“What are the reasons people fail?” I ask Siimon Reynolds, the founder of the Photon Group who is credited with building the organisation from a two-person shop to ASX-listed enterprise, employing over 6,000 staff.

“Well there’s a stack of them,” he says laughingly. “And I’ve experienced most of them.”

His overall message is clear: “Pick one thing and become the greatest in the world at it.” Reynolds illustrates the importance, particularly in the early stages of business, of knowing your core business activity and sticking to it. “There’s so much competition, unless you specialise and unless you focus, why should anyone go to you?”

While building The Photon Group, Reynolds adopted an ambitious acquisition strategy, investing in or purchasing over 50 companies, most of which were still in the growth phase of their business.

“70% of your time within the first year of a new business should be spent on sales and marketing,” he advises. “And that’s not the case. The research shows that 11% of a business owner’s time is usually spent on sales and marketing. But that’s the stuff that keeps you alive.”

Recency and Frequency

The keys to marketing are all about getting into the clients head and remaining there — automating frequent contact with a target market. Reynolds calls this strategy recency and frequency: “It gets you on the short list and gets you top of mind and this makes them want to ring you or go and buy your product and service.”

While in advertising, Reynolds’ companies would contact prospective clients 16 times a year.

“We moved from people hearing from us once a year, to people hearing from us 16 times a year. And that’s everything from articles that were useful, phone calls, presentations or inviting them to lunch or sending them gifts or sending them books or giving them a birthday card.” A move which obviously paid dividends. Says Reynolds, “What happened was that numerous times we’d be put on short lists for big accounts, simply because we had recently contacted them when they wanted to look for a new ad agency.”

For small business owners Reynolds explains the importance of applying this strategy. “Have a calendar of contact points, so that you know that over the course of 12 months you’re going to be hitting your target market, this many times and in this many ways. And diarise it.”

Reynolds says that truly adopting a learning mindset around marketing and business will put you way in front of any industry.

“I don’t have to be brighter than everybody else, I don’t have to have more money than everybody else, I don’t have to have more luck than everybody else,” he says. “I just have to outlearn everybody. And that’s a very easy thing to do because almost no one is focused on continual learning. If you spend even one hour each day learning, and then the rest of the day applying what you learnt, you would revolutionise any industry. You would be a top-performer.”

Siimon Reynolds, Why People Fail

30under30 winner Jack Delosa has also been named as Top 10 Entrepreneur under 30 by Dynamic Business Magazine. He is involved with The Branson School of Entrepreneurship in South Africa and heads up The Entourage, a brand which connects Australia’s best entrepreneurs with Australia’s next entrepreneurs.

By now you’ve probably heard of Facebook Places, the application that allows you to ‘Check In’ to places you’re visiting, alerting all of your Friends where you are (a bit like Foursquare).

Starting yesterday, businesses can also now offer customers special deals when they ‘Check In’ to their place on Facebook (again, a bit like Foursquare but with the functionality to manage the entire process).

Here’s how it works.

Facebook Nearby Places

Imagine the following scenario.

You’re out and about, using Facebook on your smart phone or iPad, searching through ‘Nearby Places’, because you’re hungry or thirsty and want to know what restaurants, café and bars your friends have ‘checked into’. The Nearby Places application looks like this.

What is different from last week is that you might now notice the addition of some yellow boxes. If you haven’t already guessed, these Nearby Places have a special deal they’d like to offer.

You click on Sharp’s Coffee.

What next? Sharp’s Coffee has a “50% off a Cup of Coffee” deal for anyone who visits its café and uses their Facebook account to ‘Check In’. So, you check in…

…and just like that, you’ve scored a digital coupon to get 50% off your coffee.

What does Facebook Deals mean for small business?

Why might a business want to do this, you ask?

Sure, it’s nice to get a new customer. But the real benefit comes from the viral nature of Facebook. A business using this application wants you to indirectly tell your Friends you’re there.

