0:00:00 Jemima Ashley: I’ve been tried and you know I’ve been tested.
0:00:06 B: Welcome to the Friends in Business podcast with your hosts, Ben Wright and Jemima Ashley. Ben, known as the sales strategist, and Jemima, our resident visibility expert, are here to share their wealth of knowledge and experience with a little fun along the way. Whether you’re a leader, entrepreneur, or aspiring business owner, this is the podcast where we share everything we know about business to help you succeed.
0:00:31 B: Let’s get started. Welcome to the Friends in Business podcast.
0:00:43 Jemima Ashley: Hi, welcome to Friends in Business podcast. Ben. So excited we’re here finally.
0:00:49 Ben Wright: I am super excited. It’s been a rough morning. Before we get started, the sun’s out and it is so nice and warm. Sun on our backs. Best to be recording a pool.
0:00:58 Jemima Ashley: It’s not terrible actually. I will say, Noosa, you’re really delivering on the goods today. Thank you so much.
0:01:03 Ben Wright: Yeah, yeah. I must say. And we promise we will do some footage here. Behind us here we have the most beautiful view that you could ever ask for.
0:01:09 Jemima Ashley: It’s true, actually, I will be getting in that pool later, just so you know. Welcome to the first episode. We are excited to have you here. New podcast. Ben. It’s taken us a little while to get this off the ground. Let’s be honest about about twelve months, I think probably maybe a little bit less than that. And countless meetings.
0:01:24 Ben Wright: Yeah, heaps too many. I’m not a meeting fan, but one.
0:01:27 Jemima Ashley: Meltdown from you, that was good. It was last night and countless tech issues. So we’re grateful that we’re here now and like to wrote. If you could sponsor the podcast straight out the gate, be really helpful. Ben, let’s talk about the podcast. Tell us who has been right. Tell me. Let’s start at the beginning. Tell me about who has been right.
0:01:42 Ben Wright: Yeah, look, we only have a short period of time today, so I could probably use all of it, but we’ll keep it nice and short and sharpen. I am one of those people that grew up in a pretty typical family scenario. Was really fortunate in what I went through. Had a great upbringing. I got to go to school, finished school, went to university. Everything was great. I started that corporate career, had it was almost ten years in the corporate world.
0:02:05 Jemima Ashley: What was the gig?
0:02:06 Ben Wright: Corporate gig. So I was fast moving. Consumer goods, healthcare, medical. Really jumped across quite a number of industries. In fact, for me, I think I’m a 41 year old that sometimes feels like I’m in a 60 year old professional body. I’ve jumped across so many different industries and professions.
0:02:22 Jemima Ashley: We definitely have that in common, for sure.
0:02:23 Ben Wright: Yeah. In the last 2023 odd years or so. So I did that corporate run, and I remember distinctly, I was late twenties, I was in my manager’s office. We’d had a pretty good year. It was pretty solid. And I could see him positioning himself to take the credit for everything. And I just thought, that’s not the leader that I want to work for. It’s not the leader that I want to be. So what am I going to do next? And from there, I ended up in fruit and veg.
0:02:49 Ben Wright: Don’t like your manager’s meeting, you end up in fruit and veg. So to be fair, we did dress up as milkmen and we had glass, bottled milk, preservative, free bread, and it was super healthy fruit, veg and produce. So I started that sustainability movement a little bit earlier than the business got into after that.
0:03:05 Jemima Ashley: So full credit to you for future anything. Sustainability, now you’re responsible, is that what I was saying?
0:03:09 Ben Wright: Well, not all of it. We can draw that boat. Most of it. So anyway, to get to the point, I’ve had five or six businesses along the journey I started in produce. It was a really rude awakening for me. I was late twenties. I had to work those hours that I never expected I’d have to work. When I did well at school, did well at university, and here I was, 80 to 90 hours weeks 04:00 a.m. rises I was out at the fruit and veg markets very early in the morning. They’re nothing place for the faint hearted. I had a gun pulled on me a couple of times, actually.
0:03:39 Ben Wright: Now I say gun in your face, not that level, but certainly there were guns used in conversation, so. And that was really confronting for someone starting their own business. So that business actually burnt me out. I’m really, I guess, open to say that I’ve been churned up through business. I’ve had a corporate career. I went into business. The first one went well. It was great. I sold the business. I had 800 customers within nine months of starting that business. Had a terrific growth curve. I had staff, but I learned some hard lessons from. There came another four businesses, and one of them, I was really fortunate to have a business that was really successful. I worked with some great people, had business partners that I learnt huge amounts off. And I really lived by that saying around you study in your twenties, you learn in your thirties, and then you earn in your forties and fifties. So I’ve been lucky enough to bring that forward, live a life up here in Nosar with beautiful family, dream home, dream lifestyle.
