Andrew Griffiths is Australia‘s #1 small business author with 11 books now sold in over 50 countries. Described by most as a street-smart entrepreneur, Andrew bought his first business at the age of 17. Since then, and for the best part of 30 years, he has owned and operated many small businesses in fields as diversified as retail, consulting, advertising, publishing and travel.
In his latest book, the Big Book of Small Business, Andrew teamed up with Allen & Unwin to write and publish one of the leading entrepreneurial manuals available today.
Andrew is a highly engaging presenter, having worked with over 200 organisations globally. He uses rich stories and anecdotes to drive home his key recommendation, making him an entertaining keynote speaker for small business and large corporations alike. Andrew‘s past client list includes many leading brands such as Telstra, HP, Hertz, Bendigo Bank, Schwarzkopf, Jetset Travelworld Group, GHD, L‘Oreal, Ray White, CPA, ING, Stockland and Ramsay Health Care.
There is no doubt that Andrew Griffiths has become a major force in the world of small business, within Australia and around the world. He is on a mission to energise entrepreneurs everywhere and to empower small business owners to build the businesses they dream of and deserve.
You can find out more about Andrew on www.andrewgriffiths.com.au
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Christo: Welcome back to the Basic Bananas Marketing show. Today I have a very special guest and I’m a little bit excited about this one. He is sitting right here right beside me so I’m gonna give you a little intro into the amazing things that Andrew Griffiths has done.
He is known as Australia’s number one small business author with 11 books now sold in over 15 countries, described by most as a very street smart entrepreneur, Andrew bought his first business at 17 and since then he’s been running business for thirty years in many and very different fields; diverse fields such as retail, consulting, advertising, publishing, travel. He sold his books in places as far and as wide as Estonia, Nigeria, China, North America, India, Vietnam, Indonesia, and the United Kingdom. And even Ireland. Interesting.
Andrew: Big market.
Christo: Yeah, I can imagine. In his latest book “The big book of small business” Andrew teamed up with Alan & Unwin to write and publish one of the leading entrepreneurial manuals available today. He’s had a very interesting story which would be cool to hear a little bit about that from you as well. Growing up as an orphan in Western Australia, from humble beginnings, and you shared some of that in The Me myth. Is that right?
Andrew: Absolutely.
Christo: Excellent. And I know that book is been acknowledged as one of the most powerful and inspirational self-development books written. Very cool. Now, in terms of work, this bio, by the way, for our listeners. I’ll share a little secret here. Andrew sent me his bio and I was like this is impressive, this is long, can we call it down a little bit?
I obviously didn’t know where to pull anything out because it’s so long that we’ll be sitting here all night if I read the whole thing. But basically he has worked with over two hundred organizations, many leading brands such as Telstra, HP, Hertz, Bendigo Bank, Schwarzkopf, Jetset Travelworld Group, GHD, L‘Oreal, Ray White, CPA, ING, Stockland and Ramsay Health Care. This is an amazing bio.
Andrew: I’m blushing.
Christo: And on top of it all an amazing carrier as a keynote speaker, presenting around the world, regularly in the media: radio, TV, print magazines, television, it’s all there. And on top of it all he’s a very good bloke. He’s a passionate campaigner for numerous not for profit organizations.
Andrew: And I’m obviously good at getting someone to write my bio for me. That’s my greatest achievement is I paid someone to write a really good biography. That’s the first lesson of our podcast is pay an exorbitant amount of money and get someone to write a fantastic bio.
Christo: You’ve done really well. Very well indeed.
Andrew: Thank you. Thank you. Good to be here.
Christo: Thank you so much for joining us.
Andrew: A pleasure.
Christo: It’s an honour to have you here. So, let’s hear from you. Enough from me. Kind of tumbling over this impressive bio here. Can you tell us a bit from you about you and your business journey?
Andrew: Yes, sure, yeah. I mean, it’s funny isn’t it? I didn’t really grow up as an entrepreneur, I never really had that in my background. I mean as my bio says I grew up as an orphan. My parents left my sister and myself when I were six months old and my sister was eighteen months old and we got brought up. They left us with an old lady who used to live up the road.
And just, kind of one of those strange kind of backgrounds, not a lot of people have got them. But she was quite raving mad, she was 74 years old when she took us in. 74 years old took a six months old baby and an eighteen month old baby. And anyway, I went through the system and ended up in state care, state ward and orphanages, and all that, the usual country jazz. So I didn’t really have an entrepreneurial role model or any of that kind of stuff so I don’t quite know where I’ve got that gene.
I grew up in Perth but I ended up in Sydney and I bought my first business. I was going to scuba dive… And it was really good for me because I was really kind of the cliché. Running of the roads kind of kid, stealing cars, doing drugs, breaking into houses, all stuff that I’m pretty embarrassed about now and trying to do my own retribution as well.
Bit by bit, kind of back then, fixing up some of the sins of the past. But I learned how to dive and I was just working at a dive shop and the guy I was with, was a crazy Canadian guy and he wanted out so I just bought it. In the 80’s. And so I was a kid, I walked into a bank and said I needed … it wasn’t like a million dollar dive shop, let me give you the drum, but I could walk into a bank…
Christo: Scuba diving?
Andrew: Yes, scuba diving. Very to school. And at seventeen and a half and I just asked for 22 grand or 30 grand or whatever it was and walked out with a cheque. In the 80’s you could do that stuff.
Christo: Yeah.
