It’s Organic October and in this episode of Art of Online Business, I’m sharing a case study with you that I think is going to really inspire you. I sat down with Brenton Ford who has built a wildly successful business using primarily organic marketing strategies.

Brenton has a membership that he sells with his small, but effective team and he has been able to build his business with flexibility so that he can focus on the things that matter to him, like spending time with his family and surfing.

The main thing he focuses on in his business is simplicity – he focuses on creating results rather than creating more content. Regardless of if you have a membership or not, this episode has tons of helpful tips that you can use to give yourself more flexibility in your business.

Brenton Ford, founder of Effortless Swimming, helps triathlon athletes and swimmers improve their technique, speed, and efficiency in the water through his online membership. With over 1,500 members and 15,000+ copies sold of his various courses, Brenton has created a very successful online business with very little stress.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• What Brenton offers in his business
• How he sells his membership
• The deliverables inside his membership
• How he increases retention
• Why he focuses on results instead of content
• Why he chose the evergreen model
• His preferred marketing channels
• The freedom he gets in his business
• How Brenton found his VA

Links & Resources:

• Check out Kleq
• Check out Vision Find
• The Art of Online Business website
• DM me on Instagram
• Visit my YouTube channel
• The Art of Online Business clips on YouTube
• Full episodes of The Art of Online Business Podcast on YouTube
• The Art of Online Business Podcast website
• Check out my Accelerator coaching program

*Disclosure: I only recommend products I use and love and all opinions expressed here are my own. This post may contain affiliate links that at no additional cost to you, I may earn a small commission.

Brenton Ford Links: 

• Check out Brenton’s website
• Follow Effortless Swimming on Instagram
• Check out Effortless Swimming on YouTube
• Listen to the Effortless Swimming podcast

Please support the podcast by giving an honest Rating/Review for the show on iTunes!

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What I’m Doing to INCREASE Email Opt-Outs During Promotions

How to Use Ethical Affiliate Marketing to Grow Your Revenue

My Exact Plan for Growing My Account On TikTok

That’s how I’ve always wanted it to be. And just to have that ability to surf when it’s good. And there are certainly times where it does feel heavy. If I’ve got maybe a deadline or we’re getting a new course made or something. So there is, you know, on off times where there are times where I am working harder. It’s not all surfing for 4 hours a day, but I think it’s it’s good as well. If if I didn’t push myself working, I, I probably wouldn’t get the same sort of satisfaction in a way as well.

What’s up, my friend? Rick, I’m already here. And welcome to the Art of Online Business podcast. Thank you, as always for coming to hang out with me today. I think you’re really going to like my my interview guest here today. Today, I’m talking with Brenton Ford and he is the founder of Effortless Swimming, which is a company that helps swimmers and triathletes improve their technique, speed and efficiency in the water. He’s got a membership and he currently has over 4500 members in that membership, and he’s sold over 15,000 copies of his various online courses, which is so cool. The membership, though, is his core offer, and then he’s got a few of these lower priced courses that he sell. Like his primary method of selling in his business is organic marketing and sales. Like most, all of his growth and sales come from his organic marketing efforts. Being that we are here in, as I’m calling it, organic October, I thought this was going to be a really cool case study to share with you how somebody has created a very successful online business that with very little stress and you just created amazing job creating organic assets where that build his brand awareness that people find him and they come by his stuff and join his his membership.

So we’re going to get into all that here today. We talk about why he created a membership, how he feels about running a membership. By the way, listen for the fact that he doesn’t really know his numbers, which I give him a little bit of a hard time for. And then we also talk about how he sets up his schedule during his week. So he has a ton of flexibility in his week so that he can spend as much time as he wants with his family and then also go surfing, which is his big passion also. And we also talk about his very small, yet effective team. Regardless of whether you have a membership or not, I think I really think that you’re going to find this interview with Brenton really, really helpful. So without further ado, let’s go hang out with Brenton Ford. Brenton, welcome to the podcast, my man.

How are you doing? Hey, yeah, thanks for having me, Rick. I’m I’m doing really well, thank you. And yeah, looking forward to chatting on the episode today.

Awesome. Well, it’s 830. In what part of Australia are you in?

Down towards Melbourne. So the south eastern part of Australia. Yeah, in Melbourne.