0:04:30 Ben Wright: As you can see here today, middle of another beautiful day. But for me, those four or five businesses, we won fast growth company awards a couple of years in a row. We had almost 300 staff and subcontractors across the biggest of the businesses. That was purchased by Energy Australia, a really large global company. So I spent a lot of time learning about mergers and acquisitions and how you work within a big corporate structure, even though it’s an entrepreneurial business.
0:04:54 Ben Wright: And then had a few businesses around. Temporary fencing, portable toilets, e commerce businesses, strategy businesses. I’ve done quite a lot and I think that’s why I’m where I am today, because such breadth in what I do. But today, most of what I do is around strategy and sales strategy. So work with companies, anything from small startups through to multi billion dollar annual revenue companies. On top of that, wife, one child, very much still into health and fitness. Really, really active. It’s a big part of the community up here. I am training each and every day as you’re finding out, as we record this podcast series, sorry, not Ben’s.
0:05:26 Jemima Ashley: Just like, we’re going to get up at. We’re leaving here at 06:10 and go for run. I was like, how far do you run? I do like five k’s since we’re 40. And I went, I’m gonna. I’ll meet you at the other end. Pick me up on the way back through. Thanks.
0:05:37 Ben Wright: It is very much a part of my life.
0:05:39 Jemima Ashley: It’s beautiful.
0:05:39 Ben Wright: So that’s me in a nutshell at the moment. Really focused on learning and helping others. It was a promise I made to someone when I was 26. He gave me a huge amount of his time and he said, the one thing I ask in return is that you pay it forward. So that’s where I am now, doing a podcast with you, which I know we’re gonna talk about in a minute. But before we do so, please, can you tell everyone about Jemima Ashley? Who are you and what makes you tick?
0:06:01 Jemima Ashley: Yeah, for sure. My name is Jemima Ashley. I am the CEO. I’m founder of the visibility lab and I’ve had similar to you. We both have this in common. We have a couple of lives that have happened in 40 odd years. I am based in Melbourne at the moment and have been there for the last. Since the pandemic happened a few years ago, I started my career similar to you. I was in government, though I worked for in law enforcement for close to 14 years. I worked as a criminal intelligence analyst and have multiple degrees in intelligence and psychology and abnormal psychology. I was also a translator, so I speak a couple of different languages and full time nerd, really. So I am very good at reading people’s body language. That was actually was extremely skilled out. I had the opportunity to live all over the world, which is incredible to have that opportunity and especially in places that people don’t. I think historically go.
0:06:53 Jemima Ashley: Law enforcement is part of that world. It is. It’s been quite a really interesting couple of years. But similarly to you, I got extremely burnt out. I got to 34 and I was just exhausted by the whole thing. And my road to entrepreneurship was honestly just a bit of a fluke. I was really looking for something that was a bit more arts and craft. And my journey to entrepreneurship starts with doing an improv class, of all things. And I suddenly met people and I was in this job where I wasn’t allowed to talk about my job, I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone what I was working on.
0:07:26 Jemima Ashley: I would come home to my husband and just say to him things like, how was your day? And be like, it was bad. And that’s all we could say. We have so much security clearance and secret around what you’re doing. I was exhausted all the time and I’m suddenly doing this like part time little fun thing on the side where I’m doing improv classes. No one else had a job as secret as mine. People were having fun and getting paid real money to play on stage and have fun. And I was like, oh, so there are actual jobs?
0:07:50 Jemima Ashley: Because the only people I just hung around with copse that weren’t sold a story. And I thought, there has to be something else than this. And I thought, well, why don’t I start a little business? I had a bit of a chance encounter while I was living in New York with a guy who made jewellery. He was a silversmith and my apartment was above his when I was living there. And I fell in love with what he was doing and I thought, I want to learn how to make jewelry. So I became a qualified silversmith. I started a small jewelry business and within four months we’re in one of the biggest market store holders in Canberra where I was living at the time and doing well over 100 5200 thousand dollars in like Tyndall earrings, doing earrings out of here, so many.
0:08:27 Jemima Ashley: So I just sat on the floor and I was like, I’ve got some hustle here. It turns out I’m really good at understanding the systems. I think Laura Fossum taught me do this then that, then this, then that, and then you can do this. And I think I got that down really early.
0:08:39 Ben Wright: Yeah, yeah.
