Welcome to the latest episode of the #CreatingSynergyPodcast where we redefine entrepreneurship, finance, and life itself! This time, we're joined by Tammy Barton, the visionary Founder and Director of My Budget.
🎧 Tune in as Tammy offers a first-hand account of her journey, transitioning from a young entrepreneur to a business titan, breaking barriers along the way. We delve into the heart of financial challenges in today's society, with Tammy offering golden nuggets of advice for anyone wrestling with financial hurdles.
Prepare for a deep dive into:
🔥 This episode also ignites a passionate conversation about supporting and empowering the next generation of female entrepreneurs, a cause close to Tammy's heart.
💡 This isn't just an episode; it's a stepping stone towards transforming your mindset and approach towards entrepreneurship, finance, and life.
Get ready to be enlightened, challenged, and inspired.
Remember to subscribe, share, and leave us a review. We appreciate your support!
Where to find Tammy Barton
BOOKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
Join the conversation on Synergy IQ on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram (@synergyiq).
Access SynergyIQ Website to get to know more about us.
Say hello to our host Daniel Franco on LinkedIn.
Welcome to the latest episode of the #CreatingSynergyPodcast where we redefine entrepreneurship, finance, and life itself! This time, we're joined by Tammy Barton, the visionary Founder and Director of My Budget.
🎧 Tune in as Tammy offers a first-hand account of her journey, transitioning from a young entrepreneur to a business titan, breaking barriers along the way. We delve into the heart of financial challenges in today's society, with Tammy offering golden nuggets of advice for anyone wrestling with financial hurdles.
Prepare for a deep dive into:
🔥 This episode also ignites a passionate conversation about supporting and empowering the next generation of female entrepreneurs, a cause close to Tammy's heart.
💡 This isn't just an episode; it's a stepping stone towards transforming your mindset and approach towards entrepreneurship, finance, and life.
Get ready to be enlightened, challenged, and inspired.
Remember to subscribe, share, and leave us a review. We appreciate your support!
Where to find Tammy Barton
BOOKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
Join the conversation on Synergy IQ on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram (@synergyiq).
Access SynergyIQ Website to get to know more about us.
Say hello to our host Daniel Franco on LinkedIn.
00:00:00:06 - 00:00:20:07
Daniel Franco
So welcome back to the Creating Synergy Podcast. Today we have a very, very great human being on this show. Described as one of Australia's most influential business women and entrepreneurs, building a 34 million plus empire with my budget. Tammy Barton, welcome to the show.
00:00:20:11 - 00:00:21:27
Tammy Barton
Thanks for having me. I'm excited.
00:00:23:11 - 00:00:50:03
Daniel Franco
I'm just going to rattle off a few little awards and recognitions that you've received over the years just to kick off. Just to let people know the caliber of person that we're speaking to. So Telstra. Australia. Telstra. South Australian Businesswoman of the Year Awards. Mark Company. Australia. Top Female. Top 30 Female Entrepreneur Award. League of Extraordinary Women. Female Entrepreneur Award in 20 1516 and 17.
00:00:50:21 - 00:01:21:27
Daniel Franco
Start up. Daily Number one Top female entrepreneur under 40. Australian Financial Review. 100 Women of Influence International Business Times Australia. Top 100 Women of Influence. Telstra. South Australian Business Woman of the Year. Telstra Business Owner Award. Australian Government Business Innovation Award and EY Entrepreneur of the Year Finalist. Not to mention you're on the Forbes Young Rich list for a while there and an amazing back story and the amount of hard hot efforts going into receiving those awards vote on.
00:01:21:27 - 00:01:25:03
Tammy Barton
And kudos and thank you. It's a bit embarrassing when you read them all out.
00:01:26:13 - 00:01:42:27
Daniel Franco
You shouldn't be embarrassed about your achievements, but for us to sort of understand your early context or just to understand your context and how you kind of got to where you are today, be super interested in understanding your background and and your journey through your younger years.
00:01:42:27 - 00:02:09:26
Tammy Barton
Yeah, sure. Well, I grew up here in Adelaide down south. My parents were quite young when they had me, so they were my mum was 16 and my dad was 19 and T Irish families actually. But one family was Protestant, the other one was Catholic. And so they my parents had to get married. They got married when they were pregnant with me in a Uniting church.
00:02:09:26 - 00:02:31:20
Tammy Barton
And, and then they had three other children after me. And I have a brother, Josh, who's number three, who has Angelman Syndrome. So it's a severe disability. It's it's not it's it's chromosome number 15, but it's not genetic has been passed down. Okay. So so we're not in Josh's case anyway.
00:02:31:22 - 00:02:32:03
Daniel Franco
What does that.
00:02:32:11 - 00:02:56:13
Tammy Barton
What does that mean? So it just means that when Josh was formed in mums, you know, uterus the chromosome to inform correctly, and ordinarily when that happens, a woman might have a miscarriage. Yeah, but, and in this case that didn't happen. And my brother was born and we didn't know that anything was wrong with him really until he was about six months old.
00:02:56:13 - 00:03:18:09
Tammy Barton
And I thought he's not responding the way that a normal baby should. And then when he was the age of two, he was diagnosed with autism. And then it wasn't into my mum was involved in a parent support group that she met another family that had a Angelman syndrome child. And Josh had very similar characteristics, this little boy, Matthew.
00:03:18:20 - 00:03:33:14
Tammy Barton
And so it was as simple as doing a test on Josh's chromosomes. And we saw that he actually had Angelman Syndrome. So you can't ever take a diagnosis his way. So his Angelman syndrome and autism, but he's really an angel and syndrome syndrome.
00:03:33:18 - 00:03:38:04
Daniel Franco
So what does that mean? Is that similar to autism, given the similarities?
00:03:38:04 - 00:04:04:12
Tammy Barton
Yeah. Yeah. So it's not he's non-verbal. He won't and has never developed over the age of, say, a two year old mentally. Really. They love water. They're happy, you know, in a way what I'm Phil blessed about is Josh doesn't realize that he's different so he's very different, but he's like a big kid, basically. And he comes to my house.
00:04:04:20 - 00:04:22:00
Tammy Barton
I, he comes for dinner every fortnight. And I think it's just so beautiful for my kids to see Josh and interact with Josh, even though he doesn't interact with them. But it just makes everyone feel so grateful for the life that we have and the abilities that we have.
00:04:22:06 - 00:04:22:25
Daniel Franco
Puts things into.
00:04:22:29 - 00:04:51:19
Tammy Barton
Put things into perspective. So back to growing up, having Josh in our family meant that we we were able to do a lot of things that other families would do, simple things like like, you know, we couldn't go out ever, basically, unless one parent went with us that we couldn't go out altogether because you couldn't even take Josh to a park he would literally run up to if there's other people there, run up to them and he would take their food.
00:04:51:19 - 00:05:10:00
Tammy Barton
If they're having a picnic and grab their drinks. And it was like it was pretty intense. We had our fridge was locked, our gates were locked at, our pantry was locked up. You couldn't leave shampoo and conditioner in the in the bathrooms because in the one bathroom that we had, because he would just tip them out, he would just get in there.
00:05:10:00 - 00:05:49:24
Tammy Barton
And so it was it I always thought, oh, how hard done, by our way, because we go to other people's house and see how normal household operated. And I'd feel a lot more relaxed as well because you couldn't even leave and drink out because he if he came and got it, he just throw it on the wall. And but what I realized it was such a blessing because going through all those different types of situations with my brother, simple things like going to the supermarket with him and him destroying, you know, pulling things off the shelf and, you know, being in those stressful environments and someone walking past and saying to my five foot Irish
00:05:49:24 - 00:06:15:19
Tammy Barton
mother, control your son. And then my mum flying off the handle and managing that managing sister, all of those situations. When I got to being an adult, everything in life, same simple, same actually really easy and simple and not challenging, even though it wasn't simple and it was challenging, there was lots of things that came up. I felt like I was well-equipped to deal with stressful situations because of my.
00:06:16:04 - 00:06:17:15
Daniel Franco
Mother's callouses up, I suppose.
00:06:17:16 - 00:06:18:28
Tammy Barton
That's right. That's right.
00:06:19:22 - 00:06:20:18
Daniel Franco
You were the eldest.
00:06:20:19 - 00:06:21:24
Tammy Barton
I was the oldest. Yeah.
00:06:21:25 - 00:06:37:28
Daniel Franco
What does that mean? That you had to play a different part in your childhood? Like you think about normally that was is the bossy one. But you know, and this time in your situation, you would have had to sort of almost step up really and quickly.
00:06:37:28 - 00:07:02:08
Tammy Barton
Yeah, absolutely. And again, all of these things helped me become the person I am today. It helped me to develop the business that I have today. Like my dad was is a builder, and he ran his own business from home and from the age of like 13, I was writing these checks. I was reconciling his bank statements, always doing a lot of things that other kids wouldn't be doing.
00:07:02:08 - 00:07:28:15
Tammy Barton
Yeah, but that being said, because my parents were always so busy with my and distracted with my brother and my younger sisters, I got to be really independent at a really young age. I started working at Hungry Jacks when I was 14, stuck at Earn an Income and so up quickly I got to, you know, be independent and make decisions and not have anybody controlling me, which I think was a good thing.
00:07:28:29 - 00:07:46:20
Tammy Barton
And I was heavily involved in sport like it played such a big part in my life, particularly basketball. But in primary school I had sport seven days a week and on some nights I did two things. I did something straight out of school and then I went to clubs or whatever it might be, and I just absolutely loved it.
00:07:46:20 - 00:08:07:08
Tammy Barton
And I don't even know how my parents managed to drive me around, drop me off, pick me up, and and my sisters, who also played sport and then have managed my brother as well. I mean, I look back now so nice. I just go, Wow. And I ended up getting a divorce when I was 17. But is there anyone that I think that that would that would have been so tough for them.
00:08:07:08 - 00:08:08:02
Tammy Barton
Yeah. Mhm.
00:08:10:06 - 00:08:37:00
Daniel Franco
I mean, look, to be honest when you're 16 and 19 and having your first child together and getting married and well to last, you know, I think about my brain when I was at 16 years old, I wasn't thinking about getting married at any point or even and so, and, or raising a child. A child or four by the sounds of things and one with with a disability.
00:08:37:00 - 00:08:40:05
Daniel Franco
So kudos to them for that. Yeah. The hard work. How they going now.
00:08:40:12 - 00:08:49:07
Tammy Barton
Good that great that they're awesome they're by three remarried and re partnered and and really really happy but yeah that could.
00:08:49:27 - 00:09:31:19
Daniel Franco
Be brilliant so touch on the the basketball thing in the sport thing I have this is something that is really close to my heart. I grew up playing a lot of sport, quite high level as a as a junior career, but it's team sport specifically, which I just absolutely believe is a fundamental in any child's life or young person's life in regards to how it helps you build and develop relationships with people from all walks of life and all different cultures and and all the above, and help you set goals and achieve goals and set set targets and trainings and good habits and all the above.
00:09:31:27 - 00:09:39:18
Daniel Franco
Do you believe just sort of reflecting that sport was a big influence on your career and success to where you are today?
00:09:39:22 - 00:10:08:18
Tammy Barton
Massive influence, massive influence because it takes discipline. If you're playing at a certain level, you need to turn up for trainings. You need to be, you know, at the beach at 8:00 on a Sunday morning while your friends are sleeping in after a big night. And but the teamwork, the camaraderie, the stakeholder management, I would never have known what stakeholder management was when I was, you know, playing district basketball, but managing all the different types of personalities.
00:10:08:18 - 00:10:26:11
Tammy Barton
You have people from all different walks of life. Yeah. And then you also managing up because you're managing your your coach or your team manager. You're talking to your coach and team manager. So you learning all these skills that are so valuable in life and particularly in leadership and in business.
00:10:26:13 - 00:10:43:06
Daniel Franco
Yeah, great. Now thank you for backing it up. I think I'm yet to find someone says now sport is in play report to me it's it's paramount if you've got young children get them into some sort of sporting background just to I don't know just to build those relationships and learn different, you know.
00:10:43:11 - 00:10:51:13
Tammy Barton
And it's good physically and for your mental health and absolutely. Again, back then we didn't night we didn't know any of that. I just did it because I liked it.
00:10:51:27 - 00:11:05:19
Daniel Franco
Did you always I mean, you said you're doing some stuff with the old with your old man, you know, in regards to writing checks and doing some of the financials. Was there always an entrepreneurial streak in you as a junior? We are always looking for ways to make the extra coin.
00:11:05:21 - 00:11:24:04
Tammy Barton
100% Yeah. So like when I was when I was a little kid, you know, it would be a Saturday morning or a Sunday morning. Mum and dad was still in bed asleep. I would be setting up a stall out in the driveway, making up signs, cardboard signs that would say stop. So people driving past would have to pull over.
00:11:24:10 - 00:11:42:25
Tammy Barton
And then I'd say, Would you like to buy something from my garage sale? I had had lemonade stands where I made lemonade and sold that. And, you know, Right, right. So the first time I did the lemonade stand, I was using our glasses from the kitchen, but then people had to stand there and drink it because I had to give the glass back.
00:11:43:00 - 00:11:46:23
Tammy Barton
And then you realize, well, that wasn't the best way of doing it. The next time I'm going to not, you.
00:11:46:23 - 00:11:47:07
Daniel Franco
Know, wash them.
