about the secret sauce. I mean, I love the formula that you shared, but you have something that sets you apart and you call it your secret sauce. So it's not going to be secret anymore, Alex, because you're talking to Fire Nation and this is a massive audience. So break it down for us, brother. You're just going to have to call it the sauce from now on.

5:00The sauce, the sauce. Marketing for me has been the thing that has helped to get through to the other side. Because I've had a stutter since I was very young, talking has always been a challenge. And so one of the reasons I went to the internet is because of the stutter. is like, okay, well, if I can't talk to people, how can I influence them without talking? And then I, through a long journey, I found the internet. And through the internet, you can do some amazing things. For me, the simplest place to start is through Google Ads with a single page website and a good email sequence and just become really good at that.

5:46if you become really good at that, you can really help a lot of small businesses out there. And that will get you the start. That will get you the retainer income, that cash flow that comes in. And for me, that combination of Google Ads, a good website, and the good email support to that sequence was key. And that was kind of the start of the agency that I built. Now, obviously, it's become a lot more sophisticated than that. And the company has become a lot larger since I found that secret sauce. But that's something that still works nine times out of 10 for most organizations out there. Now, you've grown to 100 plus employees with different businesses that you've started.

6:40You've had to employ a lot of different marketing strategies at different levels of that game. I mean, your marketing strategies are different for a 10-person company than they are for a 210-person company. So how did you scale over the years to meet the growth of these different kinds of businesses? What's challenging in scaling up a service-based company like an agency is that it's not like SaaS. It's not like e-commerce where I can sell unlimited product or unlimited subscriptions, right? It's a people business. And so there's a very fine balance between people, between sales, and between profit.

7:20And so scaling up people, which doesn't sound the right way, but scaling up that kind of business is slow and hard and it's a grind, especially scaling up without outside funding. And so you need to be really, really good in the service. And so for us, having a subscription model helped us with that. And so we quickly found that if we could charge clients on a monthly basis and if we were good enough that they would stay with us for years, we would grow. And then we could reinvest to the company, to the sales teams, to the production teams, to the marketing, to continue to expand out our service offering and stay at the forefront of excellence, if that makes sense.

8:12It makes sense. And Fire Nation, I just want to reiterate that point is that you're not the same company when you're a solopreneur as you are when you have five employees, as you are when you have 20 employees, as you already have 100 employees. And there's a lot of times, by the way, where you're not the right person to run a company at 100 employees that you were the right person at 10 employees. So just realize that changes may have to come as you grow and scale. And that's not the worst thing in the world. And we have some really important things we're going to be talking about, focusing on personal balance with professional growth.

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9:56Thought Leader is not affiliated with TED or TEDx, but they're able to get these results because their founder, Taylor Conroy, is a four-time TEDx speaker himself and past EO Fire guest. You might be thinking a TEDxTalk sounds great, but where do you start? Taylor has put together a free training that's going to teach you how to land a TEDx talk in as little as 90 days. Join Taylor to learn exactly what TEDx organizers are looking for in their speakers, how to write a talk that goes viral once it goes online, and more. Visit thought-leader.com slash fire. Join Taylor for this free training and get your message out of your head, out of your heart, and out into the world where it belongs.

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11:16Over 7 ,000 global companies like Atlassian, Flow Health, and Quora use Vanta to manage risk, improve security in real time. And right now, Fire Nation, Vanta has a special offer waiting for you of$1 ,000 off at vanta.com slash fire. That's V-A-N-T-A.com slash fire for$1 ,000 off. So Alex, we're back and you've been able to balance personal and professional growth. I mean, you may have had struggles. I don't know for sure that you have or have not. So I'd be curious to know if you've ever had struggles in that balance. But right now you've figured out at least some form and that's why you're succeeding at the level that you are.

11:56So how does one balance personal and professional growth as they're building out that business? What's interesting is that with the example, which is had given before, where you cannot be the same person to run a company of five people as a company of 50 people as a company of 100 people right so to continue to grow you need to to grow both professionally which is easier and then personally so changing actually who you are and that is the hardest part of this whole uh journey is that that that constant learning that constant change that constant challenging who you are, that identity that you think you have, right?

12:42And changing that consistently and staying with it and being persistent. And if you're good enough, you will grow. And if you are not good enough, maybe you need to find someone else to help you to grow to that point. In terms of the balance between professional and personal life, look, I put way too much into the professional side of things. That's part of the reason why I started to play the piano. I was like, look, I have to do something that's just not for achievement. That's just to relax, just to have fun, if that makes sense. Makes a lot of sense to me. I think that kind of outlet, Fire Nation, that we were talking about towards the beginning of this episode is really important to dive into.

13:26And again, And it was something that I feel like I was missing for years. And I have Pickleball now, which I feel like is this really fun outlet. Alex has the piano. And these things can shift and change over time for sure. But having that outlet, that's going to really make sure that you are being able to achieve that level of balance to the degree that we're capable of doing as high performing businessmen and businesswomen as entrepreneurs. But if I can just say on that as well there, John, In my first seven years, I think I worked 17, 20 hours a day. So it wasn't until a bit later that I was like, I got to do something else because this is going to keep going forever right now.