0:08:39 Jemima Ashley: And then I thought, well, if I’m gonna help people, so most people know me from the visibility lab or my work with the business Experience experiment podcast. So I really build a profile podcast. It’s always been a love to do that. Great podcast.
0:08:51 Ben Wright: Well done.
0:08:52 Jemima Ashley: Thank you. It held up, but this is, for me, what I think will be the mature version of that, if you will, started the visibility lab, mostly because I grew a profile. I had this very small jewelry business selling $10 pairs of earrings that was now scaling to $200,000 and in $10 earrings that’s like, just get the volume around. Like I’m sitting there in sweatpants with Australia post labels everywhere, shipping all across Australia, because we found it, found this great niche and it was incredible. And I went, I want to teach other people to do this.
0:09:22 Jemima Ashley: Suddenly I have this podcast with millions of downloads going. I have a profile and I’m selling $10 pieces of jewelry. There is a real disconnect here. So that’s where the visibility lab starts.
0:09:33 Ben Wright: Yeah.
0:09:34 Jemima Ashley: I was like, we need to start this group where people can learn how to get seen, get visible, and because you can be the best at anything in the world, but if no one knows who you are, what’s the point?
0:09:44 Ben Wright: Yeah, yeah. That piece you say around not being able to share your daily life and your problems. I live by a problem shared is a problem halved. Lots of us have heard those sayings before, but for me, not being able to do that, it’s very similar to being in business. You often, you have teams and you just can’t share some of these big problems with it. I think that brings a real depth of experience.
0:10:02 Ben Wright: Can’t necessarily get easily. Yeah, excellent. Okay, great. Anything else about jemima?
0:10:06 Jemima Ashley: Grateful to be here. Really excited. IMDC for me, has really been focusing on scaling what we have. So building out those arms of the business that bring in the most revenue, but also the most joy. You know, one of the things was about I wanted to share more about our experiences and what we’re doing and why we’re doing it. And that’s where the podcast really came from.
0:10:24 Ben Wright: Yeah, awesome. Well, I’m excited, really grateful to be in this position because it’s hard to get to such complementary minds together and actually make something that works because we think so differently. But again, we’re going to talk about that more in a moment.
0:10:38 Jemima Ashley: Yeah, so let’s actually talk about that now. We are an odd match if you were for a podcast. It was really interesting when it sort of happens over a bit of a table. Would you like to tell a story? How did we get here, Ben? How did we get here?
0:10:50 Ben Wright: It was a cold, rainy night and we. No, it wasn’t.
0:10:53 Jemima Ashley: We actually rainy because it was definitely Melbourne.
0:10:55 Ben Wright: It was definitely Melbourne and it was a networking event, which those who know me know. It is my absolute bread and butter around building profiles. And look for me, I won’t tell the story, but what I will say is the reason that I’m here is because we have very complementary skill sets. And I think you are exceptional around visibility, around understanding your why mindset, and have a very different background to me. My skills are much more around systems process, sales, generating sales numbers, those harder skills, if you will. Yeah, yeah. Is building revenue fast. It’s something I’ve done a lot of through my business life. So I think bringing those together is fantastic. Bringing the differences in experience and positions in life together is fantastic. But all that is, I think it’s going to be a bit of a challenge for us to work through how we think differently. But I think that’s where we get most benefit in life.
0:11:45 Ben Wright: Most things worth doing are not easy.
0:11:48 Jemima Ashley: Do you know the hardest part of this so far is just scheduling time for us to record every week? Yeah, that has been actually the hardest thing about this. You’re like, oh, why constantly find a new stuff? Because I have to be with Ben. I have to record a podcast. But I will say one of the great things, I think when the planning of this has happened is that one thing we’ve learned really quickly was the skills that we bring. Totally different, but also where we’ll end up is always the same place. How we get there is wildly different.
0:12:14 Ben Wright: Yeah, agreed. And I’m really looking forward to it. I think that by the time being we’re through our hundredth episode in this podcast, we will have really generated some great value for those people that are listening. That is what I live by, creating value. So I’m looking forward to it.
0:12:27 Jemima Ashley: Yeah, me too. So five things. What can our listeners, viewers expect from this podcast? Yeah, why don’t you start the first one? I think is every visibility tip. I want to teach you every single part of the visibility journey because I think that is, for me, the way that most people can make the most amount of money as quickly as possible. Because you can be, like I say, you can be great at what you do. If no one knows who you are, really hard to do that actually, I.