00:11:47:07 - 00:11:55:15
Tammy Barton
All and take away. Yes, I think they buy and leave. I was like, this is awkward. Everyone has to stand here and scull 11 eight. Yeah, give me that glass back.
00:11:55:26 - 00:12:16:27
Daniel Franco
I'm wondering, as a junior, did you go in and wash the glasses or did you just write Boy more lemonade? And were people drinking out of used glasses? They especially that I know that. So so what happens from there? So, you know, obviously you're going off to Hungry Jacks. You didn't work, did you? What happens after school? Where does Tammy go?
00:12:16:27 - 00:12:17:24
Daniel Franco
What do you do with yourself?
00:12:18:20 - 00:12:26:03
Tammy Barton
So I started studying, so I thought I was probably going to be an accountant, but I wanted to work full time and an income I had.
00:12:26:07 - 00:12:28:07
Daniel Franco
So you had the love of finance always their.
00:12:28:07 - 00:12:52:06
Tammy Barton
Love for finance. And it was just something I enjoyed. It came reasonably naturally to me. I'm not saying I'm a mathematician by any stretch of the imagination, but it just came easily to me and I enjoyed it. So and it was just something that I knew how to do instinctively, I suppose, And so I but I really wanted to earn an income and not have to rely on my parents, run my car.
00:12:52:12 - 00:13:14:21
Tammy Barton
I wanted to be able to buy a house and do all of those things as well. So so I started studying. I was still working on projects part time. I got a job doing the books at a childcare center near the airport park. So I was doing that a couple of days a week and eventually I just applied for a full time role doing trust, accounting and thinking I can study at night.
00:13:15:04 - 00:13:35:29
Tammy Barton
And so that's what I started to do. And it was in that role and that was at a solicitors firm on the parade in Norwich where the managing partner said to me, Could you also look after this small debt collection business that we own? It's pretty much just reconciling. It's part of the trust account staff, you know, reconciling payment.
00:13:36:03 - 00:14:01:08
Tammy Barton
And then I quickly realized actually it was calling client debtors and saying, you know, what can you afford to pay back on your debt? And having those conversations and it really quickly occurred to me that most people didn't know what they could afford to pay back and they were earning really good money. You and just do and or they would commit to something and as sorry that say they could afford to pay something and then not commit to that.
00:14:01:24 - 00:14:21:15
Tammy Barton
And so it was through those conversations I was thinking I need to refer these clients some way to get some help. And there wasn't anyway. So I thought, well, I'll help them by putting a budget together. And then I also quickly realized that it wasn't just the budgets actually sticking to the budget, and that's not that easy to do.
00:14:21:26 - 00:14:46:15
Tammy Barton
And so that's when I that's when my budget was born, essentially, and I quit my job and I was living off the bones of my bottom. But at this point, I'd bought my first house. So so yeah, I just was getting a lot of referrals and I thought and I adapted the old stuff with Quicken, you know, to manage all the trust accounts.
00:14:46:15 - 00:15:06:11
Tammy Barton
Yeah. And because I was getting all these clients, I was thinking, I can't do this on my own. I need to really think about the system I'm using. So there must be something out there that I can license or buy back then, you know, you get the disks. Yeah, put that in the computer and there wasn't anything. So I thought, Oh, how hard would it be just to build something, you know, from scratch?
00:15:06:11 - 00:15:27:20
Tammy Barton
Yeah. Turns out it's reasonably hard. But, you know, when you're young, I think that's the beauty of being young. Doing what I did or starting a business is because you don't see all the risks. You think you can recover from anything really, you know, when you're young. And so, so then I'm because I'd bought my house, had gone up a bit in value.
00:15:28:01 - 00:15:40:12
Tammy Barton
I was able to borrow some money and invest in building the software. And really that gave me the platform to grow from an operations point of view and really just focus on getting the message out there. Yeah.
00:15:41:24 - 00:16:02:29
Daniel Franco
I remember I'm not saying this to from an age point of view, but I remember like I've been watching you on TV for a long time, right? You were those my budget ads used to come up back in the day. And I remember thinking at an early age when I was younger and younger, why would anyone pay someone?
00:16:03:14 - 00:16:19:11
Daniel Franco
Why would anyone in debt or in having trouble with their money, pay someone to help them get out of debt? And so can you tell us the business model that really works for people back in those days? Because that was sort of something I kept going, why would you go there if they can't afford it? Like it kind of was contradictory.
00:16:19:17 - 00:16:26:22
Daniel Franco
Obviously, my brain works differently now, but I'm interested to understand your model in the early days and how it sort of formed and grown.
00:16:26:27 - 00:16:44:14
Tammy Barton
So if you think about what we do practically, we put a budget together for somebody, but then we actually manage that budget. So the income comes into an account that we manage and we pay all the bills and so that the bills are paid on time to pay down the debt. They create savings and we automate all of that.
00:16:44:14 - 00:17:05:00
Tammy Barton
So it's like you going to the gym, but someone else does the exercise for you, but you get all the benefit. That's what we do. So that that is what we do. But the value of what we do is so much greater and that is that you don't have to worry about it any more. And when you don't have that mental load of worrying about your finances, how are you going to is there enough money to pay your bills?
00:17:05:08 - 00:17:28:01
Tammy Barton
And you know that that's all taken care of. You get to live your life and not worry about that stuff and you can focus on all the stuff that you're good at. Probably like your job. Yeah. And adding more income and your family. And that is the value of what we do. That is that we're taking care of it for you and I'll often say, Well, you probably know how to cut your hair.
00:17:28:01 - 00:17:34:23
Tammy Barton
Well, it's taken, you know, I've got no hair. Well, that's probably a bad analogy.
00:17:35:20 - 00:17:36:28
Daniel Franco
I'm a beard, maybe, But, you know, I.
00:17:36:28 - 00:17:45:28
Tammy Barton
Had to buy the loan. Some people will pay for their loans 100%. So just because I could cut my own hair, I agree. Why do I want to go to a hairdresser.
00:17:45:28 - 00:17:49:02
Daniel Franco
Cleaning your house? Same thing, right? Like it's a waste of time. Yeah.
00:17:49:24 - 00:18:03:25
Tammy Barton
And it's exactly the same. And it's not that people don't know how to do it. It's not an education thing. It's more so it's just. It's not the thing that excites them and therefore it can fall by the wayside.
00:18:04:00 - 00:18:22:11
Daniel Franco
Well, I personally don't understand why I haven't come to my budget. I sort of I'm one of those people. I'm literally one of those people. It's just like however, I can find a way to get this done quicker so I can do more of what I want to do. And my wife, yeah, my wife doesn't doesn't want to do the finance, look at the finances.
00:18:22:11 - 00:18:24:07
Daniel Franco
I don't want to look at the finances. So yeah, maybe.
00:18:24:13 - 00:18:28:14
Tammy Barton
We can actually have clients financial partner for life.
00:18:28:14 - 00:18:31:03
Daniel Franco
And you do it is all the accounting as well. Or is it just the.
00:18:31:11 - 00:18:34:02
Tammy Barton
Budget, the business accounting, but essentially.
00:18:34:16 - 00:18:37:04
Daniel Franco
Like your own personal account, like people individually.
00:18:37:04 - 00:19:05:14
Tammy Barton
Yeah, Yeah. Like mums and dads and individuals. I do. However, I do want to at some point and I've been saying it for a long time, I do want to help businesses and it's not just with the cashflow management, it's actually with the financial modeling side of things. Yeah, I think there's a huge opportunity there. When I look at so many great businesses that don't make it and a lot of the time if they had modeled it out, they could have made different decisions and it just helps a tool to help you make good decisions.
00:19:05:16 - 00:19:05:29
Tammy Barton
Yeah.
00:19:06:18 - 00:19:10:27
Daniel Franco
So explain. I read that you started this on your kitchen table or your parents kitchen table.
00:19:10:27 - 00:19:13:06
Tammy Barton
Yeah, well, it was my kitchen table. Your house.
00:19:13:06 - 00:19:32:27
Daniel Franco
Okay, so does that is that how did you go about getting clients? Like, how did you go about getting your name out there? What did it look like? Because we saw that everyone who's got some memory saw the ads back in the day. Right. But but I'm interested in that. Obviously, those first two or three years, those ads went up on the.
00:19:32:27 - 00:19:54:18
Tammy Barton
FARROW Yeah. Finance brokers, They had clients that couldn't get a loan, for example, because they were behind in payments, but they were earning good money. I would refer them on local accountants. We're referring clients on bank tellers, we're referring clients on. And I just so it was literally a bootstrapped business and it grew through word of mouth and referral.
00:19:54:18 - 00:20:21:26
Tammy Barton
I took out a small office, I got second hand furniture, I went down to the second hand office furniture to go to second hand reception desk. Yeah, and nothing fancy. And I just stuck within my budget, literally. And just slowly grew and just went, okay, well, if I have this many clients, that means I need to have an employee or two employees or and then model it out to say, you know, if I have this many clients, this is what my budget for stationery should be.
00:20:21:27 - 00:20:49:02
Tammy Barton
This is what my budget for this should be. And that's how that's how the business started. And actually, I started with a business development manager, actually, I thought, okay, this is how I'm going to grow the business. And, and we weren't really getting any extra leads in our new clients. And someone rang up the day one of our clients and popped up like talkback radio and started talking about my budget.
00:20:49:02 - 00:21:08:25
Tammy Barton
And next minute my phone started ringing office phones that are ringing off the hook. And I was like, Maybe radio works. What if I took the salary of the business development manager is not working out and I just put it on radio? How would that go? And I realized quickly that I wasn't going to be the place because basically the demo was too old.
00:21:08:25 - 00:21:36:20
Tammy Barton
I was having parents ring for their kids. Yeah. So I quickly I moved to mix FM and that same investment that I had in a person I just put on the radio and the phone just kept ringing and ringing. Unbelievable. And then I thought, Oh, I wonder what would happen if I went on TV? And so I started advertising on on TV, only in the pressure I exclusively advertised in Oprah.
00:21:36:25 - 00:21:38:14
Daniel Franco
So a premium time slot, right?
00:21:38:14 - 00:21:43:08
Tammy Barton
Yeah. Transition to Dr. Phil. And then then it was.
00:21:43:12 - 00:21:45:00
Daniel Franco
Does that mean I'm I.
00:21:45:13 - 00:21:48:22
Tammy Barton
Probably would She's also Yeah.
00:21:49:26 - 00:21:51:18
Daniel Franco
Yeah not going to admit it but yeah.
00:21:51:24 - 00:22:13:21
Tammy Barton
And so that's how the business started to grow. And as I got more clients I had to learn to delegate and it started really like I had a dictaphone. But what I say to clients and I'd put it into the system what questions that I asked that went into the system. So I systematize. Systematize is not even a word I every single thing I read the emails.
00:22:13:29 - 00:22:37:25
Tammy Barton
Yeah. Going back years ago. And then I just decided that that was going to really help me by putting everything I possibly could into a system or a procedure so that when I wasn't there, decisions could get made because I had my daughter when I was 25. Yeah, oh, almost 25. So I had nine months really to get the business to a position where it could run for a while without me being there.
00:22:38:00 - 00:22:39:23
Daniel Franco
So she started. When did you start to be like.
00:22:39:27 - 00:22:40:19
Tammy Barton
22.
00:22:40:23 - 00:22:46:16
Daniel Franco
22. So you had three years before your daughter was born and then before the scale started, you had nine months to.
00:22:46:16 - 00:23:06:29
Tammy Barton
Yeah. Wow. Yeah. And then from that was pretty rapid growth. Rapid growth. But what it did was it pulled me out from working in the business to working on the business. So I remember, you know, when Maddie was a baby, being at the park, just pushing her in the swing like, you know, and she was asleep and I didn't even realize and I'm just reading all these books and I'm thinking about how do I grow this business?
00:23:06:29 - 00:23:20:26
Tammy Barton
How do I. I knew nothing. So I had to learn everything. And I mean, we had the Internet back then, but it was dial up. Yeah. And there wasn't as much resource available. So I was buying a lot of books and reading books.
00:23:21:00 - 00:23:23:21
Daniel Franco
I still prefer the old school method of buying and reading, but.
00:23:23:21 - 00:23:24:15
Tammy Barton
Yeah, me too.
00:23:25:03 - 00:23:47:15
Daniel Franco
I'm like, that's a remarkable story. Well, the question here that's sort of going through my mind is if you've scaled quickly, growing quickly, phones ringing off the hook, you're on TV doubles again, right? Why are people having so many issues with their finances? Why is it something that is so prevalent?
00:23:48:00 - 00:24:14:01
Tammy Barton
Well, I think if you look at the industry as a whole, there's no good way there's no good system out there to help you manage your money firstly, and secondly, particularly back then, it was so easy to get credit. And then thirdly, people's circumstances change in life. Things happen that are outside of their control and all of a sudden they're not in the position they thought they were.
00:24:14:01 - 00:24:35:21
Tammy Barton
But I had had a lot of debt and this is really where the business started in that space. It's transitioned a lot more over the last ten years to just really being helping people achieve their financial goals, more so than just paying down the debt. Yeah, but certainly in the early days that was that was the driver for the business was helping people to get out of debt and stop leaving week to week.