Andrew: I miss the 80’s a lot. And I had no idea how to run a business. Absolutely no idea. And I just made every mistake. I knew how to dive and I knew how to teach diving. I became an instructor and we did commercial diving as well. So I knew how to get a boat off the bottom of the ocean, I knew how to check the big tankers and things like hull damage.
I mean, I went through all that stuff when I was on training. But I didn’t know how to run a business. But you figure it out. I think most of us as entrepreneurs we don’t actually get to an entrepreneur academy and learn how to do it because you do, you learn it all here, in the tranches as such.
Christo: That’s right.
Andrew: And I did that and made a few mistakes. Actually I made every mistake known to mankind and about 20 or 30 times over. But somehow I managed to get through until the end and all. I’ll share that story for later on when I actually have some bizarre experiences. But I’ve worked in exploration, in Western Australia for a couple of years, for a company and I thought different things over there as well.
And I ended up in Cairns where as a commercial diver is easier to get work and I’ve done a few businesses in between. But I got decompression sickness and I couldn’t dive anymore. And I got into sales and marketing, I was working for a big Japanese company at the time. And they said, you got a big mouth, will put you in sales and marketing.
And I just took it like a dive into water. The next thing I‘m travelling the world for this company as sales and marketing guy, selling cruises. And I spent a few years doing that throughout America and all the rest of it. And then I finally started my own little marketing company in Cairns. Met Gale, got married, do all those kind of things and it was a bit hard to be on the road.
And interesting enough, that’s when I started to write books. Because a lot of small businesses, had many of them as you mentioned it. And for me running small businesses like a marketing company specialising in small businesses. I really notice the same issues that people were having all the time.
Christo: Yeah.
Andrew: They’d come, no one had any money. Marketing was like talking Greek. No one understood it. Where do you start? Anyone was asking the same questions. And they never had any money to pay a consultant. So I’m always going on “Well, I’ll give you the information for free”. Except what I did was make up those fax sheets, a story I tell often.
And one day I looked over my wall and I had like fifty of these fax sheets. And what would happen if someone would ring, and I needed to make more money to fax them. These were the days of fax machines folks. Just above the day of the currier pigeon and the carrier pigeon. And I’ll fax these people information through. And one day I got fifty of these on the wall and I thought “If I had another fifty, as a hundred I could maybe write a book, call it a hundred and one ways to market your business”.
Christo: Oh, that’s it…
Andrew: What do you reckon? Great idea and everyone said to me “No, don’t do it. Man, there is a million marketing books. Who are you? Marketing your business anybody, can’t you? Andrew, have a cold shower, cut it off, no one is gonna publish your book”. I was amazed how many people said that to me. It was one of my brightest lessons in life, to never listen to people that tell you all the things you can’t do.
And anyway, short story is, it ended up I contacted a couple of publishers, it got published, and it is still my bestselling book and it credited this wonderful carrier for me. It came out in October 2000 and I’m now up to my twelfth book coming up this year. And it was extraordinary. The first one sold really well and the publisher said “Can you write about anything else?” Sure, I can. Then I had to go and figure it out what the hell I was going to write about. Yeah, just kind of worked on it from there.
And of course today, yeah, I present, I train, I write books. I’ve got wonderful clients right around the world that I always have forward engagements. If I had listen to everyone back in 1999 I would still be running my little marketing company from Cairns. And probably wishing that I’ve done something different.
Christo: Yeah, great insight.
Andrew: So, that’s me in a nut shell.
Christo: Excellent. Lovely. It’s an impressive nut shell. A very impressive nut shell that one. I know that you are fantastic in terms of encouraging people to take their businesses to think more globally.
Andrew: Absolutely.
Christo: To get outside more, to expand more. Can you just share with us, with our listeners, I guess, why they should be thinking globally and what on earth that means in the first place?
Andrew: Yeah. That’s a good point. I mean, for me, like today my business… I still live in Cairns and I run my business from Cairns and I did that because I chose to live there. It would be better for me to be in Sydney or Melbourne but the reality is I think more than ever, if you’re selling a service, but even if you’re selling a product, the preconceived ideas about geography have gone.
They‘ve changed completely and what I do notice is that there are a lot of businesses a little caught up still in that my market are the people that live within driving distance of my business or walking distance of whatever might be.
Christo: Yeah.
Andrew: And the problem is they’re so tied in to what’s going on around you economically when that is happening. So if your local area, and I saw that in Cairns. Cairns is an economy that goes up and down and if it‘s terrible, business is closed. It’s thought like that point of view.
Christo: Yeah.
Andrew: Everyone thinks a little bit linear. These days I think the opportunity is to think globally. And I think if you could have a global market for your small business then you become more resilient because when one market is down another one is up. Now I sell information. Really, that’s what I sell. I teach people how to run better businesses.
Now, I can manage websites for companies like CBS or HP in India, in China, and I’ll do it from Cairns. I could do it from Singapore. I write for Ink in New York. I am the only Australian columnist for them. You know what? No one ever says where are you based? That question doesn’t even…
Christo: It all comes from Cairns.
Andrew: Yes. And I found that interesting. Yet, people say how do you do all that stuff. You got to think globally. So your website has got to look a little bit different. Your language is got to be a little bit more non-geographic.
Christo: Yeah.
Andrew: I think that from that point of view you’ve got to really brand yourself as to be a little bit of a world… Regardless of what you’re selling. I was having this conversation with the guys at Ink, anyone who is listening ink.com, the website, an entrepreneur‘s site, 18 million people a month visit this website.