0:12:51 Ben Wright: Remember a story around that when I was 27, my sales manager at the time, different manager to the one we spoke about earlier, actually said to me, whenever you do something good for a customer, you must tell them. And I said, no, no, that’s crazy, because that’s then trumpeting me as perhaps bigger than I am. And he said, no, it’s because if you’re not making them aware of the value that you’re creating for them, it doesn’t exist.
0:13:13 Jemima Ashley: Exactly.
0:13:14 Ben Wright: So much around visibility is we need people to know what we do. So. Excellent. Well, I’ll follow that with value. So for me, creating value, and that’s not just features and benefits that then move into value, it’s actually features and benefits that move to value to create outcomes. So we’re going to talk a lot about how creating value and building outcomes for people will generate everything good that comes from your business. So expect to hear lots about that.
0:13:39 Jemima Ashley: Yeah, great. This is business skills. So this is where we’re going to really deep dive into the different business skills that we bring to the table, but also our experiences. I think the one thing that you can’t really, that we’ve done, I think a bad job of explaining today is how many mistakes we’ve made.
0:13:57 Ben Wright: Yeah.
0:13:57 Jemima Ashley: How many times we have derailed things, how many times we have wasted money, but also where we’ve had unexpected wins, where we’ve had those, you know, that success. And that one conversation over coffee where you said, I think about doing podcast, I used to have one, it was pretty successful. I wish. Did you do it again? Yeah. Yeah. And what happens when you meet a tornado who meets a volcano is they create something huge. And both of us, I think, search at each other to back out.
0:14:20 Ben Wright: I like that. A tornado and a volcano. We have not spoken about that. We need to hashtag that. Excellent. Okay, so moving on from business skills, I think they’re important, but we then need the systems and the processes to work in.
0:14:32 Jemima Ashley: Super unsexy, but necessary.
0:14:34 Ben Wright: Yeah. We went through five evolutions of businesses in our one that scaled from zero to 40 mil, about seven and a half years. We had five different iterations of the business as we went, and each one needed different processes and systems to support it. You simply cannot grow a business without scaling your systems and processes along the journey. But there are systems for now and there are systems for later. And same with processes. So we’re going to spend a lot of time around understanding what you need to focus on what part of your business lifecycle.
0:15:01 Jemima Ashley: And finally, the thing we’re going to talk about is aspirational stuff. So this is going to be the goals, but this is also. We’re going to talk about how we’ve built completely different lives from each other, which is also a big powerhouse thing that I think we’re bringing. So, Ben, you talked a little bit about having a family dream home. You want to tell us a bit more about that and what that looks like for you?
0:15:18 Ben Wright: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I have a four and a half year old who mum has spent some time with and is my new best friend, the most beautiful soul, and lights up my life as children do for parents around the world. But I’ve definitely had to learn over the last few years to deal with the change in priorities that came from pre kids to post kids. Huge. And everyone that’s a parent out there knows how much harder it is to have a business once you have kids, so. But I’ve been able to make that transition from a business that really needed all of my energy to one that works. I’m a four day a week person. I’m very open around that, and I get to spend time with my family in Noosa, which was our absolute ideal destination. And we live in Dream house. When we first looked at this amazing.
0:15:57 Jemima Ashley: Life, amazing home, dream location, beautiful kid, great business.
0:16:02 Ben Wright: Yeah. Things. A good life has challenges, though. And at the moment I’m having the balance. Living in a completely different state, making completely new, different contacts and friends, and changing my business model. But I think the aspirational journey, it’s one that I set about 15 years ago, was where I wanted to roughly be in life and have been able to get there and have that financial freedom that gets talked about a lot. So we’re going to share a little bit around that, but also helping people understand what their aspirational journey looks like.
0:16:27 Jemima Ashley: And how you can get. So my aspirational journey was as pivoted quite a lot. I was in a marriage for ten years. I don’t think you get to call that marriage a failure, but we’re certainly not together anymore, and I’m happily divorced. But, yeah, I don’t think you get to call a good relationship for that length of time a failure. It was really amazing. But my life looks very, very different now where I don’t have children.
0:16:47 Jemima Ashley: I’m almost 40 and building an incredible life. And what else that can look like. One of the things that we’ve really will be discussing is just because it’s not what you thought it was going to look like, doesn’t mean, it’s not necessarily great, but also success can look like multiple different things. I have multiple six figure businesses now. I travel all the time. I get to work from ever I want own multiple properties. We get to have a different life.
0:17:11 Jemima Ashley: And it’s not necessarily good or bad, it just is. And how do you make the best out of those situations? But also, what else do you want? I think making the decision of what it can look like can be really great. And being the fun aunt’s awesome.