Okay, cool. So I first heard you on our mutual friend James Franco’s podcast and I remember listening to it. There was one point where I think I was on the way back from dropping by on my daughter off at school and I was listening to it and I was like, I got to, I got to meet Brenton because I’ve got to have him on the podcast here. So I reached out to James in and James was like, Oh yeah, he’s like an amazing guy. I’ve known him for years and I was like, Well, you got to introduce me to him to have him on the show because you are the founder of Effortless Swimming. I’m going to have you give us your background here in a second. But I just you have a very successful business and a very simple business model for how you run your business. So before we dive into all that and break all that down, why don’t you share with us what you do in your business and kind of how you got to where you are right now?

Yeah, thanks, Rick. I, I started the business about 13 years ago, but I wouldn’t call it a business when it first started. It was a it was a website. And I had one product for sale. Initially, it was an online course. And I was at at the time I was I was coaching a squad, like an in-person squad seven times a week, early mornings, late nights. I love the squad, I love coaching, also really enjoyed business and I wanted to start something online that was a little bit more scalable because I had this, I guess, real, real desire to have an online business because I saw what you could do with it. And so yeah, that inspired me to, to start the business in my last year of university. And over the next six or seven years, I managed to turn that into a real business where it we grew it, we had it could support me, it could support our family, but it did take a while to get there. But I guess my background was in swimming. I started coaching when I was 19. I was an okay swimmer growing up as a teenager, made a few national finals, but I was lucky enough that I could marry those two things together.

Coaching and swimming and. So yeah, it’s taken a while to get to the point where it is. But my main thing with the business was I didn’t want to be working ten, 12 hours a day. I studied entrepreneurial entrepreneurship at university. It’s a real thing over here and there’s only so much you can study. But the one thing I found from that was we had the small business people come in and talk to us as a group, and all of them were working 60, 70 hours a week. They looked worn out. They didn’t seem super happy with their lives. And I was like, Man, this is not that’s not for me. I’ve got to figure out a way to have a business that doesn’t involve me working these massive hours because I’ve really had a love of surfing as a when I first started doing it at 18 and I thought, Alright, that’s the thing that really motivates me that I get a lot of enjoyment from. So I want to make sure I’ve got the time to be able to do that and surf when it’s good. So I think that was the genesis of of, I thought with swimming and, and how it sort of evolved over the last 13 years.

And you have family of kids. How many kids do you have?

Yeah, I’ve got two kids. They’re six and four. And it wasn’t really like until my wife fell pregnant where I pulled my finger out and actually got to work and started doing what I need to do to make it a proper business. So I was just kind of cruising along. And then there’s nothing like kids to like. Yeah, exactly right. So that was one of the best things that happened. And obviously now that they’re six and four like kids are, it’s just so fun to be able to spend time with them, do the school drop offs and take them to the pool and all their activities and that sort of stuff. So I’m just grateful that I was able to do that, have the business running. But before they were sort of grown up. So I can spend a bit more time with them now.

So you started off with an online course you said about 13 years ago. Your main offer right now is a membership. Is that your only offer or do you sell other things as well?

The core of the online business is the membership. That’s where I direct most people to, but we’ve also got individual courses as well. So there’s two main ones at the moment. One is a what we call the five day catch challenge. So it’s just a five day course, really simple and it’s $10 and we’ve I have someone running adds to that and we’ve sold maybe 7000 copies of that in the last 12 months that we’ve been running it. And that’s that’s been a great introduction for people into what we do is a business and how we can help them. And the results that people get from that $10 course is is huge. So that’s been a really good thing that we added 12, maybe 18 months ago. And then we’ve also got an eight week course, which is kind of the upgrade I guess, to that five day course. But we do then offer them the membership as well once they’ve been through either of those courses. So we’re trying to feed people into that membership because I think that’s where people can get the most value. But we’ve got these these feeder products as well.

How much is the how much was that last one there? The middle. The middle.

One 79.89.

Yeah. And so do you offer that, Is it like just is it an upsell to the $10 mini course, if you will, or is it just a standalone.

Yeah, it’s a, it’s a standalone that people can get at any time. But we do offer a bit of a we offer a coupon to get at a discounted rate once they’ve done that that initial course as well. Gotcha.