These guys, they are pretty good in the scheme of things and when they were developing my profile for the website I said Do you wanna do the Australian thing? I’m Australian, I’ll talk with a slight Australian draw, ridding my kangaroo.
And they said absolutely not. We want global media commentators, global information and all the rest to it, and I’m seeing those people new to this and I’m saying okay, I think that I’ve got just a local business, but do I? A friend of mine who develops slogans for businesses, slogan creator, his clients come for overseas.
Christo: Yeah.
Andrew: A friend of mine is a physiotherapist who’s an on law in physio and she can talk by Skype. So all of their clients…
Christo: It’s first I’ve heard of a physio, yeah. And you got well.
Andrew: But without this audio, a physio, you couldn’t do that. She does it very successfully and again she has clients … there’s billions of people who live a long, long way from a physio or from a doctor or from a dentist or from, two or three hundreds. So her clients are on ships, they’re in mine sights, they’re remote parts of the world, all that stuff.
So that’s my view on it. There is a huge demand for information, and even if you’ve got a business selling a product or such, people are still interested and prepared to pay for knowledge of “How did you get to that? What are the “how-to‘s”, can you teach them? What are the kind of things we can do to kind of extend our offering?” And that’s all part of thinking it a little bit more globally.
So, I run my business. I don’t have any staff, I don’t have an assistant, I don’t have anyone. I do everything myself from Cairns and I deal with 20-30 countries at any one time in various projects around the world. I have all sorts of things, but a staff for sure? But if you think that way. You make your website, you market yourself, you prepare, you get on a plane, and you go and see people when you need to be there. I think that’s how you make it work.
Christo: Yeah, I love it. It’s always one of those things, getting people there. And it might be some resistance thinking “How does this apply?”
Andrew: Of course.
Christo: I’m gonna put some more in the business. It’s great that you’re sharing this insights even a physio could do it. And you touched on that part of work. Could be additional information product that they can create because it’s often that we say a lot of the business, know so much about their industry and their product but they forget how little the rest of the world knows. The people would be willing to pay for that information, that knowledge.
Andrew: Exactly. The demand for knowledge is extraordinary. And you just got to think differently, and the way to think differently is you got to spend time, in my opinion, really looking what other people are doing. I sort of got an example of this springwise? Do you follow springwise website at all? It’s a great innovation website and every Thursday morning I just love it. Cause it’s all these innovations from all around the world.
Christo: Oh, yeah.
Andrew: I remember a little while back I was back in New York and there was people living there and what they were doing … Times were being very, very tough. And to supplement their income families are cooking extra meals and selling them to people living by themselves. So, if you live by yourself you can do a deal with a family. You supplement their income, you eat better, and everyone is happy. I thought, well, that’s cool, but it’s never gonna work. No one is going to do that in Australia. I was talking at a conference in Cairns, funnily enough, and this girl puts up his hand and says “I do that”. The family next door to her they have six kids and she is a business lady, she is lives at home by herself and the family, they cook two meals a day for her and she pays them. They’re making 120 dollars a week or something like that. For the family an extra meal is nothing when they’ve got a tribe to feed.
Christo: Yeah.
Andrew: And my friend, she gets a good meal cooked every night. This way she picked it up and she … As strange as that seems, I think the world is actually a different place for entrepreneurs. I’ve never seen so much opportunity but the first thing you got to have is you got to be really open-minded. I mean, just because I don’t think there’s a market it doesn‘t mean there isn’t one.
Christo: Yeah. What about any insights into marketing? To open it up to the global market? If they are saying, it sounds good so how do I get it out there? Yeah.
Andrew: I think obviously most of them got to do some kind of geographical statement where we are at, mostly for bricks and mortar kind of business because they’ve got to find you. But I think you got to work, talk about your buyer a little bit more globally, you got to talk about your products, you got to be again thinking “well if I was reading this in America, how applicable would it be for me. If I was reading this in France how applicable would it be.
So, I find that you just got to use that language. Look at other businesses, researchers. What are other people doing in my industry that’s global? A coffee shop it’s a prime example. We think that it’s a 100% local, you just got to be there and that’s it. If you’re there then people will come along and whoever it’s walking by will use you.
But it’s interesting from that point of view. I think you gain the expertise of how to run a coffee-shop in different areas. It’s very interesting. Your opinion, your views, your inclined interactions setting up, running your business, again it’s a huge part of are you successful, how are you running your marketing company? I run a marketing company for years, I’m intrigued to see how you’re doing? I think it’s that thirst for knowledge, so use the right language.
Think bigger. What side of your information is a little bit more global? If you’re selling any products along think about the American market. Make sure you got a U.S. dollar or, I’m not just saying American market, any market. To be honest most of my stuff comes from Asia. How we describe ourselves, have a good positioning statement. Be a little bit bold. I mean, my business change when I said I’m Australia‘s number one small business author.
Sure, I can back that up but it’s also, everyone just went “Oh, okay”. Bang, that just sort of describes it. But my clients, actually not small businesses, and my clients are all corporations because I’m the small business guy who is the number one expert apparently so that’s why we want him to do that stuff for us.
Christo: Yeah.
Andrew: So again I think its knowledge and sharing that stuff.
Christo: Yeah, yeah.
Andrew: But it does all those things with you, you got to think differently. You got to be a bit bold.