00:24:35:27 - 00:24:50:13
Tammy Barton
And mainly that came down to the fact that people didn't have any savings. So when an emergency arose, you've got nothing to fall back on. So you use a credit card and you think, I'm going to pay that credit card off and what? But then another. It's something else. The electricity bill comes.
00:24:50:13 - 00:24:51:25
Daniel Franco
In, you get a second credit card to pay.
00:24:51:25 - 00:25:13:00
Tammy Barton
The first. Yeah. And then it becomes a perpetual cycle. And then all of a sudden you're feeling financially stressed. And it's generally starts with something that's outside of your control, your life. Life's going along perfectly fine. You get into a car accident or the hot water blows up, or you have a relationship breakdown, or you get sick for a while and you're not getting paid for four weeks.
00:25:13:12 - 00:25:34:00
Tammy Barton
So you fall behind in your payments. And that's all because really, I didn't have that money to fall back on. So that's what the budget gives you that certainty. Yeah. And peace of mind and us doing it for you means that you can be more disciplined because, you know, my body's taking care of it. I know when that bill comes in, it's going to get paid and this is what I have to live off every week.
00:25:34:10 - 00:25:46:07
Tammy Barton
And so that's what I'm going to live off of. And I've got my money going into savings. And yes, so so a lot of the time it's just life circumstances. Yeah. And other times it's people just really are not that interested.
00:25:46:27 - 00:26:03:14
Daniel Franco
Parties the world like we're going down into the detail here. But something that sounds of interest to me is that I've always struggled with the idea of the budget because of the way my loan structures are with the house like Offset and all of the above. And I just go, Well, I'll just throw everything in the offset. It makes more sense, doesn't it?
00:26:03:14 - 00:26:04:09
Daniel Franco
Less interest?
00:26:04:21 - 00:26:28:29
Tammy Barton
Well, it does, but think about what I mean, particularly now that interest rates are higher, right? So there's probably a little more merit in that. But just think like because I hear this a lot. Yeah. At the end of the day, how much interest with the few hundred dollars that was going to go to your electricity bill that sits in your account for a few weeks before you pay it out so you will save a bit of money.
00:26:29:00 - 00:26:29:29
Tammy Barton
So definitely.
00:26:30:05 - 00:26:30:13
Daniel Franco
Yeah.
00:26:31:04 - 00:26:42:01
Tammy Barton
The trade off is that if you're not managing your money well, you could find yourself in a bit of difficulty. You could find that you don't have enough there to pay The.
00:26:42:09 - 00:26:45:13
Daniel Franco
Way you see, the numbers keep getting lower and lower and you're offset, right like that.
00:26:45:13 - 00:27:03:19
Tammy Barton
So it's particularly when people are using credit card because they're saying I'm using the credit card, putting the money in the offset. How do you know what you're spending? Yeah, you just can't. So that is why having the discipline of having a budget makes all the difference. And the trade off is you're right, a little bit of interest of your mortgage, but what are your savings there?
00:27:04:12 - 00:27:24:21
Tammy Barton
Offset all your savings against your mortgage, pay your mortgage down. That's what the budget's going to be there for you to do. And it helped you get to make good financial decisions. Right. So you said, I want this. This is what we do. We help people's lives turn out the way that they want them to because the way in which you manage your money has a big impact on the way that your life turns out.
00:27:25:03 - 00:27:44:03
Tammy Barton
So you might say, Well, I like going out for dinner every single week. I definitely want to do that and I definitely want to go on a holiday every year. And I don't mind if I have a mortgage for the next 20 years. Someone else might say, Well, actually, no, I want to pay down my mortgage. I want to get an investment property because I want that for my children or I want to send them to private school.
00:27:44:03 - 00:28:01:00
Tammy Barton
And everybody's goals are different. And what that budget does is it you model it out and it shows you you can go, okay, well, if I didn't have that car line and I put that repayment towards my mortgage, this is what it actually means. And then it's not just the model. We actually do it for you. What you want, How do you model it?
00:28:01:06 - 00:28:02:22
Tammy Barton
We're going to execute on that for you.
00:28:02:27 - 00:28:04:08
Daniel Franco
So you give the scenarios.
00:28:04:12 - 00:28:04:16
Tammy Barton
Up.
00:28:05:01 - 00:28:07:05
Daniel Franco
And then they choose which scenario and you manage it.
00:28:07:05 - 00:28:07:15
Tammy Barton
Yeah.
00:28:07:24 - 00:28:08:09
Daniel Franco
Beautiful.
00:28:10:09 - 00:28:47:01
Tammy Barton
Like, Oh, yes. Okay, no worries. I'm just on that. A good analogy I like to use is think of Google Maps and you know, when you open up, you got the pin and it drops where you are now. And let's say you put in the location of where you want to go. And I often use the analogy of when you're in, if, if you've ever done it, I've done it once in L.A. you can drive to San Francisco and you can either drive along Highway one or you can take the scenic right along the coast.
00:28:47:05 - 00:29:03:00
Tammy Barton
Yeah. So if you think about that pin being where you are today financially and this is, you know, where you want to go, you can make a decision, Do I want to go out for dinner every night and I'll get to the destination a bit later, or you can take the quickest path. And that's what the visibility of the budget gives you, how.
00:29:03:00 - 00:29:03:17
Daniel Franco
You design.
00:29:03:17 - 00:29:05:00
Tammy Barton
It. Yeah, that's exactly right.
00:29:05:22 - 00:29:09:16
Daniel Franco
So you've almost got a client for life, right, when these people sign up?
00:29:09:20 - 00:29:17:17
Tammy Barton
Yeah, I'm a great model. It is a great model. And there's no like long term lock in with my.
00:29:17:19 - 00:29:36:19
Daniel Franco
But you can it's like, why would you go back to managing? You see what everyone else is doing? Such a remarkable job. Yeah, it's a great it's a great model. I'm just like, as you're talking, my head is spinning and everywhere, left, right and center. But they often say that air is going to be the death of the account.
00:29:36:27 - 00:29:41:22
Daniel Franco
Do you are you fearful of air or are you looking into that for your business?
00:29:41:28 - 00:30:12:09
Tammy Barton
I'm definitely looking into it for our business. And I think there's there's two sides to every coin. Like you have to be a bit fearful about. I you know, I getting into the wrong hands. Yeah. You know, because it's powerful. But the way I look at air is if I can take a mundane task and have my people doing something far more value adding, then I think, why wouldn't we do that?
00:30:12:18 - 00:30:33:23
Tammy Barton
And also the other advantage of eyes can process so much more data, so much faster quickly that a human and it's in taking those insights and using our act as skills, as a human, which is that creative side, that problem solving and being intuitive and saying this is what the data is telling me. So I think this is what we should actually do.
00:30:33:24 - 00:30:53:03
Tammy Barton
These are the conversations we should have. So on one hand it is scary, but on the other hand it's coming. It's better to be on the front foot. Understand it, embrace it, then you're not going to be sideswiped by it because he know he actually knows what could happen in the future. I don't even want to try and predict.
00:30:53:21 - 00:30:59:28
Daniel Franco
What I'm thinking from a business perspective. How many people in the team right now?
00:30:59:29 - 00:31:01:28
Tammy Barton
250 over 250.
00:31:02:14 - 00:31:06:12
Daniel Franco
Do you think that's stable? Do you think air poses a threat? Um.
00:31:07:12 - 00:31:24:24
Tammy Barton
I don't I don't think so. Look, might because I think when one job is taken away, another one is created. Yeah. Like we would be able to reinvest that time and energy into something that's going to add more value to our clients. Yeah. So it might be we'll.
00:31:24:24 - 00:31:25:15
Daniel Franco
Start a new.
00:31:25:20 - 00:31:26:21
Tammy Barton
Or started. Yeah.
00:31:26:25 - 00:31:27:14
Daniel Franco
Venture and.
00:31:27:14 - 00:31:43:09
Tammy Barton
Your business. At the moment we're developing a bespoke personal line product. Now we can use a fair bit of technology to help with the credit decisioning and the automation of pulling in information. I mean, that's a game changer. Yeah.
00:31:44:10 - 00:32:02:03
Daniel Franco
If you were to give advice to those who are struggling with their money like we talked about before, the key method, right. Keep, keep it simple, stupid. What's the what's the one thing that you would you would suggest to most people more often than not when managing their money?
00:32:04:23 - 00:32:15:18
Tammy Barton
Well, firstly, the number one thing is put a budget together so you know your position. It's going to help you make good decisions. That's that starting point number one.
00:32:15:18 - 00:32:31:22
Daniel Franco
And then so can we just elaborate on that for those who are listening in and may never have put a budget together? Budget Is it as simple as this? Right? While we're doing the key stuff, this method, what am I making to what am I spending?
00:32:31:27 - 00:32:32:12
Tammy Barton
Correct.
00:32:32:15 - 00:32:38:03
Daniel Franco
Right. And then school fees, groceries, like you just got to account for everything.
00:32:38:07 - 00:32:38:22
Tammy Barton
That's right.
00:32:39:08 - 00:32:58:19
Daniel Franco
That's a it's a tough job because our tried to build a budget many a time, but I do not know the spending that my wife does. You're like, So she would just, you know, go down to the shop and all of a sudden she comes home with a bunch of shopping bags from sports, go whatever it might be.
00:32:59:21 - 00:33:05:01
Daniel Franco
That's the part that I always struggle with. Yeah. How would you work through that as a family?
00:33:05:02 - 00:33:27:25
Tammy Barton
Well, I think it's a really good point that you raise when a couple come together at my budget and I, they put the budget together together. So they both have their own spending money they can both go to, one can go to sports, go the other one can go play golf or do whatever it is that they want to do with their spending money.
00:33:28:03 - 00:33:46:21
Tammy Barton
But you come together and you literally get on the same page about, you know, your finances and what you want out of your life. And that's what it's all about. Like money is a means to an end money. It's like, do we what do we actually want? We want to go on a holiday. Yeah. Oh, we want to pay off our unsecured debt or we want to pay off our house.
00:33:46:21 - 00:34:02:12
Tammy Barton
This is what we want. Yep. So we agree on that. Yeah, we make those payments and then we actually go away and do it for you. You both have access to the account, but you're getting your own, your own living money and everything that you have to pay is coming out of the budget anyway, So you don't have to worry about that.
00:34:02:12 - 00:34:25:15
Tammy Barton
You just have to worry about food, petrol, day to day living and everything else is in the budget. Your holiday savings, when you go away, you just bang, you transfer it over to wherever your your bank account is. Yeah. And away you go and you don't even have to worry about it. And then people stop flooding relationships, stay together because they're no longer fighting about money.
00:34:26:10 - 00:34:48:00
Tammy Barton
I even I mean, it's it's a it's a funny story, but one of our staff was over from Melbourne and she was driving near our office that we had here in Adelaide, in Glendale. But it was a 40 kilometers zone and she didn't realize and she got pulled over by the police speeding. She was doing 60 and she thought, Oh, I'm going to try and get out of this speeding fine here.
00:34:48:00 - 00:35:08:20
Tammy Barton
And she starts looking her hair and blinking at the police officer and he noticed that she was like fumbling around in the car that my budget logo on a shirt. And he said, Do you get so my budget? And she goes, Yeah, I do. And he goes, You guys got me my six left back. My wife and I used to fight all the time about money and now I have a six off again.
00:35:08:20 - 00:35:13:28
Tammy Barton
So I'm going to let you off. And he let her off. So we even get exercise Road on.
00:35:14:23 - 00:35:28:00
Daniel Franco
That is a business that you never thought you were going to be very good. Well, where do I sign? That's so that's amazing. And we don't condone trying to woo any place.
00:35:28:00 - 00:35:29:00
Tammy Barton
That's nice.
00:35:30:16 - 00:35:42:20
Daniel Franco
So the so my budget been around 20 odd years now, plus years. I understand April 4th is a special day for you. Is that correct? April 4th is April 4th. It's not day.
00:35:43:27 - 00:35:54:01
Tammy Barton
Do you know what? It could have been the date that I registered the company. Okay. Because I started operating as a sole trader. And, you know, and then I just went, Oh, geez, I should really register a company.
00:35:54:01 - 00:35:57:27
Daniel Franco
I read an article in my and it said April 4th of this year, 20.
00:35:57:27 - 00:35:58:14
Tammy Barton
Four years.
00:35:58:26 - 00:36:07:05
Daniel Franco
Or so. The only reason won't actually print my answer because my birthday's on April. We share an amazing day in history.
00:36:07:15 - 00:36:09:18
Tammy Barton
But coming next year, 25 years.
00:36:09:18 - 00:36:10:04
Daniel Franco
25.
00:36:10:04 - 00:36:13:25
Tammy Barton
Years time and saying we need to start thinking about 25 years, what does that look like?
00:36:14:04 - 00:36:16:01
Daniel Franco
25 years, A quarter of a century.
00:36:16:02 - 00:36:18:18
Tammy Barton
And I, I still only feel 25.
00:36:18:26 - 00:36:45:16
Daniel Franco
What is what's the plan for you like is this forever thing, you know, because you there's this statistic that I read in a book recently that was a can't remember where it was. It was 80% of businesses fail in the first seven years, the next 80% fail. So the next 80% of the remaining 20% fail in the next five years following that.
00:36:45:26 - 00:36:50:15
Daniel Franco
So if you so if you think about starting a business, your backs up against the wall.