And then how much is the membership.

We’ve got two options. So annual is 199 a year and monthly is $32 a month and they both come with a two week free trial. And how does that wait? You said $32 a month.

Yeah, that’s right.

Okay. And then how does that two week free trial convert for you?

Yeah, I I’m not really down with our numbers, so I couldn’t tell you the exact conversion rate. And same with our retention stuff. I’m still I’ve got to get our head around the numbers. So yeah, I won’t make up and say I know what they are. Yeah, but yeah, but from last time I sort of checked it was sort of a manual check of it. From what I could see, we have between I looked around 70% of people staying after the trial, 70 to 80% of people from what I can can tell. But I just, I need to get better with our numbers, which I’m happy to admit.

And what I love about I mean, it’s very simple. You’ve got a $10 offer that you sell the crap out of over the past year. It’s a great introduction to you and how you teach. And and what I really also took away from what you just said is like, people get huge wins and what they can learn from just that $10 offer. So they see that they’re like, Holy cow, I want more of this. If this is only $10, you know, what about this $79 offer? Or this membership. Now you’ve got the membership. So many people think that, oh, I have to keep feeding the membership. I have to spend so much time in there to create the make sure people are engaged and always creating content and stuff like that. We’re going to get we’re going to circle back to the lifestyle here. But you said earlier, like you you wanted right from the start to build the business around your lifestyle and you want freedom to go surfing and hang out with your family and stuff like that. So how? For most people, memberships feel heavy on everybody, obviously. So how does that feel for for you as you have this membership as your core offer?

It’s a it’s definitely a mindset shift. So I’d say initially I certainly felt. The white of. I’ve got to be in there regularly commenting and giving, giving value and doing this thing on a regular basis. And for me, I dislike having many appointments in my calendar. I’ve really just for me, it’s just it doesn’t work very well. Yeah. And that felt like a I’ve got to be here, you know, on a daily basis and doing that. And so that’s one thing that initially I’m like, Oh, okay, that’s kind of a bit of a bit of a drain on, I guess, my energy, but then just more so recently than than anything else, it’s like, well, hang on a minute. You don’t I don’t need to be getting 200 new members a month. I just need to look after the ones who are in there. Yes, obviously we want to get more members, but if I just look after the people who are there and I schedule or structure my week in a way where I can actually I’ve got these commitments in and then the rest of the time outside of that is free, well, that is a much more sustainable thing. And in the long run that’s going to mean that I’m going to be working less. Yeah, so it was it was a bit of a mindset shift from there because especially going from originally just saying individual courses where there’s not really any follow up with it, it’s just you sell it, alright, there might be some customer support, but I’ve got people who can help with that. It’s so it was certainly a mindset shift, but I think if you look at it in the with the right, with the right mindset, it’s just like, wow, this is something that I could sustain for five years, ten years, 15 years, and you’ve got this core group of people who, you know, they just, just keep working with them and don’t need to keep doing new stuff and doing launches and all this other stuff which actually take up can take up a lot more time. Yeah.

I want to get back to launches in just a second. So I want to talk to you about that now. And not being I mean, I, I can I’m going to use air quotes here. Swim. I can be in the water and not drown. I’ll just say that as far as like technique or anything like that. Zero. What is the journey of a swimmer like? It sounds like people stay in the membership for a long time. Are they? What’s keeping them in a membership like that? Or was it because of my lack of knowledge? Like I’m try to figure out how to ask this question. Like once they get to a level where they’re like, Oh, I don’t need to learn any more, why would they stay in a membership? Or is it a case of No, no, no, they can always continue to learn to improve their swimming.

Yeah, I’d say it is like business. A business owner, they’re thinking they’re never at that point where they’re done, where where they go, okay, I’ve got everything I need. I can just run my business and it’s going to be going well for the next 20 years. Very similar thing in swimming. So swimming is incremental with improvement. It’s not sometimes people get big improvements, but it’s incremental. It’s very technique dependent. So and that’s that’s what we focus on is primarily the technique side of things. And if you look at some of the Olympics swimmers, they’ve been swimming for 20 years, some of them, yeah. And they’re still refining their techniques. So even those at the top level, Yeah. So there’s always something to to learn and yeah, I mean, I’ve worked with people, there’s people who I’ve coached for about four or five years, six years, and they’re still still learning things. They’re still improving because, yeah, you just, you’re never, never done. It’s like any other like any other thing that people are looking to go down this path of continuous improvement, wanting to always get better. Yeah, it’s just it never, never ends.