Christo: Yeah, yeah.
Andrew: A lot of people wouldn’t get out of their comfort zone because I make coffee, that’s all I want to do.
Christo: Yeah.
Andrew: So, that’s cool. Nothing wrong with that, Make the best coffee imaginable. You know?
Christo: Yeah, I love that example of the coffee-shop. But, how are you going to take this one, this decision but it’s actually teaching the process because it’s not like… I think people often get worried that somebody else is gonna open up next door. But it’s not like that.
Andrew: Exactly.
Christo: You actually position yourself as an authority by sharing that information of course.
Andrew: Exactly.
Christo: Open it up to the globe. So, golden insights.
Andrew: Very cool. And we’ve got about 2 minutes left.
Christo: No, no way.
Andrew: You might notice that I talk.
Christo: Yeah, you got too much goodness here to share so I’m gonna get around the books. So this is a hot topic and I’ve opened it up our listeners as well and we got bombarded with more questions about books. Of course I would love to hear about obviously … Let’s start off with it basically, do you have some tips in what’s the process for writing a book?
Andrew: Yeah. Absolutely mate. I mean obviously these days I teach a lot of people how to write books as well. That‘s a big part of what I do. And it’s interesting that first and foremost writing a book it’s an extraordinarily way to leverage yourself. I am a far better leverager that I am a writer.
To be honest. And I think that‘s a big point too because a lot of us think oh, you’ve got to be an extraordinary writer. You got to be like Ernest Hemingway to be able and write a book. You’ve written a book. I mean, no offence in the slightest but would you consider yourself to be Ernest Hemingway?
Christo: Definitely not. I’m a good marketer, to market the book, maybe not the best writer.
Andrew: Exactly. I keep my first manuscript that I wrote talking about the 101 ways to market your business. And I keep it and I look at it from year to year. I can’t believe anyone published that because it was so badly written. It’s embarrassing. I would never show it to anyone. Never. I was way too embarrassed to ever show it to anyone. My publisher just sent it back to me, I‘ve got it under locking key. It’s getting buried with me. We’re cremated. I’m sure.
So you’ve got to change that thought. Anyone could write a book for the same point we were saying a few minutes ago. People want your information, they want to share your expertise and that’s what we want. Who might write a book? Who’s gonna want to read what I’ve got to say? That’s the whole point. It’s your take, it’s your experiences. Now, you guys write a book about marketing. There‘s 2004 books on marketing available.
Christo: Yeah.
Andrew: Plus. You do a Google search. 660 million results will come up of for a small business marketing. But this that mean your book didn’t work or wasn’t successful or it doesn’t provide a unique point of view or whatever the case might be?
Christo: That’s been great for us.
Andrew: It’s been fantastic for positioning you guys. And that’s the whole key. A book it’s a positioning tool so in my opinion again, you got to wonder “Why do I want to write a book?”
Christo: Yeah.
Andrew: If you want to write a book because it’s a little bit of a, “I want to write my life story” and all that stuff, very cool but am not going to help you leverage your business. It’s going to be tough. It’s a much harder start of affairs. For me, you got to figure out what kind of book you’re gonna write. Do it about something that can leverage your business. Make it a leveraging tool.
Don‘t make it an ego tool. Because that’s a lot harder. You got to believe that people will want to read it. You also have to research, you have to see what else is out there. And I’m gonna also say, another part in this kind of getting ahead rock is writing the book is the easy part. Without a doubt. No one wants to hear that. But it is. The hardest part is actually what you do when the book comes out. Once you have actually published it.
That‘s the moment when the hard work starts. I work on promoting my books, in what I do, every day, every week of every month of every year. Not a day goes by when I don’t send out some books free. Just sent them out to keep up people of influence around, media. Every day, it’s my routine. I send at least four or five books a day. And now, over the years, what does that cost me? Probably a hundred thousand dollars, maybe more.
But it has generated millions. And I look at each book, each and every book is a seed in my view and I send it out to someone and you never know when it’s gonna come back. This job I’ve just got in New York, with this amazing financial opportunity, has come from me sending out a book to a guy a few years back.
Christo: That’s nice.
Andrew: Directly. One hundred percent direct. And I just kind of get a funny grim on my face every now and then when I get a phone call or an email comes through “You know what? That’s another one of my little seeds that has just blossomed into a tree and started to fruit.”
Christo: Yeah.
Andrew: It’s a corny metaphor but it’s the best one I’ve got at the moment.
Christo: Well, I bet it’s true.
Andrew: It’s true.
Christo: It’s hard to put a spin on the book. I remember when we published our book and had clients or people saying “You guys are gonna make millions from your book.” And I thought well, it’s not gonna be any of that from obviously books sells, but obviously in terms of what could come off a result.
Andrew: Exactly.
Christo: As a marketing tool, we probably will.
Andrew: And that’s exactly, from the point of view it’s your book is not gonna buy you the Ferrari. But it’s what you do with the book that it will, if that’s what you want.
Christo: Yeah.
Andrew: And again, you get to get your … when my first book was published by a publisher, my idea, I kind of thought “It’s launched today? Okay, I’ll better clear out a space in the garage for the Ferrari”.
Christo: Yeah.
Andrew: Make a little bit of room there. It hasn’t arrived yet but … And it’s like that’s when I realised, “Okay, well the book has come out. Now you’re gonna start the hard work of.” But as a promotional tool, as a leveraging tool, as the ultimate marketing resource. If you’ve written a good book I might add, and it looks great and it looks apart, I don’t think that there is a better leveraging tool to grow a business.