00:36:50:17 - 00:36:50:27
Tammy Barton
Yeah.
00:36:51:27 - 00:37:12:02
Daniel Franco
Do you think and well let's, let's think about that as well A lot of people stop business to sell a business as well. So that's their sort of end goal, which is also one of the reasons. Do you think that businesses fail off the back of poor financial management? More often than not?
00:37:13:00 - 00:37:34:04
Tammy Barton
I think it certainly plays a part and if you had solid financial management, you might have predicted or you could see that you probably needed to pivot in your business and do something different and maybe it wasn't the right product market fit. Well, maybe you're spending too much on an on a particular part of your business, which is not giving you any return.
00:37:34:11 - 00:37:59:24
Tammy Barton
Yeah. And you need to divert that spend into growing, getting more clients or you might need to vet that, spend into more support staff or whatever it might be. So I absolutely think solid financial management is the backbone of successful businesses, but it's always I see lots of businesses that are great ideas. They might be a great piece of technology, but it's not priced right.
00:38:00:02 - 00:38:20:03
Tammy Barton
Well, there's no market for it. People are not going to spend the money on that. And so and that's such a shame. And I think that's that's such a good idea. I'm not like that product, but there's just not enough people to support the the expense of running that business. And ultimately, at the end of the day, a business has got to make enough money to pay its bills.
00:38:20:03 - 00:38:26:23
Tammy Barton
Yeah, it's simple math. Yeah. And and so if you're on top of that, you can you can adjust quickly.
00:38:26:23 - 00:38:49:01
Daniel Franco
Do you think your success like where you've growing the business or because you have three businesses now where you've grown all of them. Um, do you think that is because you have such a keen eye on finance like if we were to compare the pair like that sees me you'll see I'm CEO with to, to two quite different businesses I mean consulting space you're in the financial space.
00:38:50:14 - 00:39:09:17
Daniel Franco
My skillset is not in finance at all. Like my skill set is going out, meeting you, people growing, speaking, chatting the above. Um, and hence the reason why sometimes it always feels like we're three months away from going bankrupt, right? I think that was something some an entrepreneur told.
00:39:09:17 - 00:39:10:16
Tammy Barton
Me that what he said.
00:39:11:03 - 00:39:26:26
Daniel Franco
When you're growing your business and you're an early scale phase, you're always feel like you're three months away from going. But did you have those pains in your early years as well because you're so obviously, you know, fixated and and have the knowledge from a financial point of view. Did you have those same issues 100%?
00:39:26:26 - 00:39:57:03
Tammy Barton
I mean, like you're just watching the cash flow every single day. I guess I was I was always okay with not having to spend too much. You know, I was okay having the second hand furniture. I was okay with, you know, not having the best of the best, but keeping within a budget. So that and one of the advantages of a business like my budget was you can predict the income.
00:39:57:11 - 00:40:10:18
Tammy Barton
Mm. Which I think makes a huge difference. Yeah. Because I can predict with a reasonable degree of certainty how many what our revenue will be next month and the month after and when you.
00:40:10:26 - 00:40:12:27
Daniel Franco
Just based on like the subscription top.
00:40:13:16 - 00:40:35:29
Tammy Barton
Subscription model. That's right. And there's a certain amount of upfront fee we only have to face. That's it upfront which is paid over time like the first few months. Yeah. And then you've got a weekly fee and clients can cancel at any time. They give 30 days notice and we could lose that revenue. But, but after a few years you can predict what your termination rate might be.
00:40:35:29 - 00:40:37:17
Tammy Barton
That's a terrible termination.
00:40:37:17 - 00:40:40:10
Daniel Franco
Yeah, you're not going to you're not going to get 100% of people.
00:40:40:18 - 00:41:09:12
Tammy Barton
Right. So then the same with that. You can make decisions about spend and about headcount and about growth and about investment. And so that has been that was one of the advantages of my budget. There's there's other businesses though, and you touched on it and you said it perfectly like you're the subject matter expert in your business. You're good at consulting, you're good at talking to clients and you're good at growing the business and you're probably good at leading people as well and taking them on the journey.
00:41:09:27 - 00:41:31:29
Tammy Barton
And then it's all the other stuff supporting stuff that you guys like I have to do with. I've got to do the pyro, I've got to do the finances, I've got to speak to my accountant about tax and based statements and you've got to do all of that and even to a degree potentially marketing, you know, like, oh, you know, do I have to?
00:41:32:12 - 00:41:56:19
Tammy Barton
I mean, you are obviously good at that and you lean you lean into that. But so that's where it dawned on me when I started the building business, my build that by allowing Gary, he's my business partner, he's the builder and the building team just to focus on building houses and giving the best client experience and delivering on all of our promises to our client.
00:41:57:01 - 00:42:23:21
Tammy Barton
And my budget and myself. Take care of all those supporting services for shared services. It's exactly that, a shared services model and you get to and I think how great for so many people then you could just focus on your business. Yeah and and so far so good but I think that model can work and I always thought I would have to enter into a business that was aligned to finances.
00:42:23:21 - 00:42:57:17
Tammy Barton
But and I mean, building is not and my dad's a builder, so I grew up in the industry. I grew up with tradies at our house every single day. I was always up until this day, I still help my dad with his business, which he's currently in the process of selling. So I understood the business of building relatively well at a high level, and so it wasn't unfamiliar, but just being able to leave the builders and the trades and the experts estimate is and everybody just to do their job and not have to be bogged down with that makes a big difference.
00:42:58:18 - 00:43:07:20
Daniel Franco
How do you just why are you talking about the different businesses? Because you got more budget loans as well? Yes, that's correct. My budget my budget loans and my home builder.
00:43:07:20 - 00:43:08:05
Tammy Barton
That's right.
00:43:08:21 - 00:43:34:19
Daniel Franco
So one of the Utes driving around yesterday, which is funny, you know, it's like when you buy a new car, you say they're the, um, had I'm just like thinking about management of time. Right. And your role as CEO, how do you manage all three plus not to mention the amount of boards you're on, the mentorships that you do the how do you, how do you structure your time?
00:43:34:19 - 00:43:52:16
Daniel Franco
And I think you did mention it earlier that you're more out there working on the business, which is great. Um, but for those who are, for those who are building and still sort of stuck in the in the weeds a little bit, how do you spend your time working on the business and managing your calendar and your structure of your day?
00:43:52:20 - 00:44:20:09
Tammy Barton
Well, today it looks very different to where I was when I was growing, like growing the business and starting out because I was putting everything into a process, as I said. Yeah, like putting it into our actual core system and then delegating that. And then that's, that's essentially how I grow the business. And for me today it's about actually recognizing what my strengths are and what my whiteness is and finding people that are better than me.
00:44:20:09 - 00:44:51:08
Tammy Barton
And my job actually is all about having the right people in the right seat, because ultimately I'm not doing the work anymore. Like I could all my say, What? What do you do with my budget? Well, I don't do anything, but I do. I don't do not think. Yeah, because the people, my people, my team are amazing at what they do and they're delivering on every promise that we make to our clients, whether that be my budget or the lending business or the building the building business.
00:44:51:18 - 00:45:17:23
Tammy Barton
So for me it's about making sure that the strategy's right, the culture is right, so that the culture is aligning to the strategy and bringing people on the journey and making sure that we have the right team that's aligned. Because, you know, our core values are that we we can make a difference and financial responsibility. And so making sure that those values are alive and well in the in the business is really important.
00:45:17:23 - 00:45:48:02
Tammy Barton
And we do that through sharing stories. We do that by leading by example. We do that by but in lots of different ways. But that's a core fundamental part of our strategy. Yeah. So I think it's about for me, on a day to day basis, it's keeping my team aligned, focused, disciplined, and there's so many things that you could be saying yes to, and it's actually keeping that list as small as possible and doing those things really well and identifying what are those things that we need to achieve in the next.
00:45:48:07 - 00:45:58:29
Tammy Barton
Where do we want to be in five years? What do we need to do in 12 months to get in five years? And what do we need to do in the next 90 days to be there and say no to everything else? Like say no?
00:45:59:11 - 00:46:21:24
Daniel Franco
So an immense amount of discipline. I m so yeah, yeah. Gabrielle is over there laughing. So my toxic trait is I love shiny new objects or I like. So I and I have always struggled with this in the fact that it's like I've got a one attitude. MM Yeah.
00:46:21:28 - 00:46:23:04
Tammy Barton
One that.
00:46:23:10 - 00:46:24:26
Daniel Franco
Makes sense. Yeah. It's logical.
00:46:24:26 - 00:46:25:21
Tammy Barton
How hard can it be?
00:46:25:24 - 00:46:47:18
Daniel Franco
How hard can it be? I'm very optimistic. One of our core values is optimism. The other one's with wisdom, and I know that I'm that one every. But I think like that's the part for me that I really struggle is like keeping people aligned and keeping people working to this this, this strategy that absolutely we as a team of all created and pulled together.
00:46:48:29 - 00:47:04:01
Daniel Franco
But then there's always that element of mine in me that I go, Well, what if I missed something? What if there's something? What if there's a better way? What if what if, what if? And how do you maintain the discipline to stick with what you got? Or do you constant reiterate as you as you move forward?
00:47:04:02 - 00:47:25:15
Tammy Barton
Well, I think that's the beauty of of knowing where you want to be in the long term having you sort of Yeah. The targets along the way. But then just being totally focused on the the here and the now because you can pivot as much, you don't a set plan of how you're going to get to that target in 12 months.
00:47:25:15 - 00:47:52:01
Tammy Barton
But you know what you need to do in the next 90 days so you can pivot and be agile and sure, check out the shiny thing. Just do a little bit of analysis. Don't go all in and just say, is this going to work? Is this actually aligning? It's doing this work? Or is this idea is this shiny thing actually helping me get to where I need to be in five years or achieve my B hang my big, hairy, audacious goal and then that helps you make decisions.
00:47:53:01 - 00:48:25:08
Daniel Franco
So I agree. And I think if you were to cast your mind back and you said, you know, five years, ten years, understand where you guys want to be headed, you know, where you could be. I mean, if you look back 20 years ago, did you think you would have three different business, 230 plus staff working? You know, just for my budget alone, a $34 million, you know, turnover revenue to like how do you even you on my brain can't even comprehend where it could go.
00:48:25:08 - 00:48:30:10
Daniel Franco
And I think that's the part that I struggle with the most is that where is the boundary and where does it stop?
00:48:30:11 - 00:48:30:24
Tammy Barton
Yeah.
00:48:31:14 - 00:48:43:09
Daniel Franco
Because I'm like, I'm overly optimistic in everything that I do. And I always think that if I achieve that, why couldn't I do more? Why couldn't one? Yeah. Or why couldn't we do more? And that's I think I get sucked into that world of.
00:48:43:15 - 00:49:05:14
Tammy Barton
And you can and it's but you don't want to be sucked in so far that it's delusional you know you want to be okay that is realistic that we could have that many clients in a set amount of times or be in that many region. Yeah. So want to and you want to set goals that maybe you're not even going to be able to reach, but you'll get somewhere close at.
00:49:05:21 - 00:49:26:01
Tammy Barton
Like in the early days. For me, I wasn't really thinking about too much. Like I wasn't thinking, Oh, I'll have this many clients in ten years. I was actually just thinking I wasn't enough clients to pay the rent and I want to help as many people as I possibly can. And it sort of was around that time when I had my daughter where I went, Oh, hang on a second.
00:49:26:10 - 00:49:51:27
Tammy Barton
I probably need to start planning things out a bit better. Like I've been flying by the seat of my pants for three years just to make ends meet and, you know, and then it was like, actually, I can take a breather now because I've set myself up for, for being able to do that. And I think that and, and then if you've got young females that are listening to this podcast and people say always that they own, do you think it's a good time to have kids?
00:49:52:07 - 00:50:13:04
Tammy Barton
Never, never perfect time, you know, But so you just whatever suits you in your your life and your family. But it's never going to be perfect. So don't expect it to. Yeah. And the beauty of me having my elder to when I was younger is I was able to pull myself out of the business so that I've replaced myself.
00:50:13:04 - 00:50:29:09
Tammy Barton
Essentially, I was like, How am I going to be able to afford to do that? But then I made sure that the time that I spent was really valuable and adding value to the business so that I could keep having the business run without me in there picking up the phone and talking to clients or seeing clients face to face.
00:50:29:16 - 00:50:41:19
Tammy Barton
I was able to focus on growing the business and helping more people, and that's where I spent my time and energy for the most part in those years and those formative years of growing the business.
00:50:42:24 - 00:50:54:20
Daniel Franco
When I see questions in them, when's the trigger point when you can actually step away? Or is it not that black and white? It's a gradual thing.
00:50:54:22 - 00:51:18:13
Tammy Barton
It's a gradual thing. And it also depends as well. Like I bootstrapped, so I had to be watching the bottom line every single day, every week, every month. I was doing the finances of our business for the first 12 years presently. Yeah. And it was taking days out of the month to reconcile bank accounts and deals like they were.
00:51:18:21 - 00:51:39:03
Tammy Barton
The best statement had to understand because just came in and all of that. I had to learn that, understand it. And then eventually I got to a point where I had to delegate, I had to get delegate that out. And I kind of remember where I was going with this. Now, I got so caught up in the in the data.
00:51:39:21 - 00:51:40:23
Tammy Barton
But what was the question again?