Never end.

For them. Which is good for me, good for good for them in a way, because otherwise you’ll get stale and you’ll lose interest. I think if you find you’re at that point where I can’t get any better.

Now, I mean, I would think that that plays really well into your annual pricing on the membership if like that is a big discount on monthly. So monthly $32 a month versus 199 for annual. What’s the reason that you went so low on the annual?

Well, again, a mindset shift. So originally we started it much less than that. About almost a quarter of that price. And then we went to about half of what we are saying at it now. And then probably eight months ago, nine months ago, we bumped up to what it is now. So it’s increased over that time. And I think part of that is for me mentally, it was what I thought it was worth. And now I look back and go, Wow, that was way too cheap. But it’s it is what it is. And so I think partly that’s on just my sort of my mindset. But I also just I don’t know, I want it to be affordable for a lot of people out there. And I can I can give good support at this current price. And I’m kind of at the stage where I want to get another coach inside the membership, helping me work with people in there. So that’s kind of the next thing I’m looking at in the next 1 to 2 months. But yeah, but one thing I did mention is I’ve got another. Offer, I guess, is 1 to 1 coaching, which again, it’s not, I guess that expensive compared to some other things.

It’s $200 a month for people to send in their videos to me and I’ll give them feedback on their to me and their technique. So there’s that’s a more 1 to 1 service. And I only offer that to a certain amount of people because I’ve got so much capacity. That’s another thing where people can pay a bit more in $2,000 a year for a bit more personal feedback, and that’s all done through. Like they’ll send a video and I record a video through Lume. So there’s nothing where we’ve got this set time, which for me works really well. I can just do that in my own time. And I’ve been doing that for five or six years now. And again, it started out much cheaper than that. And then I looked at it and hang on, my hourly rate here is is not very good. You’ve got to charge what you’re worth. And even now I think it’s probably cheaper, less expensive than what it could be. But yeah, that’s, that’s alright for now.

I love to see your attitude on on the business. Like, what are your deliverables within the membership? You mentioned that like you you set your schedule up so that when you are going to engage in the membership like it works for you. So what when somebody joins the membership, like what are they getting inside the membership?

Those previous courses I mentioned, we’ve got a couple of other courses that will help them with that. Different aspects of their swimming like open water, swimming, mobility, a couple of other things like that. We’ve got workouts so they can just go to the pool and follow these workouts to to get fitter, get faster. And then we’ve also got a monthly members call where people can either sending questions and I’ll answer them or they can send in a video and I’ll analyze it on on that call as well. So I’ll give them one or two specific things to focus on. So that’s something we’ve added recently and that’s been really good because even if the people don’t send in a video of themselves soon, they’ll watch it and get a lot from seeing what everyone else can work on. And so that’s actually one of the most probably demanded or like most valuable things for people to to see. Yeah. Is is that because then they can make that connection from I, I think I’m assuming like this person. Yeah that feedback is probably helpful. So that’s they’re the main ones and then obviously people can they can ask questions in the membership in the different sections of the courses and I’ll be there to answer them. And I do a lot of learning videos as well there. So it’s me face the camera answering it, and for me it’s easier for them. It’s you get more context and it’s more personable. And when people join as well, like even if they join for the free trial, I’ll have them just email me, what are your goals in the next 12 months? And for those that reply, I’ll send them a a video as a reply. And yeah, just, just to welcome them and point them in the right direction as well. So it’s, it doesn’t take that long, but I think it’s a it’s a really good way just to get that, you know, to, to, to meet people and have them feel like they’re, you know, that they actually that I care that they’re in there, you know, that they are that I appreciate them joining.

Yeah. I mean, it’s a huge way to increase your retention for people sticking around like, holy cow, he actually created that personalized video for me. Where else am I get like, how do I get those types of that type of attention and other programs? Probably not going to get that.