Anyone who sees your Facebok status updates or uses Facebook’s Check In feature will now know you’re at Sharps. Next time they’re in the area and looking for coffee, where are they likely to go? This feature allows offline businesses to make their offers sharable online.

This is one of the few times that Facebook has created something specifically for the small business sector. It also offers a firm answer to those who still today believe that Facebook is not relevant to their business because they operate in the real world.

It might sound like a bold statement but this application has the potential to disrupt the way businesses, particularly offline retail businesses, manage all their marketing.

Right now, Facebook Deals is available in the US and will be available in Australia in coming months, giving us time to track the success of campaigns before deciding which ones are best to adopt.

Some of the deals already underway in the US include:

• American Eagle Outfitters: Offering 20 percent off.
• Chipotle: Giving its Facebook guests two entrees for the price of one.
• Gap: Giving blue jeans to the first 10,000 customers to claim their deal.
• Cinema: Hosting a free screening at whichever of its movie theaters gets the most check-ins, as well as giving free souvenir Facebook Places pint glasses just for showing that you’ve claimed the deal.

And if you’re still not convinced…

Here’s a short video from July 2009 about the rapid growth of social media.

Can you imagine what’s happened since then? How this statistics are likely to have changed?

So what will determine whether customers come to you or your competitors? The future of offline retail might be as simple as… Deal or no deal.

In 2009, Jack Delosa built one of Australia’s fastest growing ventures, MBE Education. He is also one of Anthill’s 30under30 winners two years running. Today, Delosa heads up The Entourage, a movement which connects “Australia’s best entrepreneurs with Australia’s next entrepreneurs”.

The Issue

Articles such as “Why bosses hate Gen Y” and “Gen Y too lazy and unfocused to hire” have been peppering the media at an increasing rate. Recent media attention has labelled Gen Y lazy, unfocused and disloyal, with some companies going as far as to say they’re no longer hiring people who are in their 20s. It seems that corporate Australia and the media have thrown their arms in the air when it comes to the issue of Generation Y.

So how do Gen Ys differentiate themselves in the marketplace and what can employers do to capitalise on the talents of the select few?

A recent study indicated that 70 percent of employers are dissatisfied with the performance of their Gen Y employees. Forty-eight percent of SMEs also expressed disappointment with the communication skills of their younger employees. To make matters worse, 90 percent said that Gen Ys are more demanding than our counterparts and that we’re 79 percent more likely to ask for a pay rise.

Although this data paints a bleak picture for Gen Ys in the workplace, it represents an opportunity for the ambitious Gen Ys who are willing to defy the trend. Similarly, organisations that know how to speak the language of the younger generation will be able to attract energetic and tech-savvy talent.

Janine Allis is one person who has managed to turn the troublesome Gen Y into a strong commercial asset. Founder of Boost Juice and the winner of several awards, including Telstra Business Woman of the Year (2004) and BRW Fastest Growing Franchise, Allis has been listed several times in the BRW Young Rich List as a result of her entrepreneurial aptitude.

The Problem

“They’re coming in too entitled,” Allis says to me of Gen Ys. “If I was a young marketer and I wanted to get involved with a brand like Boost, I would come in to the Marketing Director and say, ‘I’m in. Whatever it takes. I’m in. I’ll work for one month for nothing and prove to you that you can’t let me go.’”

Some of her highest performing employees came in this way, starting at the store level and working their way up, gaining a practical education of how the business works. But that’s not typical of Gen Y.

“Instead, they come in and say, ‘I want $105,000, but I don’t want to work after 5:00pm.’ I think the mistake is they lose perspective of the fact that it’s a business and we have profit and losses.”

With Boost Juice, Allis has managed to create a youthful brand that not only attracts Gen Ys as customers, but employs them as the bulk of their workforce. Allis explains that although there may be a higher portion of Gen Ys that come into the workplace feeling “entitled”, it’s about recruiting the right people that are suited to the culture of your business. “We’ve got the right Gen Ys in the business. By getting the right Gen Ys and giving them a direction and a goal, that’s the answer.”