Christo: Awesome.
Andrew: It’s so much demand for every topic imaginable. I think it’s fabulous.
Christo: So, what about people, I guess they don’t know where to start. Can you give us a bit about that? If you sort of got around to a bit of a process…
Andrew: Yes, sure.
Christo: I know, a lot of our clients, they always ask “how do we do it” and we give them our process. You have somehow managed to do eleven books which is … One book alone is usually someone’s bucket list. And it’s kind of those kind of life goals and somehow you managed to do a lot of them so far. I’m sure you probably have more in the pipeline.
Andrew: I need to get a life, obviously. That’s it.
Christo: So, how on earth did you do it? What is the process?
Andrew: I think that for me, I mean the technical process of how you do it, is a long conversation. But the short term side of it, what do I do, how do I. for me, I have an idea for a book so I keep a list of ideas, I’ve got a spread sheet. It’s the only spread sheet I think I have but it’s like I think about an idea, I thought about one on the ferry coming cross to mainland this morning.
And I just … “That would be a great book,” think about it a little bit and I put it on my list”. I got a hundred and eighty titles on that list at the moment. I’m not gonna write all those books. But thinking about an idea, stuff‘s come out a little bit in my mind and the concept is it. Like the marketing book, if you think back to then, when I was writing I was really responding to what was happening in my life in my business a lot.
I was getting answers to these questions. And I soon realize for me that small business owners, they didn’t have any money, they didn’t have any time and they didn’t have any skills outside their area of expertise when it comes to marketing. That was the three things that I have noticed back then. And it was kind of pre Internet age, it was just after the world war two.
Christo: Yeah.
Andrew: So, this is 2000, I can’t believe how much has changed. So, for me, my book was really a way to help those kind of folks. I was testing it daily, the information I was giving people, was working. And it was easy for me to kind of come up with these ideas because I knew they’d work. So I think often the concept of the book is really around your day to day stuff. Just like your book.
Christo: Yeah.
Andrew: Was about how you guys do what you do. And again, they’re the best ones to write first. Cause it’s current and it can leverage a book. I had people come to me and say, well, okay, so I run a coffee shop and I’m gonna write a book about surfing. Okay, how is that really gonna help your coffee shop? Write a book about running a great coffee shop and then do a book about surfing. Make that your next book. Have a now and then book.
Christo: Yeah.
Andrew: Make it a hobby book. Make that your Hemingway thing or whatever.
Christo: Yeah.
Andrew: Then I started research for it and I really do my homework. I spend a lot of time online, in bookstores, checking in or by other books on the titles, I read them, find out what other people are doing. And what I’m looking for is, I don’t wanna write the same book as everyone else but then I am also kind of getting a confirmation on my idea.
And you will find that there is a bit of global consciousness that happens. Certain topics are hot at a certain time. For example, at the moment everybody is writing about story telling. Every focus is on that. Telling stories, how to have conversations, which is great.
Christo: Oh, yeah.
Andrew: But that’s what happens. So you got to say “Well, there are lots of books on marketing for example.” If they are, that’s not a bad thing, it’s a good thing. It’s kind of a reinforcement but if it is nothing on the topic then maybe there’s no demand for it.
So I do that kind of research, start a file, cut things out, I stock the local news agents, read the business magazines, buy newspapers. So I can really see how far this topic is. Checking in our days websites, what are people talking about. And for me the next part is really start to develop a mind map around it. Anyone who mind maps, just get all the ideas out of my head.
Christo: Yeah.
Andrew: And then the next stage for that I put a contents page together. Now, for me, this is probably the longest part of the process. Is getting my contents page right. And once I’ve got the contents page right, I know when it’s right, then I just stop. Then all I’m doing then is filling the contents page.
Christo: So you do the contents page before writing the book, before writing the content.
Andrew: Absolutely.
Christo: Map that out first.
Andrew: Totally map it out. And I don’t write it from chapter one. It was a long cold night in the house kitchen. I write whatever the chapter kind of rocks my boat that day. And I found that that’s a great way to write it. You’re not writing it from the start to the finish, you’re writing it at whatever chapter. Because you get that writing block if you start it from the beginning to the end. So, I print it out, my contents page, get it laminated and I just kind of cross it out as I finish that chapter and I write each one in a separate document, then I put it all together. Just bring it all there.
Christo: Yeah.
Andrew: And that process, for me, other little things. Unless you block that time to write you’re never gonna do it.
Christo: Yeah, I was gonna ask that just now.
Andrew: Absolutely.
Christo: How long and how do you schedule the time because usually that’s people…?
Andrew: Yeah, totally. It’s one part of my life where I am very, very disciplined. And I thought myself to type… That was really handy. So I can text type. And I thought to myself that by doing it in the dark. Because I realized that doing tap, tap, tap with my tipping fingers it takes a lot of time to write fifty or a hundred thousand words.
Christo: Yeah.
Andrew: Fall back now… One day I could become a secretary.
Christo: Yeah.
Andrew: Once I need it, I can type really fast. But you do have to be disciplined. I jog around things; today it was a magnificent day. Typical this would be a day I put aside to write.
Christo: And it is beautiful out here.
Andrew: It’s perfect.
Christo: I had a surf this morning.
Andrew: Did you?