00:51:41:00 - 00:51:46:13
Daniel Franco
It was about when we said there was a trigger point or. Yeah, or it was a gradual you know, it's obviously.
00:51:46:14 - 00:52:06:07
Tammy Barton
I think it was gradual, but if you've got an investor, you might have the ability to be able to put people on run at a loss for a while and then eventually pay the investor back and some. So it just depends. And that strategy works. And if you've got a business that's capital intensive, you know, you're probably not going to have the money to be able to fund it.
00:52:06:07 - 00:52:24:17
Tammy Barton
You might, but so you're going to have to learn to raise money. You're going to be distracted by, you know, having to manage those stakeholders, learn how to do your pitch, and it's a whole different ballgame, but it's just a different strategy than the one that I took. And I took that strategy because I didn't know any different.
00:52:24:24 - 00:52:26:21
Tammy Barton
I wouldn't have had a clue how to raise money.
00:52:26:24 - 00:52:49:02
Daniel Franco
On almost in the same boat. Right. Um, bootstrapping, very fragile thing. We're at the point now as a business with middle that middle tier and we've got some really amazing ladies coming in, which is fantastic. And I feel like the path of being able to step away is one that is probably going to be very welcomed by a lot of the people in the business.
00:52:50:02 - 00:53:15:09
Daniel Franco
One other thing that you mentioned in there was obviously doing all this while managing your family. I mean, you know, one question that I always ask on this show or an inquiry you ask is, is how do we fully pursue our and realize our visions whilst trying to maintain those loving relationships? And how did you do that? How did you grow and scale your business while you were, you know, three years into your business and you had your children?
00:53:15:09 - 00:53:15:15
Daniel Franco
Is that.
00:53:15:15 - 00:53:37:15
Tammy Barton
Correct? Yeah, Yeah. I mean, it's always a balance and sometimes the business will demand more of you and you have to give more of your time and energy there. And then other times your family are demanding more time and energy and you have to give give time there. It's a juggle. And there's there's no there's no perfect answer.
00:53:37:15 - 00:54:02:10
Tammy Barton
There's no right or wrong necessarily. But I think what helped me manage that was giving up this idea that everything had to be perfect, that I had to be the perfect leader, the perfect CEO. I had to be the perfect wife, had to be the perfect mama to be the perfect friend. When I gave up that idea that it was okay to make mistakes, it was okay to not be the absolute best.
00:54:02:22 - 00:54:22:13
Tammy Barton
And actually it was better just to be great, to be a great leader, to be a great mom, to be a great friend, and be a little bit forgiving on myself when I make mistakes and go, I'm doing all of these things and I'm doing it and I'm happy being great. I don't have to be perfect because when you're trying to be perfect all the time, you tend to burn out and it's stressed out.
00:54:22:13 - 00:54:55:11
Tammy Barton
And when you're trying to be perfect at everything, probably nothing is actually perfect. And so it's that moment of just forgiving yourself. If you make mistakes. And because it's normally us who are putting the most pressure on ourselves, it certainly for me, because I don't have other investors, it's always me putting the pressure on myself. I remember once leaving work to go get my kids from school and I was on a phone call and I just drove home and I was like, Oh my God, I left work to pick up my kids.
00:54:55:11 - 00:55:12:00
Tammy Barton
I forgot about them straight away. Yeah, and just went into autopilot on a cold, drove home, and I'm like, Where's Mum? But yeah, who forgets to pick up the kids, you know, like I did. And then it was like quickly scrambling, making a phone call to another parent saying, Can you wait with the kids till I get there?
00:55:12:00 - 00:55:28:14
Tammy Barton
I'm on my way. But you just got to go get that thought out of your mind. You're doing the best that you can. You know what a shit parent. Yeah, you just forgot because. You got all these other things on. It's about going, letting yourself go a little bit and saying, Don't be so hard on yourself because nobody's perfect.
00:55:28:14 - 00:55:46:26
Tammy Barton
And you try and be perfect and that's hard to give that up because you, you competitive, you want to be the best that everything I want to be at every single thing at the school. But it's just it's not realistic to be able to do that. So pick and choose, you know, that's really important to me. So I'm making the time to be at my kids sports days.
00:55:47:12 - 00:56:06:11
Tammy Barton
I love sport. I love sport. I think it's really important. I never missed the key one of my kids sports days. I just put them in the diary and that's it. No meetings. I'll leave everything to be there. Other things. You know what they're doing something else at the school or they're going on an excursion to somewhere that doesn't really interest me.
00:56:07:12 - 00:56:11:10
Tammy Barton
I might not go. Yeah, definitely. Like, Yeah, but I'm not beating myself up about that.
00:56:11:15 - 00:56:38:10
Daniel Franco
Yeah, I think it's a, it's a good philosophy. I think I fall into the trap of wanting to be very present as a father. So I try to attend most things and sometimes to the detriment of what else I'm trying to do. John I mean, like I, you know, you have seen this this thousand times. You speak with entrepreneurs, you speak with business leaders, you speak with.
00:56:38:17 - 00:56:57:23
Daniel Franco
You would have heard this story. Thousands times over and over it where someone's on their deathbed and they look back and they're going to wish you spend more time with your family. So I'm I'm trying to like, do that, but yet I get caught up in this world of, oh, like it's it's actually taking me away from something else I love as well.
00:56:57:23 - 00:56:59:24
Daniel Franco
So it's finding that right balance.
00:56:59:24 - 00:57:20:29
Tammy Barton
And what's right for you might not might not be right for me. Yeah. I might be okay with working full time as I'm as a mum. Someone else might not be okay with that. And that's okay too. It's just finding what's right for you and not looking over your shoulder and going, Well, what are they doing? Are they going to judge me?
00:57:20:29 - 00:57:23:05
Tammy Barton
Because I'm doing these comparisons.
00:57:23:05 - 00:57:23:08
Daniel Franco
That.
00:57:23:08 - 00:57:45:09
Tammy Barton
Reason. And I think you're absolutely right. But at the end of the day, you've got to, you know, invest time in your children and in your relationships and with your friendships and with your family. You can't be all all things all in on one thing. Absolutely. It takes a lot of your time and energy, but you have to carve a little bit out for the rest of your life.
00:57:45:09 - 00:57:52:15
Tammy Barton
And for me, it's it's literally putting this stuff in my diary and that's it. If it's in the diary and that's what I'm that's what I'm doing.
00:57:53:03 - 00:58:21:18
Daniel Franco
I'm with you, though, like you're saying earlier, you know, if you traffic and you've forgotten about you, I was thinking at that time when you when you were telling that story, I often if I'm not working, especially Monday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday is a bit different. But I do pick up the laptop on those days. But if I am not working, I'm feeling very guilty that I'm not putting time and effort to keep continuing to create.
00:58:22:06 - 00:58:41:09
Daniel Franco
So I'm really in this mindset of the moment of trying to have, you know, like thinking time. Everyone says you've got to stop and you've got to have time to think and reflect and write and journal and all the above. Do you do manage yourself in that way? Do you manage your how do you go away and be creative?
00:58:41:09 - 00:58:54:00
Daniel Franco
How do you stop from the hustle and bustle of podcasts and media and marketing and sales and leading teams and strategy and just stop and concentrate on what is most important?
00:58:54:22 - 00:59:15:22
Tammy Barton
I think like, like yourself, I don't like to waste amount of time because it's precious time. It's the most valuable thing that we have. So if even on the weekends, if I'm home, I'm like, okay, right, well I better be cooking and getting food ready for the week so that I'm organized. But to your to your point, how do I do that?
00:59:16:17 - 00:59:37:10
Tammy Barton
I set I set my alarm and I get up and I do my exercise. And for me, it's that's a form of meditation because I'm concentrating on whatever it is I might be doing, whatever type of exercise that is. And then I we have a sauna, and I like going in this one to a couple of nights a week.
00:59:37:24 - 00:59:52:05
Tammy Barton
So before I go to bed and thinking and listening and just being and, and I love getting massages. Yeah, that's one of the reasons I like going to Bali, because they personally do.
00:59:52:06 - 00:59:52:15
Daniel Franco
Yeah.
00:59:52:24 - 00:59:59:02
Tammy Barton
And I find that time is really good thinking. Time. Yeah, as long as it's not too hard, then I think about anything but the pain.
00:59:59:06 - 01:00:00:05
Daniel Franco
Nice of this.
01:00:00:05 - 01:00:19:07
Tammy Barton
Yeah, but I mean yeah, so. And I don't do that very often, but I find that that time I'm, I'm coming up with new ideas and thinking about things and I'm forcing myself actually, because if I had to live free, I'd probably be doing something that I consider productive. I'm getting I'm all about getting stuff done, you know?
01:00:19:24 - 01:00:42:12
Tammy Barton
But if I carve that time out, I can think and reflect and come up with ideas. And then I love traveling and I come up with some great things when I'm outside the office and I'm in a different environment, I'm saying different things and it's contributing to my knowledge base and I'm seeing the way that other people are doing things.
01:00:42:12 - 01:00:55:20
Tammy Barton
And I'm not, and collaborating with other business owners and talking about what they're doing. It's not just about, you know, getting stuff done and being productive. It's also that learning. I suppose, continuous improvement. Yeah.
01:00:56:15 - 01:01:23:21
Daniel Franco
If you if we talked about culture before before and how important you believe, you know, I kind of want to swing back in, but I want to segway slowly to the culture aspect where if you were to explain or if you were to get into the minds of all or your team, you know, 230 people plus in your team, what how would they describe you as a CEO?
01:01:24:25 - 01:01:55:16
Tammy Barton
I'm how would the team describe me? I think I mean, if I was to describe myself, I would say that I was intentional and strategic. I don't know that my team would know that that's how I am. Mhm. Because they probably don't see the stuff I'm doing is strategic but it's keeping the line, talking about the clients, you know that that's hugely important.
01:01:55:16 - 01:02:25:09
Tammy Barton
Yeah. Keep everyone on the same page. Making sure that we're not saying yes to things that we shouldn't be saying yes to and all of that. So I think they would see me as courageous. Okay. As in I'm prepared to get up there and fight for what's right. I'm prepared to break rules, if that make no sense. And I don't mean, you know, break the law, but I will challenge something if it doesn't make sense to me.
01:02:25:09 - 01:02:51:04
Tammy Barton
I'm really pragmatic. I probably think, in fact, that's probably the way that I'm a real pragmatic leader. I'm not I don't have my head in the clouds. Yeah, but I, I can see the future and I can map a path to that future and as I make practical decisions. I weigh everything up. And I'm fair and tough, but fair I expect a lot.
01:02:51:14 - 01:03:11:17
Tammy Barton
I don't want any freeloaders on the bus. Yeah, we're like the Fred Flintstone paddling, right? We got to get there together and we got to be all doing that. But I also understand that people make mistakes and everything is not perfect. And so I'd say that I would say that I'm a fair leader. That was a tough.
01:03:12:27 - 01:03:19:19
Daniel Franco
Room for us in this question. Just fix that microphone again. Thank you. That Kwarteng unless you're knocking it.
01:03:19:20 - 01:03:25:24
Tammy Barton
Out because I talk with my hands. Yeah, Yeah. I thought I was going to be Italian in my day, but I'm not.
01:03:25:29 - 01:03:41:16
Daniel Franco
I am. And I've trained myself not to, you know, that was fun anyway, so. All right. So to follow up that question, given that we've spoken about family, what would your children and your husband say about you? Would it be similar?
01:03:41:18 - 01:03:54:02
Tammy Barton
I think say I think they would say that I'm loving and kind, probably a bit cheeky.
01:03:55:20 - 01:04:19:28
Daniel Franco
What do you want them to say about you? I think, like this is kind of one thing that's quite relevant to me lately is my daughter's almost hitting teens ten years to a year or two away. But I feel like the the hormones is shifting and one day she hates me, but the next day, you know, she'll say something like that.
01:04:19:28 - 01:04:30:26
Daniel Franco
If I ever get married to someone, I want them to be similar to you. And you know, that's the world's greatest compliment, right? So what what would. Yeah. What would you want them to say about you?
01:04:31:26 - 01:05:05:03
Tammy Barton
I think I would want them to say that they knew how much I love for them and care for them. And at the end of the day, everything that I'm doing ultimately is to create a great life for them and also for our clients that I would want them to say that the work that I did or I do is making a big difference in the community and that the community wouldn't be the same.
01:05:05:03 - 01:05:25:13
Tammy Barton
It would be worse off if the work that the team does and that we do it. My budget wasn't happening and so I'd want them to see that I'm not working for the sake of working and working to create a better life for them, but a better life for tens of thousands of people through the work that we do at my budget.
01:05:25:13 - 01:05:27:23
Tammy Barton
And that is a privilege to be able to do that.
01:05:27:23 - 01:05:29:06
Daniel Franco
Is that always your purpose?
01:05:29:28 - 01:05:43:10
Tammy Barton
I always whatever I wanted to do, I didn't know what I wanted to do, but I just knew I wanted to help people. You know, I got I was motivated by seeing a shift in people's lives and seeing.
01:05:43:17 - 01:05:44:12
Daniel Franco
The light bulb moment.
01:05:44:12 - 01:06:09:02
Tammy Barton
Yeah, that, that like, I feel like that's my guilty pleasure. Yeah. Seeing other people do really well because you know how good that feels to see. To know that you've transformed or you're about to transform someone's life. Yeah, it it's better than any feeling. I think that you can get it to go, Wow. It's like, you know, when you give a gift, you feel really good.