The Education Myth

When asked if the fact she left school at 16 years of age has ever put her at a disadvantage, Allis replies, “Never. Never once.”

With such a high emphasis being placed on tertiary education and good grades, SMEs and corporations can fall into the trap of placing too much importance on the grades of a student rather than the character of the person. “I wouldn’t not hire you because you don’t have a degree,” says Allis. “If you had an MBA, great, that’s nice, but I wouldn’t hire you because of it. I go by the attitude, the drive, the passion, the ability to succeed. That doesn’t come with a degree. That’s inbuilt.”

She also indicates that she is not worried in the slightest that some companies hire purely on a grades basis. “There are some who are old school, who won’t hire people without a degree. But I love those people because what that means is that these people who didn’t do a degree, these great people who will help me make my business successful, are free.”

The Practical

Gen Y has drawn criticism due to our lack of practical experience in the real world. This is a position which is consistent with the majority of business owners I have come across. It is a downside which the most ambitious of the Gen Ys are overcoming through self-education.

Education can no longer be viewed as something that happens within the four walls of a high school or university. University is fantastic, sometimes even necessary if you’re looking to become an accountant or a lawyer. However, this can’t be where the education stops. The Gen Ys who realise that the majority of their education needs to happen outside of those four walls will ultimately break free from the pack. Education in the real-world comes from making mistakes and gaining experience.

Having left school at 16, the vast majority of Allis’s education took place outside the classroom. “Talking about university courses, I see lessons in mistakes. I did a $300,000 course in site selection. I did an $800,000 course in getting the right person to do brand. I’ve done a lot of courses to get to where we are today.”

“Every generation needs a new revolution.”

— Thomas Jefferson

The Opportunity

According to Allis, recent media attention puts ambitious Gen Ys at an advantage.

“There are some amazing Gen Ys that are passionate and driven. They’ll make a lot of money and be highly successful because there’s less competition.”

The biggest challenge for companies is to find good people that will genuinely help them drive the bottom-line of their business. “The greatest challenge for the milk bar down the road is the same greatest challenge they have at BHP, and that is people.”

The revolution will come when a select few Gen Ys put their hands up as the achievers of the bunch. Because of the negative media attention around the younger generation, the ones that do stand up as leaders in their field will be very visible.

In the words of Allis, “For those great people who are willing to do anything to succeed, you will be able to write your own ticket.”

Jack Delosa is the General Manager of MBE Education. Jack has been named as one of the top 30 entrepreneurs under 30 in Australian Anthill’s 30Under30 Awards and BE was recently featured in the Fast 50 by Smart Company. jack [at] mbeeducation [dot] com [dot] au

The more I have seen in business, the more I’ve learnt the importance of learning from people who have achieved the results you are looking for. These days many people are willing to give advice. The question is: what advice do you take on?

Given that the average self-made wealth of the people listed in the Young Rich List is $65.5 million, I think it’s safe to conclude that these people know how to make money.

Lessons:

1. Think big, start small.

“Before you achieve that first $1 million, you have to get your first dollar.” Phillip Di Bella started a coffee business, Di Bella Coffee, in 2002, selling coffee to cafes. He would roast his own coffee in a machine that he rented and would then pack it and deliver it himself, doing the books for the business on his girlfriend’s computer.

Sometimes people can have a romantic idea of what it is to be an entrepreneur. These ideals are usually shattered rather quickly when they realise that it’s not all glamour in the beginning.

Having said that, it can pay off. Phillip Di Bella is now worth $47 million and is still dedicated to delivering a quality product to his loyal customers. “My promise to them, and it’s a very simple principle I’ve kept, is that I’ll do for my customers what others are not prepared to.”

2. Never too young.

Trent Davis started his company NetBox Blue when he was 22. This was his third business, after his first two businesses had failed. Learning from the first two businesses, Davis went into NetBox Blue with what he calls a “one foot on the brake approach”.