Christo: Yeah. It’s a beautiful morning, the sun is shining and we’re sitting in here in the Basic Bananas plantation. I was looking out there.
Andrew: But you got to be outside. It’s a magnificent day but I’m still gonna write.
Christo: Yeah. That’s fine.
Andrew: Because I always joking, today I’m gonna write and in the park across the road from my place there will be bikini competitions, and circuses, people giving away money, puppy fairs… and it’s like you’re sitting there looking out the window so lonely. It’s never black and rainy and horrible.
Christo: And it’s never black, rainy and horrible and you’re motivated.
Andrew: Yeah. That’s right.
Christo: There’s always the kitchen to clean or…
Andrew: That’s right. And you find everything else to do. But you got to set aside time and that’s the thing; I don’t wait for inspiration, I think you’ve got to make inspiration happen. And it takes me probably about four to six weeks to write a book. And these days of course I’m probably a little bit more fortunate.
I can actually put time aside as a part of my world riding so I brought days and weeks I go away far often. I just got back from Tarsia I spend a whole week in Tarsia writing my next book. And do this kind of things, which again it’s a bit of a luxury, everyone else is running businesses maybe doesn’t have that luxury. But now it’s my business, so I can do that. You just got to have that first draft out of your head. Once you got it out then you can get an editor to kind of out it into shape and do a bit of that stuff. But if you don’t get that first lot out then it never happens.
Christo: Six weeks? It took us about a year to get out, but obviously running a business aside, so…
Andrew: Exactly. And I’ve just got better and better at writing I think in this structuring.
Christo: Yeah.
Andrew: Another little trick that I do which I find really, really helpful Christo is I imagine my perfect client and I hope my writing is a bit spokes full as all my books are small business oriented so I’ve got two or three friends that run small businesses.
And I used to actually have a photo of them on my computer taped to the top and I would be writing like I’m talking to them. And I find that was really easy to do that because I wasn’t over thinking it, I was just talking to them. Then I write “okay, so you need to do this and this and this and this and … and it’s a funny little tip but it kind of worked for me.
Christo: It’s really good, it’ really good, yeah. It’s a really good tip, to obviously speak straight to a person, to that client. You do that every single time with your friends or…?
Andrew: It’s probably been too weird.
Christo: You’ve got a photo of them. So, the next question was about publishing, self-publishing vs. getting a publisher and what the prices would be around getting a publisher as well.
Andrew: That’s a big question too. It’s funny, I was with my publisher‘s yesterday having conversations around what’s happening with business books at the moment around the world, the publishing game, professional publishers, Alan Unwin and Simon and Schuster those kind of guys. A lot of changes in the last few years, obviously we lost a lot of retail shops and all that kind of stuff. It’s an industry in flux, and an industry in change and it’s still, electronic e-books still can’t figure out what is out there.
So, I think, for me, going through a publisher has been really handy in terms of that’s what helped me to get my international distribution. I mean, being able to leverage the brain of the publisher is really the path to America. Cause I’ve got two publishers, Simon and Shuster and Alan Unwin in America. Simon and Schuster is a very, very respectable company. If you publish with Simon and Schuster you sit tight, you know they get well. Must be a fantastic book.
Christo: Yeah, yeah.
Andrew: That’s interesting. Over here not so much, Simon and Schuster no one really knows but in America it’s big. But the problem is that the publishing game has changed, and if you get a publisher name, let’s say you get an idea and you pitch it. Every publisher’s website will tell you how to submit a pitch idea. So if you wanna do it you just go through that process. But if you send the pitch in today, if all the planets align and the book is going to come out, it will hit the shelves in about 8 months to 2 years. So, that’s how long you have looking at before you’re gonna have anything on the shelves.
Christo: Yeah.
Andrew: Now, if you’re gonna self-publish. This program I run with key people of influence. We have people that publish and produce their own book within a matter of three months.
Christo: Yeah.
Andrew: Write the book, publish it, printed, launch it, leverage in and great books, not crappy books. Really, really good books.
Christo: Excellent.
Andrew: So my next book, that’s why I was meeting with my publishers yesterday, because I say that I’m gonna self-publish from now on.
Christo: Yeah.
Andrew: I think if you want to work something a bit more topical then yeah, everything sets up. For a publisher to do a fast book, it’s too risky for them. So, what we do though, like you could write a book on a topic of marketing right now and do two or three thousands of them and leverage that and use it and all the rest of it. But if you say okay can you write a book now for two or three years down the line, who knows?
Christo: That’s right. That was the reason we actually self-published as well.
Andrew: Absolutely.
Christo: Because of the speed of implementation. We got his book down, let‘s put it to work.
Andrew: And I think that also from my experience it’s also, you know your market really well and to be honest, you know you’re market better than your publishers know it.
Christo: Yeah.
Andrew: And I think that the publishers, certainly a chance for me they’ve been fantastic but things like cover designs and how they market and all the rest. I’ll do a better job because I know my market. And I didn’t really have that conference early, on nowadays I have, and I keep getting back to that point. What are we trying to do here?
We are trying to create a tool to leverage. You need to do it relatively quickly, you need to really promote, and you got to support your brand. So, you go to a publisher, they wouldn’t let you publish to a Basic Bananas kind of look and feel.
Christo: Yeah, that’s right.
Andrew: It would be much more a standalone kind of concept. Cause that’s the way that they operate. Yeah, well, hang on, I want my book to reflect my brand.