01:06:09:14 - 01:06:17:09
Tammy Barton
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you go, Oh, he's your birthday present, and you actually feel good about giving that gift. And I feel that's what we do at my budget every day for our clients.
01:06:17:09 - 01:06:47:00
Daniel Franco
Have you ever thought about. Oh, so my budget is, in essence, almost working people to help solve mental health issues, right? Like if you think about suicide and there's I think I read statistically three people die per day I don't know where it might be a worldwide thing, but on the back of the fact that they've had money and financial issues, Right.
01:06:47:02 - 01:06:47:10
Tammy Barton
Yeah.
01:06:47:21 - 01:06:52:09
Daniel Franco
So in actual fact your saving lives in a roundabout way.
01:06:52:10 - 01:06:53:03
Tammy Barton
Absolutely.
01:06:53:08 - 01:06:54:21
Daniel Franco
Have you seen stories of that?
01:06:55:01 - 01:07:18:01
Tammy Barton
I have seen lots of stories of that. And one that comes to mind is when I was in Melbourne, I was walking down Buckley Street in Essendon where our office was and a client saw me and came over and she wrapped her arms around me. She started crying and she just said, I just need you to know that you saved my life.
01:07:18:18 - 01:07:41:27
Tammy Barton
I have two boys and they would never have seen their mum again had I not come in and had the appointment two years ago with my budget. And she saved my life. And my kids have a mum today because of my budget and I know me too. And I hear that I read the stories. There's a we have a we call it life change a chat.
01:07:42:04 - 01:08:07:10
Tammy Barton
Yeah, internal in our business where as staff are hearing stories they shared on the life change chat and a lot of those are life saving stories because finances can be really stressful and it can impact your mental health. And there's this idea that you must be a failure if you're not doing well with your finances. But that is not the case.
01:08:07:10 - 01:08:28:21
Tammy Barton
It doesn't define who you are as neither does how much you earn or how many assets you have. None of those things to define whether you're a good person or not. And I think shame. There's a lot of shame that comes with finances and money. If you're not doing as well as what you think you should be and therefore, you know, impact your mental health.
01:08:28:21 - 01:08:43:13
Tammy Barton
So I hundred percent believe that we're shifting the mental health issues in the right direction with the work that we do with at least taking like that worry away from people. MM Do you.
01:08:44:09 - 01:09:15:07
Daniel Franco
Like going back to culture and culture is some describe is the, is the thing that people do when no one's looking. And I think if you've got this connection to purpose, is that something that you put front and center to everyone. It's like actually mentally I think people here, we're not only helping them get their life back on track financially, but we're also helping them get their life back on track mentally.
01:09:15:07 - 01:09:44:25
Tammy Barton
Yeah, 100%. We talk about we have core value champions, so we recognizing and rewarding our team when they act in alignment with our with our values. But I think it's that connection to purpose is why we have such an amazing team. People come into our office and they walk around and we need you. Just listen to any call or someone speaking to a client.
01:09:45:00 - 01:10:05:17
Tammy Barton
What you hear is someone really caring, someone really trying to make a difference for that person whilst taking financial responsibility. And we like people will say it's kind of like a cult here. Like, what have you got in the water? It's a bit like a cult. Like, I know that when I interviewed for this role, that's what you said it would be like, but it's actually really like that.
01:10:05:24 - 01:10:24:25
Tammy Barton
Like once you're in, you're in, and if you don't fit the culture, you stick out like a sore thumb and you don't generally last. And that's okay because not I don't expect everybody is all the same. Everybody would fit our culture. And I've had people that have come that have had fantastic skill sets. But what I realized is you can't teach someone to care.
01:10:25:03 - 01:10:38:09
Tammy Barton
And we don't just care about our clients, we care about each other. So there's zero tolerance to any behavior that isn't in alignment with our policy. Yeah, yeah. There's a no no wanker policy. I'm not sure I.
01:10:39:02 - 01:11:02:28
Daniel Franco
Know you're fun. I'm good. I am. So. So your role as a CEO, you said before, keep people on aligns, keep strategy in check, making sure we're connecting to purpose, bringing in the right talent to be at it. You know, there are people on the bus and make sure they fit their culture. What do you do as a leader to maintain the culture in the business?
01:11:02:28 - 01:11:15:18
Daniel Franco
What do you see is your job? Is it front and center is like, I need to do work to fix the culture? Or is it is it just habitually you do things which create the culture that you desire?
01:11:15:28 - 01:11:43:19
Tammy Barton
Well, I think a lot of it the culture happens in the conversations and the stories that we tell in and out, in our training and in our recruitment. Me personally, I do. When I go back to the office this afternoon, I'll do my staff video and I'll do one of those every fortnight. And in those videos it's generally a couple of shout outs of two to employees that have done, you know, awesome things.
01:11:43:26 - 01:12:02:02
Tammy Barton
But I finish every single one of those without fail with a note from a client and we get lots of those through and I'll read it out and I'll go, you know, and then I'll finish every single video and I'll say, And guys, that is why we are all here. This is why we do what we do because of that story that I have to shed.
01:12:02:08 - 01:12:22:09
Tammy Barton
And it's actually you guys that every single one of you guys are doing that you're having the conversation. If you work in our technology team, you're building the technology that these clients use to change their life. And this is the outcome. I mean, you should all go home and feel so proud and privileged because not everybody gets to do a job where they can go home feeling like they've just made a big difference in someone's life.
01:12:22:09 - 01:12:55:17
Tammy Barton
Even it was one person could be 10,000, but even if it's one person. And so you're really you're really privileged and lucky to do that. And I'm privileged and lucky to have you working my budget doing that. And this is a result that we get. So that's that's what is that's one of the things that I do because I like I just think we I am so lucky, like, I'm so fortunate to do what I do every single day and to contribute something because that's ultimately that's what I want to do.
01:12:55:17 - 01:13:16:17
Tammy Barton
I don't want to feel like I'm wasting my time selling something to someone who doesn't really need it. Perhaps it's even for them. I don't want to be doing that, that, that. And it's okay. That's what people do because someone's got to do it. But that's not what motivates me. I wouldn't feel good about myself every day and I want to be able to feel good every night.
01:13:16:17 - 01:13:28:24
Tammy Barton
I sleep like a baby. Yeah, I get into bed, I put my head on the pillow and I sleep like a baby. And and I think that's I'm really fortunate to be able to do that. And so at all my team. Yeah.
01:13:30:11 - 01:13:52:20
Daniel Franco
That's amazing and kudos to you and the team for all the amazing work that you're doing. I am. I know. And so do you. That entrepreneurship and leadership and running a business and all the above. It has its ups and downs is one day you could have the best day and on the very same afternoon it could turn into the worst day, right?
01:13:52:20 - 01:14:12:22
Daniel Franco
Like it's pretty, it's pretty situational. And in May 2020, my budget suffered from a malware attack that which I think, from what I understand, prevented people being able to access their money. Is that correct?
01:14:13:03 - 01:14:40:02
Tammy Barton
So clients could always access their money? Yeah, clients money and information and everything was 100% safe. Yeah. What actually happened was our system got locked down, so we, we had to then rebuild parts of our entire system. So some parts were working fine. And the part where you could access your money was 100. You just couldn't access it through the app because our app was down, so you had to ring us.
01:14:40:09 - 01:14:51:21
Daniel Franco
Okay, So, so I mean that, you know, and you've said customer, you said all these things are fundamental to the way you guys manage business. Something like that makes me feel sick.
01:14:51:21 - 01:14:52:25
Tammy Barton
It was, it was.
01:14:53:07 - 01:14:55:14
Daniel Franco
How did you. Yeah, how did you that.
01:14:55:15 - 01:14:56:11
Tammy Barton
I mean you.
01:14:56:11 - 01:14:59:12
Daniel Franco
Know, and as a team and what exactly happened was.
01:14:59:19 - 01:15:21:08
Tammy Barton
Say, well, essentially there was a password breach. So Everyone started working from home, there was a password breach. They were able to get into our system and lock the core system down. So, of course, like everybody, we had backups and copies, but we have to get everything back up and running. So we didn't lose one piece of data.
01:15:21:08 - 01:15:40:07
Tammy Barton
We didn't lose anything fundamentally about will offline for our core system for five days out. So we were doing everything manually. So it looked like the New York Stock Exchange clients ring in and we'd write that B as being account number down and we would hold the piece of paper up and someone would come and grab the paper.
01:15:40:15 - 01:15:48:23
Tammy Barton
And then we had us up in our finance area. We had someone set up for the Commonwealth Bank, Westpac, and we're just doing everything manually. So we just didn't have the order. In a.
01:15:48:23 - 01:15:50:03
Daniel Franco
World where you're supposed to be working from.
01:15:50:03 - 01:16:13:06
Tammy Barton
Home in a well, be supposed to be working for us. Thank God Corbett was not bad in Adelaide and it was okay for us to all be working in the office. Yeah, for me I just went straight into problem solving mode and communicating with the clients. So I've, I've faced it head on with videos to the clients twice a day, every day to keep everybody informed.
01:16:13:16 - 01:16:28:28
Tammy Barton
One Your money is completely safe. Two, we're running things manually for now, but we're going to get our system back up and running and it will happen. I just can't tell you when, and I'm hoping it will be in the next 24, 48 hours. And by day five we got it back up and running. It was it was scary.
01:16:28:28 - 01:16:52:09
Tammy Barton
But I knew that there was a I knew that there was a path out and. I think when you've built up a trust bank with your clients, I think about what we've all the conversations with. Correct? We've changed people's lives that trust bank is what got us through and we lost a handful of clients through that. Yeah, probably clients that maybe were going to leave anyway for one reason or another.
01:16:53:03 - 01:17:15:26
Tammy Barton
But because we had that trust bank, I mean, we dipped heavily into it and it is one of like it's one of the is probably the thing that's ever happened in my life and in the business life. I was more concerned about the clients making sure that they knew that they can access their money, that their bills are being paid.
01:17:15:26 - 01:17:37:22
Tammy Barton
And this is just temporary, This is just temporary. And we run these payday days every year, whole. In the end, we always have clients. We do a client panel and I interview them and ask them questions and our customer service team get to ask questions. The whole company can ask them questions. And one of the questions from one of our staff members was How did you feel during the hat?
01:17:37:22 - 01:17:58:18
Tammy Barton
And she goes, She she'd been a client for 15 years and she says, Well, heck, I didn't even there was one. So there were still clients, you know, because if you didn't access we everything happens in the background, correct? Yeah. So you get your living expenses. And I also went through some clients didn't even really realize, but it was really we were one of the first to get hit.
01:17:58:18 - 01:18:02:01
Tammy Barton
I mean, people are getting hit or I'm in touch with.
01:18:02:01 - 01:18:08:20
Daniel Franco
It's no, this is big. Part of the reason why. I mean, I'm asking you because cyber security at the moment is.
01:18:08:20 - 01:18:10:03
Tammy Barton
On the needs to be front and center in.
01:18:10:03 - 01:18:10:19
Daniel Franco
Front of on.
01:18:10:19 - 01:18:23:25
Tammy Barton
Of everyone. And it needs be the number one, if not number one. Number two thing on your risk register. And as a CEO, or if you're on a board, you can't just say this is a thing for the IT team. The department.
01:18:23:25 - 01:18:26:08
Daniel Franco
Yeah and it's not a matter of if it's when now isn't it.
01:18:26:22 - 01:18:53:11
Tammy Barton
Exactly. It's you can, you can be as secure you think you possibly are. But generally speaking when things like this happen it's due to human error. Mhm. And that's what happened in our case. And you can have the best systems, the best technology, the best processes. But if a human makes a mistake which we do. Yeah.
01:18:53:28 - 01:18:56:15
Daniel Franco
And it's not an, it's an unintentional mistake.
01:18:56:15 - 01:18:58:15
Tammy Barton
I mean I don't think 100% we've.
01:18:58:15 - 01:19:01:04
Daniel Franco
Had, I think you know a mohan on the show.
01:19:01:06 - 01:19:01:29
Tammy Barton
Yes. Yeah.
01:19:02:09 - 01:19:16:29
Daniel Franco
And so you know he's he's he's thought processes that's where the majority of issues occur is is with the the almost complacency that creeps in with some of this stuff.
01:19:16:29 - 01:19:41:26
Tammy Barton
So exactly and then the way in which you store your data. Well and there's that there's I mean there is a whole raft of things that you need to be doing as a business and as a CEO or a board member. You need know the right questions to ask. Have we got all of these things in place? Do we have to factor there's like seven steps in the cyber security Collaboration center.
01:19:41:29 - 01:20:04:15
Tammy Barton
Yep. Have got all of these resources that you can access and you just need to then ask the questions, Do have all of these things in place? I mean, we're running cyber training every I mean, every single fortnight we use an automated system. Yeah. Where and you learn so much. Yeah. By doing that because things are changing all the time.
01:20:04:15 - 01:20:11:12
Tammy Barton
You've got the email fraud that's happening to everybody, the texting, the phone calls there, there's all sorts.
01:20:11:27 - 01:20:24:05
Daniel Franco
How did you manage your emotions during that time? I mean that is has like you said, it's probably the worst thing that's happened to you. How how were you in that time?