Now 32, David has built NetBox Blue into a formidable company with annual sales of $30 million and 20 staff. Having started the business at 22, he remembers the sacrifices he had to make in order to get started early. “It was two-and-a-half years before I was taking home a proper wage, which is quite a long time to be living like a university student when you’re not at university anymore.”

3. Be willing to rough it (in the beginning).

Peter Mavridis, the founder and Managing Director of a Melbourne IT Services company S Central, is turning over $80 million each year and has a personal net worth of $62 million at the age of 37. When Mavridis was listed in the Young Rich List last year, his personal wealth was $100m. It’s come down this year due to the financial climate in the last 12 months.

However, in the beginning Mavridis wasn’t malking millions. He remembers the first office he and his girlfriend leased in Melbourne. “It was one of those offices where you were scared to take the lift, so you’d take the stairs.” Mavridis now owes a lot of his success to the fact that he didn’t spend the money he didn’t have in the early days.

4. Fake it until you make it.

An important skill of any startup or small business is to be able to look bigger than you are. Entrepreneurs are masters at giving the impression they are a large organisation, when in fact they live in a studio apartment and had to catch the tram just to meet with you.

Stuart and Nicole Patterson started a building repair business when they were 24 and 23 respectively. Because they were dealing with large clients, they understood the importance of looking the part. They started the business in their rented two bedroom apartment. Nicole would answer the phone as “the receptionist” and would direct the different calls to different people (different people being Stuart) in a number of different “departments”.

Business is about delivery and it’s also about show-business. Thanks to such a convincing performance, Stuart and Nicole have grown Patterson Building Group into a company with revenues of $42 million per year and 70 staff.

Although the performance was a convincing one, they always understood the importance of delivery. “We delivered. We never failed a client. We had built a reliable network behind the scenes.”

5. Back yourself.

While Gerry Harvey, founder of Harvey Norman, was closing down stores throughout the year to cut costs, Nigel and Tania Austin, co-founders of Cotton On, were opening three new stores a week over the 08/09 financial year. This aggressive approach to capturing market share has paid dividends for Cotton On.

This is not to say that had Gerry Harvey opened up more stores rather than shutting them down his wealth would not have dropped by $400 million in 12 months. But it is to say that there is always more than one approach and being greedy when others are fearful, can pay dividends in the long run.

Nigel and Tania Austin have seen their wealth jump from $125 million to $156 million, doing just that.

6. Focus on the people.

Cotton On’s growth is highly aggressive, to the point where it has even drawn criticism recently by commentators who say that the growth is not sustainable. However, Nigel Austin says that it’s the people in the business that have been able to ensure they have met their aggressive growth targets. “We spent a lot of money on management training to make sure our people have the right skills to drive growth.” He attributes the success of Cotton On to the “excellent managers right across Cotton On who are real leaders and business builders”.

7. Have clear targets.

Given what the economy has done over the last 18 months, most entrepreneurs have not hit their financial targets. However, in business as in life, it’s the goals we choose to set for ourselves and live by that will influence our direction more than any external factor. It has been said that what lies in front of us, and behind us, is far less important than what lies within us.

As Shaun Bonett, number five on the list, says, “I’ve found it makes me focus on managing for the longer term. It also helps to make all the challenges you are going through at a time like this feel like a worthwhile learning experience.”

Overall the Young Rich held up very well over the last 12 months. The Rich List, which includes the richest 200 people in Australia (mainly over 40 years of age), saw their wealth drop by 18 percent this year. In contrast, the wealth on the Young Rich List only dropped by 4.5 percent – a great achievement considering we have just experienced the worst financial crisis since the 1930s.

Each person on the Young Rich List started out with a deliberate plan, however small it may have been. Whether they started in their rented apartment or started by doing their own books on their girlfriend’s computer, their achievements came from deliberate decision-making backed by action.

Of all the people on the Young Rich List, none ended up there by accident.

Jack Delosa is the General Manager of Teldar Media. He has personally been involved in over $1.8m in capital raisings. He was recently named in the 2009 Anthill Magazine 30under30 Awards. Jack also sits on the board of Shift International, Australia’s leading personal development organisation for teens. He is a regular contributor for thinkBIG Magazine.