Christo: Yeah. That’s right.
Andrew: And yeah, all those kind of things, they’re so … I think there’s a place for it. I mean, my publishers said they’d let me do a book, again in 2015. I got, well I could be dead by then but we’ll talk about it.
Christo: It’s a bit of a credibility thing now I guess, isn’t it?
Andrew: It is.
Christo: They got to publish all the titles on board. It’s got to show all the things like you said.
Andrew: Yeah.
Christo: Well it must be good.
Andrew: Yeah, I were. I think the key if you’re gonna self-publish is you got to make it a great book. Don‘t’ write crap, don’t get your nine year old nephew to do the layout.
Christo: Yeah, the cover…
Andrew: A really great cover, a really good layer. Make it really good. Use a professional editor, use professionals. And there is plenty around now to do that kind of stuff.
Christo: Yeah.
Andrew: So many support services for the publishing world. I mean, I’m seeing them already. They contacted me all the time with new products and services even to get on Amazon and iTunes, eBook. It’s got so much easier nowadays.
Christo: Yes, this is what the next question is about actually. Digital versus print and what are your thoughts on keeping it digital.
Andrew: Taught question.
Christo: Save money and go to digital, or…
Andrew: To me it’s a fabulous question. And people always say I’m a little bit of a body old far because I just like to study for the record. I’ve got around 28 e-books. So to someone I’m almost digital.
Christo: Yeah.
Andrew: But why are you writing a book? Normally, you should care for making money from selling a book. For me it’s a whole seeding concept. Every book it’s what I turn it into a leverage. The problem is that e-books are kind of where self-publishing was 20 years ago or 10 years ago. E-books are very easy to do. You put an 8 page word document together that’s crap, and wink a cheap crappie cover on it, build a pretty website and get someone to pay 20 bucks to download it.
Christo: Yeah.
Andrew: All over the e-books have been hardly disappointing.
Christo: Yeah.
Andrew: So, e-books definitely have a role. I have friends, a photographer friend of mine who has really used e-books to leverage his business really well. But I’m a big believer in what I call “fat daddy” and that it’s kind of going to a business.
Christo: There it is.
Andrew: Someday, and I think if I say to you, I’m pitching for this job, you might need a copy of my book. It kind of goes, “well, it’s a bit…” yeah, okay, here you go, here’s a copy of my book.
Christo: I faxed you a copy, yeah.
Andrew: The look in people’s faces when you hand them a copy personally signed.
Christo: He is through the roof.
Andrew: Completely different and you’ve experienced, you know what it’s like that look on someone’s face. When you give them a copy of your book, your credibility raises. I’ve got more work from that. And I mean, when you’re walking in, if you have a book and your competitors haven’t, you have a very big competitive advantage.
Christo: Yeah.
Andrew: And the answer to me on that one is, yes, by all mean do a digital version of your physical book but if you’re writing it to leverage yourself you need a hard copy.
Christo: Yeah.
Andrew: And I still believe that’s true.
Christo: That’s what my next question was about, leveraging the book to promote their business and you’ve pretty much given us a good… I love that.
Andrew: Yeah.
Christo: The thought of value.
Andrew: In fact value is everything. It‘s wild. And I also think you’re struggling a little bit with e-books from the pricing point of view. Like Kindle, 70% of Kindle books are sold to 50+ year old women and they’re fiction books.
Christo: Yeah.
Andrew: It’s changing of course, and it has to be. We have to go digital. But in terms of what we are talking about, I can’t say physical books not having a place for a few years.
Christo: Yeah.
Andrew: You know, so…
Christo: I totally agree.
Andrew: Yeah.
Christo: And it’s impressive. We’ve got e-books. I read one of your books while we were in Sri Lanka actually.
Andrew: Oh, really? Cool.
Christo: Busier.
Andrew: Which one did you read? How to have a business and a life?
Christo: A hundred and one, it was the a hundred and one.
Andrew: Marketing?
Christo: Marketing, yes.
Andrew: It’s a bit old now.
Christo: Yes.
Andrew: I feel a little bit…
Christo: It was good, yeah.
Andrew: With simple ideas mate.
Christo: Yes, exactly, yeah.
Andrew: There is no rocket science in there. I didn’t split de marketing atom and show it inside, but meat potatoes ideas.
Christo: Exactly.
Andrew: Some have resonated. I mean, that book I sold fifty thousand copies.
Christo: That’s right.
Andrew: And it was just one in Australia.
Christo: Simple ideas for us in the marketing world for people that obviously, John the plumber, he is not a professional marketer.
Andrew: Exactly.
Christo: It’s all super beneficial. This has been really cool. Now, this is a question we love to ask. It kind of throws you on the spot a little bit, but what would you say is he weirdest or funniest thing that ever happened to you in business?
Andrew: I could talk for days about that. How many weird things do you want? I talked about the dive shop, and at my dive shop I had a guy who worked for me, who wanted to buy into the business. And it was going really well, we’d really transform it, we’d really turn this dive shop around by being different to other dive shops.
We renovated. It was a really big transformation. Anyway, this guy was working for me and I said yeah, absolutely, that would be great. And I said, but if you’re gonna buy in the first thing I wanna do, I need a holiday. I’ve been working my yin-yang of and I wanted to go sailing with some friends of mine for about three or four weeks.