Yeah. Cool. Yeah, that’s right. So yeah, I think it’s worth doing. And like as we were talking about earlier, I don’t need 10,000 members, you know, if I have, you know, if I have 2 to 3000 members depending on the, on the price points there for me that’s a and that’s $1,000,000 a year business in terms of Australian dollars. Yeah. So yeah, just look after those people and spend that little bit of time upfront to help them get some results.

So are you adding content each month to the membership.

Aside from the monthly members call. No, but I, I’ve got like a whiteboard of some things I want added and I’ve recorded some more stuff to be added soon. So there’s a few things that I do want to add, but I’m not looking to. The mistake I made early on was just way too much content. Yeah, too confusing. So yeah, I’ve been there and I’m listening to your last podcast actually. It’s like, yeah, just it’s not about more content, it’s about results. And often that comes with simplicity. Yeah.

So when somebody joins and let’s just say they don’t answer you back about like the goals or the next 12 months. What is that initial onboarding like for them? Are you like, let’s just say I joined the membership and I don’t respond to you? Is there any way of like pointing me in a in a direction? Or is it just like, okay, here you go.

Yeah, there’s. Nothing customized for them. But we do have an onboarding sequence where I’ll talk about the eight week course that’s in the membership as well. So most people start here and this will this is why this is give you these results. And then I talk about I got an email about the monthly members call encouraging them to send a video and there’s another email in there somewhere too. So we do have an onboarding sequence of three emails, but I think like I can increase that as well. There’s there’s more emails that I can send just to do that. And then another thing that I’m in the process of doing is having a having someone be a community manager. So hiring someone to be able to follow up those people who haven’t engaged in the membership and yeah, just, just to increase that retention. So that’s, that’s my sort of next six month plan is to just work on retention and, and value of the membership.

So I love that. And it’s again, it’s the simplicity of it and that so many people overlook. Like, I’ve got to get new people, I’ve got to get new people when it’s like, wait, let’s take care of the people that you have. And then things take care of itself. They tend to take care of it themselves. And I think that I’d love to dive into this a little bit with you, Brant. Like you don’t do launches. You don’t do any kind of like open clothes or anything like that. And you get like, what is your marketing like?

In the past, I have done launches like a couple quite a few years ago and they’ve gone, they’ve gone well. But it’s also just that it’s been a lot of work and so I’ve just wanted to just keep it on this evergreen model. Yeah. So and thing something that has worked well and I think this might be useful for some people listening is whenever I have increased the price of our membership, I’ve just let people know. So I’ve emailed our email database and said, on this date, price is going up. Just to let you know if you do want to become a member or you’ll save 40% or whatever it might be. And that’s worked incredibly well. And it’s not a it’s not a hard sell, which I’m it’s just not my my style to be really salesy. But that’s that’s worked incredibly well. In terms of our marketing. So my minimum per week is one podcast. So I do a podcast a week and then usually a YouTube video a week as well, and they’re set up. The podcast is also posted on our YouTube channel, but a separate YouTube video. And then I’ve also got one of my team members. He will cut up some of our YouTube videos from the past and recent ones and he’ll make some Instagram reels and post them on there as well. So we do publish content pretty regularly, but for me, my my Minimum is a podcast and a YouTube video, a weekend. I’ve been fairly consistent with that YouTube videos.

I’ll occasionally miss a week here and there, but yeah, that’s that consistency over the last 3 to 4 years has worked wonders for the business because I remember hearing and was it was a basic guitar and online business and he said when he started publishing consistently for him it was like two videos a week. When he did that for 12 months, his business just doubled or tripled. And so I thought, okay, cool, if I can be consistent and do at least one a week. Yeah, let’s just see how that goes. And it did like the business doubled within the next 12 months. And he was also talking about like the less professional videos seem to do well for YouTube where they were less. Yeah, like less professional editing. It was just him almost in a handicap. And I was like, okay, that gives me permission to be able to just be be me. Yeah. And same thing just works so much better. Like people that they, you know, they respond to your personality, they are going to feel much more of a connection with you when you’re just you and you’re not trying to be someone else. Or I remember when I first started my podcast, I don’t know what you were like at the start, but I thought I had to be this prim and proper interviewer, and it was just very cut and dry. And I look back and go, Wow, I’m glad I’m not doing it like that anymore.