Figures from the Insolvency and Trustee Service of Australia demonstrate that Gen Ys are almost as good at spending money as our debt ridden parents. The argument going around in the media is that we’re the “wait for your allowance” generation and that we are financially illiterate. I think that, when you look at the facts, it’s easy to see why our generation is walking the same debt-ridden path previous generations have laid out for us.

Over the last 10 years the household ‘debt to income ratio‘ has gone from 56 percent to 125 percent. This means that the average household spends 25 percent more than they earn, every year. At the moment, Australian households are in debt to the tune of $530 billion. And it’s not just our parents who are good at spending what they don’t have.

According to CPA Australia, one of the largest accounting groups in the world, the average debt per person between the ages of 18 and 24 is $21,000. CPA Australia spokesperson Peter Mulqueen indicated that HECS debt, mobile phone bills and credit cards are the major sources of debt for Gen Ys. When you consider that the average Australian wage is $57,000 per year, this is a considerable burden.

The argument that is becoming even more prevalent in mainstream media is that Gen Ys should be receiving more “Youth Allowance” as a handout from the government. I think when you look at the fact that we’ve already demonstrated a complete lack of understanding in handling money, previous generations included, more handouts will ultimately do more harm than good. This particular proposal is a short-term solution to a much greater problem.

With companies such as Telstra making it possible to pay for a taxi, a can of coke, some groceries and a movie ticket using our mobile phone, the need for effective financial education is becoming increasingly important.

What has become obvious to me over the past few years spent presenting at universities is that an understanding of basic financial principles is not taught anywhere throughout the traditional education system. This leaves us Gen Ys, again, with the responsibility of educating ourselves.

A lot of Gen Ys need to learn the difference between an expense and an investment. Owning a home or an investment property, for instance, is generally considered an investment because both go up in value (usually). Owning a car is often considered an expense because it usually goes down in value – a depreciating asset.

Often the best outcome from effective financial education is the enthusiasm that comes from knowing how to build real wealth, outside of working the usual 9:00am-5:00pm hours. What isn’t covered in high schools or universities are the simple strategies that anyone can adopt to start building their personal net worth. Using smart investment strategies that are readily available, I believe that the vast majority of people have the ability to earn more from investments each year than the average Australian does from working all year.

Developing your financial understanding at a young age and learning how to make money from investments rather than employment alone will be the most important skill-set you learn in terms of building your own net worth and enjoying a certain degree of financial success.

Y and How?

• Investment companies will talk to you for free. You can set up a 60 minute consultation with most financial services companies and they will be happy to outline a strategy that will work for you, based on your current financial situation. They do this because they want to build a relationship with you so you will use them in future.
• Find mentors. Speak to people who have investment properties or who invest in shares profitably. These people understand how to make money from assets without having to work. It may require a financial commitment upfront, which is great because it gives you a reason to save.
• Go to seminars. There are plenty of financial seminars in every main city of Australia, most of which are free. These seminars are great to gain a foundational understanding of what you can do.
• Read. If you want to learn about investing in property, shares or business, there are thousands of books written on these subjects, and you only need to read one or two good ones to get started. Email me if you’d like me to suggest some books that would work for you.
• Don’t search for help from people who are not actively investing. Learn only from people that are making money in the field you want to learn about.
• Get started, even if you have no money and little income right now. Having the knowledge of what to do with money will motivate you to make more of it.

Jack Delosa is the General Manager of Teldar Media. He has personally been involved in over $1.8m in capital raisings. He was recently named in the 2009 Anthill Magazine 30under30 Awards. Jack also sits on the board of Shift International, Australia’s leading personal development organisation for teens. He is a regular contributor for thinkBIG Magazine.

The traditional career path doesn’t work for a lot of Gen Ys because our current education system is not geared to adequately prepare us for a career in the 21^st century.