So anyway, that was the deal, we’ve signed the contracts and I said give me the money when I get back. The usual silly story. So, I’ve gone out sailing for about two or three weeks, and I got back to Australia. When I arrived back to the city my girlfriend just had a hysterical at the end of the phone saying “Where have you been?” like she couldn’t count on the truth of this. And I said well, you know, I’ve been out sailing. And she said “The dive shop is gone”. And I’ve gone “What do you mean, the dive shop is gone?”
Christo: You’re kidding.
Andrew: And she said “Everything is gone”.
Christo: What?
Andrew: So, I thought she’s obviously lost the plot, what’s going on here? Jumped on the train, I was in Brisbane and I’ve come down to the dive shop and I’ve just walked around. And everything was gone. And this guy, the day after I left, because he knew I wasn’t gonna be contactable. He bought $20,000 worth of gear, told anyone that Andrew is gone in holidays, I’m the new partner, we gonna renovate the shop so we’re gonna sell a huge special. Sold the dive gear, sold the cars, sold the boats, sold the compressors and did a run up.
Christo: No.
Andrew: Literally, everything was gone. Honestly, I walked into the shop and it was like tumble weed and a coyote hauling in the back.
Christo: My goodness.
Andrew: He’s taken the kitchen sink. Even the dead bolts on the doors were gone. There was no lock on the door. It was just extraordinary.
Christo: Top crunches under the bench.
Andrew: He took them, too. How great is this. And I’ve just gone. I do remember wondering around like this big empty shop and just … And everything was in my name. Everything was sold, I had on a debt. And I didn’t know what to do so I just had to … I got a job that day. I had no money. My bank accounts were all cleared. It was like just everything. And I went to the cops and they said that’s a civil dispute. And anyway, I got a job that afternoon. I got the local paper and I’ve just gone the first job selling encyclopaedias door to door in Tasmania.
So, I’ve run them up. I can sell encyclopaedias so that afternoon I flew to Tasmania and spent six months selling encyclopaedias door to door in Tasmania. I made some money. And my whole drag was … I was young and naive, but my whole drug was to get this guy, get his legs broken, track him down. I was so angry and bitter and bad.
Christo: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Andrew: Saved up enough money to do that and then I kind of figured it out … One day I was just waking up and I went “This is just crazy”… do it. And I lived many things in life, I had some very bizarre experiences in business. And I kind of think that’s what makes you who you are. It’s good.
Christo: Yeah.
Andrew: In my next book I’m writing a couple of books at the moment. And this one I’m gonna write it’s called True Grid and it’s about resilience in the entrepreneurial world.
Christo: Oh, excellent.
Andrew: And what is that. And these kind of experiences. It’s quite funny cause for me, I went to the mainland police station at the time when this happened. It was morning, I just walked by the gates … This is twenty years ago, twenty …, longer, I was twenty two so… And it’s interesting that I was almost kidnapped in Africa by some guys that emailed me when my first book came out in saying “Oh, we’re starting this touristic venture; we’ll love you to come along, spend three months over here.” And because I had the author ego…
Christo: Are you kidding me?
Andrew: And I’m thinking, “Yes, offcourse guys “Why wouldn’t they want to use me? I’m an author. No Ferrari, but … And we got through his process and this guy rung me a number of times and I had to go there for three months and I couldn’t really do it. I was too busy. So I quote a ridiculous figure. Quarter of a million dollars of something, for three months. And they said, okay, no problem. And I’ve gone off course, yeah.
Then my little spider started to tingle – linger. It was way too easy, way too easy. And he’d said to me, the last phone call was “Give me your bank account and will send you some money. We’ll send you fifty grand in deposit. And we’ll send you some first class tickets to Africa and back”. And the thing was, they said hang on now, give me your account number. I’ll transfer by western union or something.
He told me that we wanted to do it. Okay, this is all legit. And then I went, no, twenty four hours ago this guy rang me, now I’m going to Africa, he’s gonna put all this money in the bank. Yeah, right, right. So I rang the Australian embassy in South Africa. Next thing I got a phone call back by the federal police, saying this is just a skim, this is a skim. They‘ll get you over there, they’ll put fifty grand in your account, you will be picked up at the airport and you will be taken and kidnapped because you are a high profile kind of person at the time.
Christo: Yeah.
Andrew: And they’ll hold you for ransom for four or five million dollars and if you don’t come up with it they’ll kill you. Then, anyway, the cops went to this place and they were gone. All disappeared. And they had website down at the time, it was all this new stuff that was just…. And it was extraordinary. I thought how amazingly bizarre is your life if you are not careful. Every time I’ve got to do a job in Africa now I automatically say no. I’m just too nervous.
Christo: Quite a journey. This is amazing. Oh, my goodness.
Andrew: You got to live and learn.
Christo: Well, this has been pure gold for our listeners and really appreciated… And an amazing story. Where can people find out more about you and about your business?
Andrew: You can go on my website, andrewgriffiths.com, do Google search, get on the new work, you can see the stuff that I’m working on. They‘ll track me down, they’ll find me, I’m sure. So, I’m easy to find.
Christo: Yeah. I’ll pop-up the links in the show notes directly.
Andrew: Thank you mate. Been nice to meet you and great to talk to you.
Christo: You too. Thank you so much. This has been great fun.
Andrew: Cheers mate. Thanks a lot.
If you’d like to grow your business and give a good old kick at the butt, why not go basicbananas.com where you can download a free guide which some marketing strategies that actually work. Go to basicbananas.com and you can download your free guide right now.