If anybody wants to hear my very first podcast episode that I’ve ever done, So I’ve been podcasting for nine years now, and my very first podcast that I did was was called Inside Social Media, and I’m pretty sure that you can still find it on Google Podcast or I mean, I mean on Apple podcast, pretty sure. So go back and listen to episode number one, if I’m not mistaken, it is with Scott Monti, who is the former head of social media for Ford. And oh man, I was so nervous. And so yeah, So anyway, I love the consistency and what I really want people to take away from that right there is you’re doing one podcast episode, one YouTube video consistently. I mean, for for the most part on the YouTube, like week in and week out, you’re I assume that you send emails to your email, your email list, right?

Yeah, we try and a similar thing. Try and do one awake and that might even just be letting them know about the latest podcast or YouTube video. Yeah.

And so simplicity, again, there’s nothing complicated about that. What is generally you’re like when you do a podcast episode or you do a video, where are you sending them somewhere? Are you like, Hey, go download this or go check out whatever? What’s generally your call to action there?

In most videos or podcasts, I’ll either seed one of the products or the membership, or I might have a direct call to action. Like to learn more about this aspect of breathing, check out our fossa freestyle course that’s covered in week one where you’ll learn this, this and this. So again, it’s nothing hard. So it’s just letting them know that these are the options that we’ve we’ve got. So that’s on most most videos podcasts probably less actually, especially if we’ve got a guest or anything on. Yeah. But yeah that’s, that’s alright. But I’ve

found something that’s worked really well is having clients on the podcast who have had success and because I think a lot of the feedback I’ve got from that is that other people have listened have gone, Oh, well, okay, if this person can, if this person can have these results, then surely I can too. And they don’t need to be like out of this world. Amazing results sometimes just let’s say 10 seconds faster per 100, which it’s a good result, but it’s not nothing amazing. But someone listens to that and they go, Oh, okay, cool. Or it’s doable for me. So the case studies client success stories have have worked really well in the last 12 months.

So how many hours a week do you actually work on your online business?

I really should track it better, but I’d it’d be a couple hours a day. So mostly probably 15 like 15 hours a week. Yeah. 15 ish. Yeah. So not a huge amount, but yeah, as long as I do those, those minimums. Yeah. Then it’s all good. And outside of that something we haven’t mentioned is I, we have in person clinics and camps as well. So that’s probably where a decent amount of time will go as well in terms of work if I’m doing those in person one. So normally every two weeks I’ll run some like half day clinics with people who will come and I’ll film them and analyze them and and work with them. So yeah, so I do that as well. And I have a another coach who helps run some of those around Australia. And then we’re getting back to our overseas camps as well. So. So we’ve got a camp in the Maldives in a week and a half. Yeah. So we’ve run a couple of we were running a couple of those each year and we’re getting back to it now as well. And I quite enjoy the in-person stuff too. Like it gives, gives me that feeling of this is real. Sometimes if you’re sitting in front of your computer and you’re not seeing anyone or you’re not talking even through Zoom or anything like that, you just sometimes have a bit of a disconnect from your your customer or you just don’t feel that it’s that it’s real. So that’s really sort of helped know, yeah, make it, make it feel more real. And, and I learn a lot doing that to when I’m working with someone in person, I pick up a lot of different things that they might be doing. And I think, okay, well this would be a good video to make this be a good podcast. Yeah.

Well, it’s like before we hit recording, I was like, Hey, what’s your day look like? You know, what’s your day looking like today? Because it’s, you know, early Wednesday morning and you’re like, well, not too heavy today because the surf is really good and it hasn’t been very good in a while. I want to go spend three or 4 hours out there like you had the freedom to to do that. And the business just from outside looking in and just chatting with you, it feels very light to you like the business doesn’t feel heavy. Is that an accurate assessment?