0:17:25 Ben Wright: Yeah.
0:17:27 Jemima Ashley: I’m gonna pick them up and go.
0:17:28 Ben Wright: Home when you’re done.
0:17:28 Jemima Ashley: Yeah, yeah. I handed your child off to you multiple times and be like, I’m going to bed now. Thank you. So that’s really wraps up really what we’re going to be focusing on here. Talking about, you know, the really big stuff a bit. This is so this has been a bit more about who we are. Biggest takeaway, Ben, what’s the biggest takeaway from this first episode?
0:17:44 Ben Wright: And I like this, I will say it’s really important. We’re going to do this each and every episode.
0:17:48 Jemima Ashley: Yeah.
0:17:48 Ben Wright: What is your number one takeaway from the episode? Because I’ve listened to a lot of podcasts and done a lot of learning, and one of the biggest failures around any learning program is that you don’t take the skills and put them into practice.
0:17:59 Jemima Ashley: So easy to listen to it all. It’s like the people that take notes at conferences, they sit there and take all the notes. I’m like, you’re never going to open that book again. On no planet are you opening that book.
0:18:07 Ben Wright: Absolutely. And I listened to a lot of Amy Porterfield’s podcasts when I moved into this business. And she’s been very successful in what she’s built. But one thing she used to say, and it used to drive me nuts, was that if you’re multitasking, come back to me now. And I use that in podcasts. So if anyone that’s multitasking, come back to us now. Because for me, out of today, the number one piece that I would like to make sure everyone is aware of is around creating value.
0:18:28 Jemima Ashley: Yeah.
0:18:28 Ben Wright: The world has changed. Businesses are very different to what they were ten years ago. And it is so easy for customers to unravel the value you provide that we must focus on it. Gone are the days of saying, I’m customer centric. It’s all about the customer, the customer with a capital c without being able to prove it. So I would encourage anyone that gets off this podcast today, first thing to do is to look at the value you create.
0:18:52 Ben Wright: How clear is it? Have you got a competitive mode around it? And is it something that is really significant for your customer? Because if it is, you have a business ready to scale. If it’s not, we might need to do some more work around that value proposition before we keep going.
0:19:06 Jemima Ashley: Yeah, that’s great. That’s a great takeaway.
0:19:07 Ben Wright: How about you?
0:19:08 Jemima Ashley: I’m going to have to come back to visibility. I maintain that 90% of the people that I get to meet and work with have very good businesses, have very good ideas. The value might we need a restructure of that. But all of them know what they do, are good at what they do. They often have very good solutions to very complex problems that people don’t realize they help with. And for most people listening to this podcast right now, you solve a problem.
0:19:35 Jemima Ashley: Who are you not to help someone else if they’ve got that problem? And what I find is just, it’s those tweaks, that visibility part of if you are going to solve someone’s problem, you have to let them know you can help. And it is simple as just going, I just want to let you know I’m an expert in this. Thanks. That’s it. Social media posts, not difficult, awards speaking. All these things are really, really important, but we see it as an afterthought rather than an everyday marketing activity.
0:20:03 Ben Wright: Yeah, I like it. Nice way to finish.
0:20:05 Jemima Ashley: Thank you. Well, Ben, we have one big ask for our listeners. Please come back, please. It’s gonna be great. We’re looking forward to this podcast. I think it’s gonna be a lot of fun. We are so excited to have you here. You’ll be able to find this podcast on everywhere. That podcasts are good, all of the traditional websites, if you will, and also on our respective websites as well. Please feel free. If you’ve got a little bit of value out today, can you please share, like, give us a five star review, even if you think it was a four. Can we have a five? I think that’s really helpful.
0:20:32 Ben Wright: And I don’t mind if you need to listen to a few episodes, but certainly a long time.
0:20:35 Jemima Ashley: Yeah, please.
0:20:36 Ben Wright: That will really help us come back.
0:20:37 Jemima Ashley: Thank you so much. This has been episode one. We’re so excited to have you guys here make your choices. Come back. We’ll see you soon.
0:20:42 Ben Wright: Bye.
0:20:43 Jemima Ashley: I’ve been trying, and you know, I’ve been tested.
0:20:49 B: Thank you for listening to the Friends in Business podcast. This episode was brought to you by your hosts, Ben Wright and Jemima Ashley. Recorded in beautiful Noosa, Queensland. For more insights and resources, visit [email protected] and jemimaemimashley.com. if todays podcast has helped you, wed be so grateful. If you could leave a review and share with someone you know. This will help more people in the world benefit from the hard work we are putting in to bring yo