01:20:25:28 - 01:20:55:02
Tammy Barton
I mean, like, I'm optimistic I, I to being optimistic. And so I think I just went into isolation. I just went into. Right. Let's map out what we need to do. Who are the stakeholders? I mean, the South Australian business community was sensational. And what I mean by that is we're rebuilding our entire technology stack at the moment.
01:20:55:02 - 01:21:19:26
Tammy Barton
So for the most part, all of technology support is building the new and we we have the old where we've got a couple of people keeping the lights on. I had to call on about eight of the team that actually built the system for me in the first place to come in and help rebuild the system. So I was ringing CEOs and saying, I borrow stay for a couple of days.
01:21:19:26 - 01:21:48:08
Tammy Barton
It might be a day, it could be two. Someone drive, got a special permit and drive from Queensland, drive to Adelaide. And then there was a guy called Mars. He worked for me for ten years. He he was in I.T infrastructure and he came and there's a bunch of guys all just came in. So this the businesses let their staff leave and go and help us because we were processing everything manually.
01:21:48:18 - 01:22:26:04
Tammy Barton
We had a bunch of stuff to catch up on on the five days to enter into our system. You know, I had about 40 x customer service employees who just came in and went to send in Sunday for us because our system is unique. I can't teach you how to use it within a few hours. So all this stuff that we're already trying that it moved on to other jobs and doing other things, maybe they had babies or they came in and they did the work just it was absolutely incredible the way that everybody rallied And there was so much support in the community for us.
01:22:26:21 - 01:22:54:05
Tammy Barton
And I think it wasn't for me, it wasn't for the staff, it was for our clients, because people we worked at my budget before. I know what a difference we're making and what would happen if we no longer existed. And so everybody rallied together and I was just so grateful for everybody that it came in and helped. And I was dealing with the insurers and, you know, dealing with the technology team and trying to make decisions about stuff I don't know a lot about.
01:22:54:18 - 01:23:00:25
Tammy Barton
And but we got there and I was just like, Phew! I'm just so glad that that is over.
01:23:01:07 - 01:23:15:18
Daniel Franco
Well, I mean, what an amazing accomplishment to have people who have left the company to come back who still bought into the cause. Right. Like it's it just goes to show that you are doing something worth worth its weight in gold.
01:23:15:18 - 01:23:34:26
Tammy Barton
Yeah. And I just want to quickly mention that Maz, he is married and he's got a three year old and it was the Saturday night after we got so those five days down, we got the system back up and running on the Friday night and the Saturday night we had all the servers up and running and there was just a few of us in the offices, probably about 1130 on the Saturday night.
01:23:36:05 - 01:23:59:10
Tammy Barton
And we're like, Well, what if this goes down overnight? Like, I don't know how to turn or I don't know what to do? He had a tenant on Emma's. He's a big guy. He's he's like, does body building and he's tall and he's got really wide shoulders. And he goes, Don't worry, I'll sleep here I go. He doesn't he hasn't worked at my budget for five years.
01:23:59:10 - 01:24:18:03
Tammy Barton
He's got a wife, a child at home. It's a Saturday night. He said, Now I'll sleep here on the way. Where are you going to say? Because I'll sleep on the floor. And I go, I, I, I, I said, no way. Least going to get the kitchen from upstairs because was actually no point me saying that because I wouldn't know what to do if something it nothing happened.
01:24:18:08 - 01:24:20:25
Tammy Barton
Yeah. But my slept in our office. Yeah.
01:24:21:06 - 01:24:22:21
Daniel Franco
I got on Mars shout out to.
01:24:22:25 - 01:24:24:28
Tammy Barton
Shout to this thing.
01:24:26:09 - 01:24:51:21
Daniel Franco
That's brilliant. I'm, it's just before I think we're conscious of time. I'm trying to round up with a couple of questions before we move into some quickfire questions. You've. You've achieved so much in your life. You've got awards coming out of the closet. You've got, you know, women of a woman of, influence, entrepreneur awards, you name it, you've won it.
01:24:52:19 - 01:25:09:11
Daniel Franco
What do you think your secret sauce is? What do you think has been critical to your success? And if you were giving advice to someone who's looking to grow their career as a leader or an entrepreneur, you're what advice would you give them?
01:25:11:08 - 01:25:39:02
Tammy Barton
I would probably say it's passion. My being passionate about what it is that you do because it's so easy to just want to give up. Oh, just go, This is too hard. Or What am I doing this for? I'm not getting to my kids sport and why am I actually doing this? So my advice to to other aspiring entrepreneurs would be, of course, the business has to make sense.
01:25:39:02 - 01:26:01:26
Tammy Barton
It has to be a good product market fit. It needs to be financially viable. But make sure you whatever it is that you're doing, you're passionate because it's not going to be easy. And as that book, The E-Myth, The entrepreneurial Myth, says, it's not. It's not about becoming your own boss. It's a lot harder than that. And you're probably going to work harder than you ever have and less than what you were before.
01:26:02:05 - 01:26:11:04
Tammy Barton
So just make sure that you're passionate and you believe in what it is that you're doing, because that is the thing that's going to help you get through the difficult times going.
01:26:11:13 - 01:26:27:01
Daniel Franco
Correct. It's the hardest thing is to start and the first hardest thing is to start. The second hardest thing is to not exactly. We've we've had a great friend of yours on the show, Kelly.
01:26:27:01 - 01:26:30:20
Tammy Barton
Yes. She's an amazing woman. I'm very lucky to call her friend.
01:26:30:27 - 01:26:45:06
Daniel Franco
Is a rebel. Boom. Shout out to them. They're doing some wonderful stuff. She's she's a big advocate for women in entrepreneurship and in in business. Do you share the same passion as her?
01:26:45:16 - 01:27:17:17
Tammy Barton
Definitely. I mean, women supporting women is so important. And I have a team of 70% women, 30% men. And I think men and women together have different strengths, different weaknesses. And I think with when it comes to women, women really need the support to to really realize that they're awesome and that they can do a lot more in some cases than what they think they can.
01:27:17:28 - 01:27:44:17
Tammy Barton
And it's it can be these limiting beliefs. But I think women I think men and women are both incredible, but I think there's a lot of work to be done to help women get to positions of leadership, positions of power, to get started, to get funding that women receive a really minuscule amount of the seed funding of venture capital.
01:27:45:24 - 01:28:03:17
Tammy Barton
Why that is, I don't know. But I do know that women actually are if you look at the research, women are a really great investment. So they're going to return on your dollar invested in a female or co-founded or founded business. They're going to return 100% more. Yeah. So I.
01:28:03:17 - 01:28:04:07
Daniel Franco
Think statistically.
01:28:04:26 - 01:28:34:21
Tammy Barton
It just needs to be more of them. Yeah. And so Kelly and I and a couple of women have created a network called the Fearless Females. And the idea behind that is to create a ecosystem of support for women, because sometimes that's all it is that you need. Yeah. And, and so we started that about, I would say it's 12 months ago and that is really there to help foster and build that ecosystem of ecosystem for women.
01:28:35:03 - 01:28:51:24
Tammy Barton
So you've got someone that you can talk to or that you can run things by that because a little time you might just be working with men. Yeah. And you don't feel safe for whatever reason to share or be vulnerable. That's the idea of the fearless females.
01:28:51:29 - 01:28:54:07
Daniel Franco
So it's pull, pull that's in there as well.
01:28:54:13 - 01:28:55:00
Tammy Barton
Yeah. Thoughts.
01:28:55:00 - 01:28:57:02
Daniel Franco
And who else is in that group?
01:28:57:04 - 01:28:58:04
Tammy Barton
And a diamond.
01:28:58:04 - 01:28:58:26
Daniel Franco
And a diamonds.
01:29:00:00 - 01:29:22:13
Tammy Barton
Kelly Jenny parody say some tricks Sola Melissa lip Brandi and from she's the general manager of news and then Marella tan because hey Peregrine yeah she's at Peregrine Yep that's right yeah yeah and she's also a red herring. Multiple businesses over the years.
01:29:22:27 - 01:29:26:15
Daniel Franco
Some amazing humans in there get on board. How do people find out about fearless females?
01:29:26:17 - 01:29:47:18
Tammy Barton
I just jump onto Facebook or jump online and find out more. The idea of fearless females is is actually for you to use the motto and create your own feel as female group. And we help facilitate that. But you need to you drive that because the group you don't want to be too big because no.
01:29:47:19 - 01:29:49:28
Daniel Franco
And you don't want to be always changing.
01:29:49:28 - 01:29:51:27
Tammy Barton
And that's right. Yeah. Yeah.
01:29:52:13 - 01:30:19:29
Daniel Franco
Very good. Excellent. I do want to ask you a question, though, which is around young females. And just given that I'm a father of two young, young, aspiring entrepreneurs, and I say that because my daughters just had the career day at school and they both went as an entrepreneur. But you know what their what their reasoning was was I could dresses whatever I want if I was a entrepreneur.
01:30:20:07 - 01:30:43:17
Daniel Franco
So which is quite funny, but I printed these tags and it said entrepreneur on the show, which was quite funny. Um, but I want to just talk as a, as a father and as a, you know, male figure in their life. My role, one thing that I do notice is even just conversations around my girls play basketball too, right?
01:30:43:29 - 01:31:08:01
Daniel Franco
Even just conversations around, you know, making the Division two team negative three at the moment, making the decision to team next year. My daughter's attitude is I'm not good enough. I don't think I'm good enough. And she's got this immense amount of self-doubt and I'm trying to help educate and grow mindset to say, Hey, listen, like, but what if you are right?
01:31:08:01 - 01:31:28:26
Daniel Franco
Like, what if we work hard and we get there? And so, you know, trying to develop that. But I just remember as a child from a being, you know, obviously being a young boy, a young kid, I was just like, wow, Yeah. I mean, that's just a no brainer. I mean, if to what he means, if one's where I play, like, it was a completely different mindset.
01:31:29:12 - 01:31:47:29
Daniel Franco
So I guess my question to you is, is as a father, what what would your suggestion be to help and any other father that's listening in who has young daughters, how do we help nurture their mindset from an early age so that they have this mentality of being a fearless female?
01:31:48:06 - 01:32:18:27
Tammy Barton
Well, firstly, I want to say well done to you for already firstly thinking about this, but already having those types of conversations with your daughters and telling them I think it comes down to just telling them that they can be anything they want to be and it's they're the only person that will hold themself back. And I would just share a story because I like to share stories, but when I was growing up, I had my brother Josh, and when my mum was pregnant with Josh, my dad was like, I hope it's a boy.
01:32:18:27 - 01:32:36:18
Tammy Barton
I hope it's a boy, you know, So then I can go and kick the footy and you know, he can be a builder like me and it and then obviously Josh Arrangement syndrome. And my dad then drilled into us three girls. He's I cannot believe that I was saying I wanted to have a boy actually what I wanted have was a healthy child.
01:32:36:25 - 01:32:55:04
Tammy Barton
And it doesn't matter if you're a boy or girl, you girls can do whatever you want. Tell me if you want to be a professional basketball, you can be a professional basketball. If you want to be prime minister, you can be prime minister. You don't need to be any going back now, you know, 40 years like, you know, 30 well, 35 years ago, less of an option.
01:32:55:04 - 01:33:15:27
Tammy Barton
Yeah, Well, when people weren't having those types of conversations with young women and so I just had this mindset. I could do anything I wanted to if I wanted to be a builder like my dad, why I could not be a builder like my dad. You know, I didn't have any limiting beliefs. So my and my advice is, keep doing what you're doing.
01:33:15:27 - 01:33:32:08
Tammy Barton
Sounds like you're doing an amazing job and just keep reminding your daughters that they can be anything they want to be. And yes, it's going to take work like you're not going to get into the Div two team If you're not out there practicing. You're shooting after school every afternoon, but you put in the work, you can do it.
01:33:32:11 - 01:33:54:23
Tammy Barton
Don't believe that you can't do it because as Henry Ford says, if you believe me, he says, if you believe you can, you can. If you believe you can't, you can't. Yeah. And that's so true. Because if you believe you can't, you're not going to be able to do it. Absolutely, isn't it? You can't believe you say at least have to start with believing you can, even though maybe you can correct.
01:33:55:14 - 01:34:21:29
Daniel Franco
I think Yeah. 100% and that's that optimism pace Right. Then it goes but no thank you. That's, that's amazing. I'm We just shoot off some like quick fire questions before, before we jump into them if you could. Well, this is changing this up a bit, Gabs. I don't know if you know because you were away in the last podcast, but looking back, looking forward, is this new segment that I kind of want to bring in before these quickfire questions, but they're supposed to be quick as well.
01:34:22:08 - 01:34:24:15
Daniel Franco
If you could do it over again, what would you do differently?
01:34:25:05 - 01:34:42:08
Tammy Barton
Um, I learned so much from all the mistakes than anything I probably would have done, is I probably would have to skip straight to, um, advertising and marketing my in a different way. Yeah, because that made a huge difference and I didn't get it right at first.
01:34:43:28 - 01:34:45:27
Daniel Franco
What excites you about the future?
01:34:48:03 - 01:35:04:13
Tammy Barton
I think that we're living in the best time there has ever been. Everything excites me about the future. I see young people like your daughters going to. I didn't know what the word entrepreneur was when I was there. Yeah, you know, I'm so excited.