Yeah, yeah, definitely. And that’s how I’ve always wanted it to to be and just to have that ability to surf when it’s good. And there are certainly times where it does feel heavy If I’ve got maybe a deadline or we’re getting a new course made or something. So there is know on off times where there are times where I am working harder. It’s not all surfing for 4 hours a day, but but that’s yeah, I think it’s it’s good as well. If, if I didn’t push myself working I, I probably wouldn’t get the same sort of satisfaction in a way as well like I do in the at the time when you’ve got those longer days ahead where you maybe you have to put something together or launch a course or whatever it is, you know, you. At the end of it, it’s like, okay, I’m glad I did that. And I feel good that I put the put the work in. So for example, something I had two weeks ago, I ran some bigger group clinics down in Tasmania and we had almost 100 people go to those and I had 70 analysis videos to to do so. That was I took up most, most of the week. And at the time it’s like, well, this is a lot of, this is a lot of me talking and all of that. But when you finish it, it’s like, oh, breathe a sigh of relief. And and the feedback that I got from that, from the people who did the analysis like that was so helpful. Thanks so much. And, you know, I get a kick out of that as well. So, yeah, I don’t mind working hard at times. It’s yeah, I get a lot of satisfaction from that as well.

And I love it. I’m very much the same way too. Like when you get to see, when you get to kind of have that for whatever it looks like, whether you’re putting a course together, like you said, or doing a whole bunch of like chunk of big chunk of work, then you get it done. And the impact they’re able to have through that work, it’s it’s awesome. Now you have a small team also that allows you to have this sort of freedom in your business. Tell us about the team.

You have got to two full time people in the in the Philippines. They’re husband and wife couple. They do the customer support, the podcast editing, the Instagram reels and just management of the clinics behind the scenes. So, yeah, they’re they’re awesome. So they’re full time. And then I’ve also got someone who works on the weekend for customer support, just so I’ve got that seven day support. So that’s our, that’s, that’s the team. And I’ve also got a coach who runs some of our clinics in, in Sydney as well. But he just sort of he just, he just runs those clinics and that’s and that’s it. I’ve got a few coaches who will help me out when we do our overseas camps and stuff. But the actual sort of business team is, is two and a half people. So yeah, I mean I’m looking to probably bring one more person on like we talked about with, with the membership. Yeah. Community management but yeah, nice, nice small team. It’s always been that way. They’ve been with me for a couple of years. Yeah. And yeah it’s, I like it that way. I wouldn’t want a massive team of 2030 because again, for me that feels heavy. It’s. Yeah. Yeah I could, yeah. I’d probably get up to maybe five or six if we need it, but at this stage we don’t. So yeah. And I like it that way.

And you find you found one of your Vas, if I’m not mistaken, through James’s vision find. Dot com. Right.

That’s right. Yeah. Yeah. So found the wife of the couple and then when we’re looking to hire again she said I said do you know anyone said oh I know my husband and he’s so yeah. So they work really well and then actually the person who’s doing those support on the weekends is the husband’s sister. So yeah.

It’s a family around each other.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly right. And it’s actually, it works really well because, you know, they catch up regularly and they see each other and they communicate regularly. So it’s it’s actually been been great that way.

That’s awesome.

That’s awesome. Yeah. And I’ve met them a couple of years ago too. And they’re just yeah, they’re awesome.

That goes such a long way. I was talking to somebody yesterday. Yeah, one of our members yesterday who is his is in Australia too. I think she’s in Sydney. I’m not exactly sure, but she has a Filipino VA and she was, they were having like a team thing coming up here in a few weeks and she was flying that person in and she was like, Yeah, I’m not really sure if I, you know, that was a good expense to do. And I was like, no, that that’s a great investment because when you it just makes them feel like not just like. A member of the team, like a number, if you will. It’s like, no, you get to interact and meet them and they get to meet you and like it just yeah. So I just yeah, I think it’s really cool when you get to we have a Filipino VA Joellen, who has been working with us for a while now, and she’s amazing, amazing, like, I just think the world of her. But anyway, I just want to mention that service. I have no affiliation. Like, no, I’m not a affiliate or anything like that, but we’re using it right now to hire another VA. It’s called Vision Finder and it’s James Franco and his wife. They started this. It’s kind of a they’ll find a VA for you and they’ll do the sourcing. I think it costs like, I don’t know, like it’s like $600, I think, or something like that for them to go do the searching and they’ll present you a few different candidates and then you different, you choose and it’s really good like they do the work for you, so.