A report from the Australian Department of Education says that one in five university students will drop out of their course in the first year. It is suggested that for every student that drops out, another two students are reluctantly doing the absolute bare minimum.

Right now, Gen Ys are largely disengaged in their studies and their careers. A recent Employee Engagement Report* shows that four in five employees are not engaged in their jobs, with two in five being classified as “actively disengaged”. The view of many large businesses is that we’re producing a generation of clock-watchers who would rather Facebook their friends than contribute to the commercial well-being of their company. I disagree. They also say that we don’t do what we’re told. I agree – we’re a generation that do what we love.

The top ten in-demand jobs in 2010 did not exist in 2004. This means that the current education system is trying to prepare student for jobs that don’t exist. On top of this, it is projected that Gen Ys will have 10-14 jobs by the age of 38, of which only a very few will have relevance to what they studied. This enhances the need to broaden our education.

For Gen Ys to have any job security, we need to stop relying on the current education system to provide us with the preparation required to be successful in today’s workforce. It’s just not happening. The education system was designed in the nineteen hundreds. The world has been changing at an accelerated rate and the bureaucratic structure of universities has not been able to keep up. Nor have their curriculums.

This is not to say that Gen Ys shouldn’t go to university, often having a degree in a certain field can open up opportunities that would have otherwise been difficult to pursue. This is especially true when your field of choice demands that you have the piece of paper, which is especially true for doctors, lawyers and vets, to name a few.

I recently caught up with Domenic Carosa, who floated his company Destra on the Australian Stock Exchange in 2001 at the age of 25, becoming Australia’s youngest ever CEO. Domenic went on to build Destra into a $100m p.a. revenue business, with many of his companies being recognised as BRW Fast Starters. Over coffee, Domenic refers to himself “a university drop out” and explains to me that the most effective way to advance a career is by getting real-world experience. “Knowledge that is implemented is significantly more powerful than the knowledge alone,” he said.

What this means is that we as Gen Ys need to start taking more ownership over our professional development and not rely solely on a degree to get us where we want to go. Gen Ys need to start looking outside the walls of our universities if we want to be competitive in today’s marketplace.

I recently brought on an intern to come into our business and help us in liaising with different media companies. Michelle attends the University Technology of Sydney (UTS) and is in her final year of a Bachelor of Business. About a month in, I asked Michelle in private why she had applied for the position even though she had two other paid part-time jobs. She said, “I realised I was learning all this theory and didn’t have an application for it. It wasn’t until I stepped into the real world that things started to make sense.”

It was obvious to me that Michelle was never at university to pass a test. She was there to build a career. Those Gen Ys that start to think about how they can develop their career outside of the walls of their university will be a valuable commodity in the years to come.

Ways you can start to think outside the walls:

• Apply for internships with companies you believe you can learn from. The experience and knowledge gained from investing a small amount of time will significantly accelerate your career path. In exchange for your work, ask your employer for a shining reference.

• Join industry associations. Most developed industries have associations that hold events and seminars. This is a great way to meet the right people and start to build your network. This proactive approach may put you in touch with several potential employers.

• Find a mentor. There are people already doing what you want to do. When people who have enjoyed some success are approached for help, they are often very generous with their time. These people will be your most effective source of knowledge throughout your career.

• Read. It is said that if you read 20 books on your subject, you own that subject. Rather than sticking to academic text books, branch out and start learning directly from the people who have been successful in your field. Relevant magazines and websites will also be useful.

• Go to seminars. Attend industry events and seminars and start to build your knowledge outside of the usual curriculums. This is also a great way to meet people and demonstrate that you have a proactive approach to your career.

Jack Delosa is the General Manager of Teldar Media. He has personally been involved in over $1.8m in capital raisings. He was recently named in the top 30 entrepreneurs under 30, in the Anthill Magazine 30under30 Awards. Jack also sits on the board of Shift International, Australia’s leading personal development organisation for teens. He is a regular contributor for thinkBIG Magazine.

*Employee Engagement Report done by Towers Perrin