01:35:04:13 - 01:35:06:21
Daniel Franco
Asked by everyone, What is entrepreneur you make.
01:35:07:11 - 01:35:10:13
Tammy Barton
Good on them. I'm just I'm so proud of them. And they're your kids. Yeah.
01:35:10:13 - 01:35:11:14
Daniel Franco
And I had to explain.
01:35:11:14 - 01:35:34:28
Tammy Barton
I'm excited about all the possibilities and I see the young generation coming through and I know there's a lot of talk about them being lazy and this and that. I don't see that. I see them being absolutely passionate and driven by a cause, and I think they're going to make the world a better place. So I'm excited about all the endless possibilities, but in particular about all the young people coming through.
01:35:34:28 - 01:35:42:05
Tammy Barton
Because I just think they are amazing and they are the future. I think it was Stevie Wonder who said that beautiful.
01:35:44:16 - 01:35:45:15
Daniel Franco
What are you reading right now?
01:35:46:19 - 01:35:49:11
Tammy Barton
A book called out Live by Dr. Peter Attia.
01:35:49:11 - 01:35:50:01
Daniel Franco
Yeah, that's Simone.
01:35:50:01 - 01:36:11:00
Tammy Barton
Now it's a seven in our book. It's a big book, but I'm really enjoying it. Yeah, I have an interest in health and wellbeing. Yeah, because you gotta look after yourself first and make sure that you're functioning and you're firing on all cylinders. And. I don't know. I don't know everything. I'm not even close to knowing everything. But the more I can learn, the better I can be.
01:36:11:01 - 01:36:22:04
Tammy Barton
So I can live out my life being healthy as possible. There's no point living to 80 or 90 years old and I'm in a wheelchair or I can't walk or I can't play with my grandchildren. A great grandchildren. What's the point?
01:36:22:18 - 01:36:24:15
Daniel Franco
Great. So outlived by.
01:36:24:18 - 01:36:25:21
Tammy Barton
Dr. Peter Taylor.
01:36:26:14 - 01:36:40:05
Daniel Franco
Peter, to you. Right. Well, I mean, I think you've mentioned this numerous times and what's one self-development book that stands out? The rest you've mentioned, Amy, is that is there anything else that you would add to that?
01:36:40:05 - 01:36:42:28
Tammy Barton
I wouldn't necessarily call Amy Self development.
01:36:43:21 - 01:36:44:23
Daniel Franco
I nonfiction.
01:36:44:23 - 01:36:49:26
Tammy Barton
Yeah. Yeah. I like How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie.
01:36:50:26 - 01:36:51:27
Daniel Franco
That's the book that changed my.
01:36:51:27 - 01:37:04:19
Tammy Barton
Life Yeah, it can change every it's for everybody. Whereas The E-Myth is really for entrepreneurs or business owners starting out. Yes. Whereas everybody can benefit from reading how to win friends and influence people. Yeah.
01:37:05:03 - 01:37:07:20
Daniel Franco
I think when I say I mean it's old school, right?
01:37:07:20 - 01:37:07:29
Tammy Barton
Yeah.
01:37:08:10 - 01:37:21:27
Daniel Franco
But when I say it changed my life, it really I think the realization that I got from that book was that I can actually influence others and the way that I think and not not manipulate, but I can influence. Right?
01:37:21:28 - 01:37:22:22
Tammy Barton
Absolutely.
01:37:22:23 - 01:37:28:03
Daniel Franco
Is a big lesson for me, though, on that. What's one lesson that's taking you the longest to learn?
01:37:32:00 - 01:38:02:03
Tammy Barton
I well, there's a few, I think, you know, just I have to constantly remind myself that looking after myself is really important, you know? And it's not selfish to be getting, you know, taking an hour every day and doing exercise. And just because it's so easy to go, I'm not going to do that because I really need to do this.
01:38:02:12 - 01:38:13:26
Tammy Barton
So I think it's just constantly pulling myself back into line and being disciplined and doing the things that I promised myself that all day, because it's so easy to just, you know.
01:38:14:08 - 01:38:16:24
Daniel Franco
I'm going to echo that, but I don't think I've learned that.
01:38:17:19 - 01:38:30:16
Tammy Barton
I mean, I'm not crazy, you know, it doesn't mean you go crazy like. Last night I had a cooking class. It was pasta. It was amazing with Italian red wine. I mean, you know, but I'm not going to do that every single night, but I'm not going to say no when it's right there in front of me.
01:38:30:16 - 01:38:40:09
Daniel Franco
Although I think I could I could. Nothing like a personal one. If you could have coffee with one historical or current figure, who would it be?
01:38:41:01 - 01:38:50:26
Tammy Barton
Well, we talked we mentioned her name earlier. Oprah Yeah. I just think she is an absolute legend. She's so wise. She's amazing. Yeah. Oh, Michael Jordan.
01:38:51:17 - 01:38:52:06
Daniel Franco
Oh, MJ.
01:38:53:12 - 01:39:02:29
Tammy Barton
I just think just because he's such a legend, I don't think he's a nice bloke, but, I mean, he achieved more than anybody has. Yeah. And I just watched the most.
01:39:02:29 - 01:39:03:08
Daniel Franco
Fans.
01:39:03:17 - 01:39:15:27
Tammy Barton
Know the new one with Ben Affleck and um, and it's got Jason Bateman and it's about when Jordan gets his contract with Nike.
01:39:16:01 - 01:39:16:16
Daniel Franco
Yes, yes.
01:39:16:16 - 01:39:21:14
Tammy Barton
Yes, yes. That's sensational. Is it. Yeah. Yeah. What's that's on Amazon. Amazon. Yeah.
01:39:21:17 - 01:39:23:14
Daniel Franco
I'm going to I think I've got everything. It's ridiculous.
01:39:23:25 - 01:39:30:24
Tammy Barton
It's Matt Damon in it, but it's not about Jordan. It's about the business side of how he got the Nike to not memoirs.
01:39:31:21 - 01:39:33:00
Daniel Franco
The shoe dog. Have you read that?
01:39:33:04 - 01:39:34:04
Tammy Barton
I haven't, but.
01:39:34:14 - 01:39:42:14
Daniel Franco
It's phenomenal story. Great story. Yeah, I would recommend that. Anyway with what's one of the some of the best advice you've ever received.
01:39:43:01 - 01:39:57:27
Tammy Barton
And we've touched on this as well but and it's not that someone gave me this advice, I read this advice which is to work on your business and not in the business. You spend at least a portion of your time working on the business. So I think that was really good advice for me.
01:39:58:13 - 01:40:03:27
Daniel Franco
I, uh. What habit holds you back the most?
01:40:04:25 - 01:40:31:02
Tammy Barton
Um, habit. I mean, like you, I can be easily distracted. I mean, you're saying you the shiny thing. Yeah, I can be easily distracted. Say it. Doing in something that just feels good or looks good, You know, I've got to get this done. But a friend says, Oh, do you want to tell me? Just quickly go and have a wine or, you know, I can be distracted.
01:40:31:02 - 01:40:31:12
Tammy Barton
Yeah.
01:40:31:28 - 01:40:34:09
Daniel Franco
Is that saying yes. Is that saying yes. The habit.
01:40:38:03 - 01:40:42:09
Tammy Barton
Sometimes. Mhm. I've gotten a lot better at saying no. Yeah.
01:40:42:09 - 01:40:44:07
Daniel Franco
I think you said no to this podcast but it's now.
01:40:45:24 - 01:40:48:22
Tammy Barton
I didn't, I just didn't even respond.
01:40:51:04 - 01:40:54:09
Daniel Franco
Anyway. What's your biggest pet peeve.
01:40:55:03 - 01:41:03:10
Tammy Barton
Um, when people don't do the things they say they're going to do, that really irritates Me Just do what you said you're going to do. It's not that.
01:41:03:10 - 01:41:12:20
Daniel Franco
Hard. Yeah. I'm sorry If you could pay someone to do all of your chore, Sue to do one of your chores, which one would you choose?
01:41:13:15 - 01:41:28:28
Tammy Barton
Um. Oh, I don't. I probably like doing the dishes. Mm. Yeah, I, you know, like, it's the worst. It's just, I don't know, time wasting. Yeah. Yeah, I.
01:41:30:04 - 01:41:32:23
Daniel Franco
I would choose my finances funnily enough anyway.
01:41:32:29 - 01:41:34:18
Tammy Barton
And I sell them for that. Excellent.
01:41:34:25 - 01:41:35:19
Daniel Franco
We'll talk later.
01:41:38:01 - 01:42:01:06
Tammy Barton
What's one. Actually, one thing I don't like doing is like letting people go, even when it's the best for them. Like, if I could pay. Not that I'm. I'm very lucky I have no. Yeah, but the times I have had to have those conversations, even when you're coming from a place of giving really constructive feedback and wanting the best for that person, it's just always a difficult conversation.
01:42:01:06 - 01:42:11:15
Daniel Franco
Oh, it's this sickening feeling in the stomach. I hate it. It's so it's not good. I agree. What's one word that you absolutely hate? I love this question.
01:42:12:25 - 01:42:22:06
Tammy Barton
I'm not going to say it, but the C-word, I think, come on. Like, is it really that bad? Is that word or calling someone that is just like at a different level?
01:42:23:05 - 01:42:29:22
Daniel Franco
Uh, what's the first thing that you would do if you became invisible?
01:42:31:28 - 01:42:37:24
Tammy Barton
Um, I would probably listen in on some powerful people's conversation. Oh.
01:42:38:03 - 01:42:39:14
Daniel Franco
That's a boring answer.
01:42:40:07 - 01:42:48:23
Tammy Barton
I probably should. Oh, no, that's a good. I mean, look, if I. If I could.
01:42:49:02 - 01:42:50:13
Daniel Franco
Get an insight. Is it a good answer?
01:42:50:14 - 01:43:04:27
Tammy Barton
Yeah, Especially those that aren't doing good. How are you doing good in the world. Right? So you could listen in, understand their strategy and be two, three, ten steps ahead of them and do better in the world. Yeah, yeah, I know. That's. I'm sorry.
01:43:05:03 - 01:43:10:29
Daniel Franco
That's good. I like, uh, what's the most useless talent that you have?
01:43:11:13 - 01:43:21:11
Tammy Barton
A useless talent card tricks, I think makes you really useless. But, you know, sometimes I know.
01:43:21:12 - 01:43:29:06
Daniel Franco
It's not the time when you see. I will see some of that. All right. And last one. Your best mum joke. But she joked, Oh.
01:43:29:06 - 01:43:39:02
Tammy Barton
My God, I don't have any. I don't. I just don't think I'm funny. And like, you know, I'm off the cuff joking around, but I don't really have any funny jokes.
01:43:39:02 - 01:43:40:02
Daniel Franco
No shit jokes.
01:43:40:02 - 01:43:41:11
Tammy Barton
No shit joke. I'm sorry.
01:43:41:11 - 01:43:41:19
Daniel Franco
Yeah.
01:43:41:22 - 01:43:44:02
Tammy Barton
No, I told you. Just like I said.
01:43:44:06 - 01:43:48:22
Daniel Franco
I'm not of. Look, thank you so much for your time today.
01:43:48:23 - 01:43:49:17
Tammy Barton
Thanks for having me.
01:43:49:18 - 01:44:10:26
Daniel Franco
I was so excited about getting you on. Just given the all that you've achieved and the role that you play in society. Obviously one of Australia's most influential entrepreneurs. So, you know, kudos to you and your career. Kudos to the work that you and the team are doing and you are having impact on people's lives. You are turning people's lives around both financially and mentally.
01:44:10:26 - 01:44:32:14
Daniel Franco
So you know that hats off to you. And for everything that you guys are doing, I'm super excited about seeing all that you achieve moving forward. I'll be a fanboy on the side Waving, waving, waving the flag. So yeah, keen to keen to keep catching up and then connect. And how can anyone connect with you if they want to, if they want to.
01:44:33:12 - 01:45:01:10
Tammy Barton
They can connect with me on socials or on LinkedIn. So absolutely. I just want to thank you as well for doing this podcast. It's amazing. You're awesome at it and wish you all the best with your business as well. And it's people like you sharing knowledge that's that's helping others and I think that's really awesome. We've just started a podcast that my podcast sorry.
01:45:01:24 - 01:45:02:20
Daniel Franco
Let's give that a plug.
01:45:02:22 - 01:45:23:06
Tammy Barton
But, but my, my, my, my money, my stories and our client stories about their money journey, which a lot of people can relate to. But doing podcast isn't easy, especially when you're the interviewer. Like you have to really concentrate on what the other person is saying and keep it flying. And it's I think we take it for granted as a listener.
01:45:23:15 - 01:45:32:24
Tammy Barton
Yeah, When you hear, you know, people interviewing on podcasts, it's a real talent and you do a great job so well done today. I just played really naturally and super well, so you should be practice.
01:45:33:04 - 01:45:40:06
Daniel Franco
Couldn't have a better compliment. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Thank you, everyone. We will catch you next time. Take care.
01:45:41:10 - 01:45:43:14
Tammy Barton
Thanks That was great.
01:45:43:16 - 01:45:44:21
Daniel Franco
Beautiful. Thank you.
01:45:45:05 - 01:45:48:22
Tammy Barton
Awesome. I mean, it's you know, you're talking about yourself.