They find people. Yeah. And it’s the thing that people will often think, Oh, where do I find someone like that? Oh, you got no excuses. Yeah, that’s, that’s where you can find them. And it’s just so worthwhile. I remember when I first started the business, maybe like yourself, I was doing my own customer support and even getting four or five emails a day. I wouldn’t answer them for four or five days. I just put it off and put it off. And yeah, it’s just worthwhile getting someone to do those things that you look at and go, Oh yeah, I can’t sit down and actually bring myself to do it. Yeah. And obviously other things as well. They’re much more capable than, than just that. So yeah, it makes such a difference and, and frees you up to have your mind on the things that will actually grow the business and produce income. So yeah, Yeah.

Which I would assume that you come up with a lot of ideas when you’re out on the water surfing.

Yeah absolutely Like I’ll and, and the other thing too is I am much more productive after surf. So if I’ve surfed for a couple of hours, I come in or I’ve got 2 hours until I need to pick up my kids. All right, I’m going to sit down and get this work done. Whereas if I’ve got the whole day, well, I’m going to spread that to hours of work across 6 hours. Yeah. So it’s really good that way, too. And yeah, things like. And another thing I started doing with some friends was we’ve just started going on these long walks like we went for a3k walk, which was took us six and a half hours the other day and just chatting with them and yeah, just getting out in nature and leaving the phone behind. It’s just clears my mind. And then I actually come up with with much better ideas than if I’m, if I’ve been on my own all day and feel much better doing it too. So that’s why I like surfing. It’s why I like swimming, like I love to swim as well. Yeah. And just those things that get you off technology, you know, I think you need that break from that, especially when we are on the computer a bit with with the online business.

Totally unlike that with bass fishing. I recently got back into bass fishing in April. We’re recording this in August, so April of 2022. And like when I go out there, like time just I wouldn’t even say it stands still because it goes by so fast, like you’re in the zone and I’m not thinking about anything else but my it’s just like, just like you just mention like you’re out in nature. It’s quiet. It’s I mean, it’s just and that’s when the idea is come up. Are you able to sort through something that maybe been bugging you or what have you? And it just you’re right, just getting off the phone and getting away from the computer and just getting out, getting allowing yourself that time to get out there like that.

There’s a book that I listened to recently, which is the comfort crisis.

Have you The comfort crisis? No. Haven’t heard of that one.

Basically about about that, like doing doing hard things or getting off the phone, getting out into nature. And it’s yeah, just inspired me to to get out more and just be more physical and yeah, I love that. It was a really good, really good book.

So I just took a note of that. Brenton Mann, thank you so much for breaking the business down here and sharing what you’ve got going here and what you’ve been able to build, which allows you that surfing time and time with your family. And I don’t want to take any more of your time because I want you to get out there in the waves, take advantage of the good waves. Effortless swimming, dotcom. What is the name of the podcast? Is it effortless Swimming?

Yeah, definitely swimming podcast.

And then also on YouTube. Effortless swimming.

Yeah, that’s right.

Okay, awesome. I will link everything up in the show notes. If you guys reach out to Brenton, just let him know that you heard him on the podcast here. Always helpful. Brenton, Thanks so much for joining me today. I really appreciate it.

Hey, thanks. Have me on. Rick I really enjoyed it. And yeah, love what you do too. I’ve been listening to a couple of your episodes recently and yes, it’s lots of tips for me to help with retention as well with the membership. So, yeah, I appreciate it. Thanks, Rick.

Hey, thanks so much for tuning into today’s episode. Hopefully that interview with Brenton was super helpful for you. He’s just such a good guy and has built such a great business. And it just in talking with him and talking about his business, everything feels so light And just one thing I love about how he’s built that business and so hopefully you’ve got some great takeaways to take away to your business and start implementing there today if you haven’t already. It’s still really helpful to leave a quick rating and review for the podcast over on Apple Podcasts. So if you haven’t done that, literally takes like 30 seconds to do. That’d mean the world to me. Thank you in advance for doing that. And coming up on the next episode, I’m going to kind of take you behind the scenes of our recent accelerator coaching live event retreat that we did here in San Diego was a two day retreat that was literally the best live event that I’ve done in nine years. And I want to take you behind the scenes of what made it so great. So thank you, as always for tuning in today. Appreciate you. And we’ll see you next time here on the Art of Online Business podcasts.