14:07Totally. And I actually fell into that as well. I mean, I remember looking up after a couple of years post-launch of Entrepreneurs on Fire and saying, man, I've never been this unhealthy. I've never been this out of shape. I've never slept worse. Like there's a lot of bad things that are happening in my life. Like, yes, my business seems to be doing really well right now, but at what cost? So let's talk about setting goals because this is where I actually was able to say, I'm going to start setting some goals to get healthier, to get more sleep, to prioritize health, to prioritize relationships, to prioritize some fun in my life.

14:40So what do you have for us advice wise for setting goals that also allow us to increase our growth? Yeah, this is something I'm extremely passionate about. And I'm also, like I also have like a few people who I mentor as well. And the first thing that we always start with is like just to figure out what you want, right? Just to pick something. And if you're not sure, pick something until that is refined, yeah? So pick something, create the goal, and write the goal down like in the smart, what they call it, the smart methodology, which is specific and it's measurable. It's as if now it's achievable.

15:21It's results-based and it's time-based, right? So you do those parts and have a goal. And then this is the part which I found really, really important. I learned this one from Brian Tracy, who knows, 20 years ago, let's say now, and is to write them every day, to write them on paper every day. And I still write them every day on paper. Wow. I try to write them every day on paper. I'd say maybe 70 % of the time I do. and they're constantly being refined. It's okay to change a goal. It's okay to swap a goal, but it's not okay not to have a goal. So for me and for everybody I advise is to write down some goals and to have some goals and stretch yourself.

16:02Have short-term goals, have long-term goals too and so that you're seeing and you're feeling the achievement in terms of the short-term goals and that will give you the confidence for the longer-term goals as well. And Fire Nation, you know I'm a huge, massive believer in this. I mean, that's why back in 2016, I created the Freedom Journal, which is all about mastering and accomplishing your number one goal in 100 days. And it's a physical, faux leather, gorgeous journal. So you can do just that. You can write down your goals every single day. Boom, you see it. Boom, it's there. Gratitude, accountability, it's all right there.

16:39It's such a big focus. Now, Alex, you've shared many, many value bombs today. What do you want to make sure Fire Nation really gets from our conversation? Like really take us home strong here. Like what is the message that you want to get through to our listeners? It doesn't matter where you start from. You can achieve some pretty amazing things these days with persistence and with this approach to lifelong learning. You know, like I couldn't say my name at age 17, 18. I couldn't order a Big Mac because I couldn't say the word big. So then I would order something else, right? And so from that point to being able to hire people and speak to clients and start a podcast and all these other things which I've done just happened because I thought of it and I went towards it.

17:27And so that's the first one. I think the second one is you cannot underestimate the importance of the people that are around you. They are going to have a bigger impact than anything else. If everybody who you were hanging out with were CrossFit enthusiasts, you'd be exercising in six weeks time. So true. And you would become super healthy, right? So just those two things, right, can have the biggest impact. And you can achieve amazing things, but you need to try. It's so much about action. You have to take action every day. It can be small. It can be wrong. It can be the wrong thing in the wrong direction, but action will lead to growth.

18:13And that's where it's at. Fire Nation, you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with AC and JLD today. So keep up that heat. Alex, take a second, share where Fire Nation can find out more about you, how we can connect with you, any gift or giveaway you have, any call to action. Break that down now. So you can subscribe to my email list at alexcleanthus.com, which is spelled C-L-E-A-N-T-H-O-U-S.com. I also have a book called The Growth Manifesto, which sells for$30. But for the listeners of this podcast, they get it for free. So all they have to do is go to growthmanifesto.com forward slash fire.

18:59And they'll get that book for free, which retails for$30 US. Wow, Fire Nation, make sure to head over to eofire.com and type Alex in the search bar and the show notes page for this episode will pop up with links to everything that we've talked about. And again, you're going to get that growth manifesto for free if you just take action and head over to growthmanifesto.com slash fire. Fire Nation, this is a gift. Take it, cherish it, love it. the Growth Manifesto over at growthmanifesto.com slash fire. And Alex, thank you for sharing your truth, your courage, your passion, your value with Fire Nation today.

19:39For that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Thanks so much, John. This has been fun. Hey, Fire Nation. Today's value bomb content was brought to you by Alex and I've created a treasure trove of free courses for you, Fire Nation. I teach you how to podcast, run a mastermind, create funnels that actually convert and so much more. All you need to do is head over to eofire.com, eofire.com slash resources and start learning today. I'll catch you there or I'll catch you on the flip side. The Next Wave, your chief AI officer, hosted by Matt Wolf and Nathan Lanz, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.

20:19Matt and Nathan are leading AI creators in your guiding light in the AI and technology frontier. AI technology is transforming the way we do business and the media landscape is fragmented. The Next Wave strives to be the leading podcast on AI technology and how you can apply it to growing your business. Listen to The Next Wave wherever you get your podcasts. Ever thought about giving a TEDx talk? It's one of the most powerful ways to share your message with the world. And four-time TEDx speaker, Taylor Conroy from Thought Leader can help you get there. Visit thought-leader.com slash fire to join Taylor's free training where he teaches you how to land a TEDx talk and spread your message to millions.