In this episode of the Priority Lane podcast, host Nigel speaks with David Caruso, a serial entrepreneur who shares his journey from running a successful hire business in Sydney to establishing a thriving e-commerce operation in Thailand. They discuss the importance of prioritising relationships, the impact of COVID-19 on business, and the significance of having systems in place for success. David emphasises the philosophy of failing fast and cheap, the need for clear goals, and the importance of treating employees as family. The conversation also touches on the role of marketing in business success and the evolving nature of priorities over time.
Burnout can lead to significant life changes.
E-commerce can thrive during global crises like COVID-19.
Systems are crucial for managing a successful business.
Failing fast and cheap is a valuable business strategy.
Priorities change over time and should be regularly assessed.
Reinvention is essential for personal and professional growth.
Treating employees like family fosters a positive work environment.
Controlling money is key to financial freedom.
Effective marketing is more important than being the best at your craft.
Sound bites
"Fail fast, fail cheap."
"Reinvention is key to success."
"You treat staff like family."
Chapters
00:00 Welcome to the Priority Lane
01:53 David Caruso's Entrepreneurial Journey
05:08 The Impact of COVID-19 on E-commerce
06:30 The Importance of Systems in Business
07:58 Fail Fast, Fail Cheap: A Business Philosophy
12:01 Identifying and Following Through on Priorities
18:08 Learning from Historical Figures: Alfred Nobel
21:54 Reinventing Business and Life
24:35 The Impact of Prioritising Relationships
30:42 Treating People as a Priority in Business
39:13 Philosophy on Money and Business
56:43 The Key to Business Success: Marketing
Nigel:
Welcome to the Priority Lane podcast, the show where we explore the power of prioritizing so you can stop doing everything faster and do what matters better. This is becoming increasingly difficult in a world overflowing with noise notifications and never-ending to-do lists. It has never been more important to choose what to ignore and what will lead you to success.
Nigel:
Each episode, I sit down with leaders in their field to uncover how they filter out the noise, focus on what matters, and build lives and businesses on clarity, not chaos. Today, we were continuing our chat with David Caruso. In part one, we discussed the events that led him to Thailand and establishing a business where lifestyle was a major driver of how the business evolved. Today's episode starts with me asking David how he prioritizes successfully.
David Caruso:
That's a good question. I think there's usually a gap in identifying priorities and then treating those priorities as priorities. And I think that gap is where a lot of people struggle. Over time, priorities change. I think as we get older, here's two old guys sitting on a podcast at the moment. But I can tell you my priorities have changed over time.
David Caruso:
So 20, 30 years ago, priorities for me was business. Business was a big priority for me. Today, not so much. Relationships is more of a priority. 20, 30 years ago, building wealth was a big priority for me. Today, once again, more so maybe health is a more priority. Kind of priorities change over time. And if I'm honest with you, I can't say, know, can't pinpoint a time.
David Caruso:
I'll pinpoint a section in my life where I've had serious thought and reflection to say, hey, now I'm shifting priorities. Now it was building wealth. Now I can't say I can pinpoint that time. But I think it's important to understand if your current priorities are aligned. And without getting too deep, I think one way to see if your priorities are aligned is if.
David Caruso:
If you were to die tomorrow, we're all gonna die, unfortunately, I don't wanna take the nihilistic approach here, but we are all gonna go. I sometimes ask myself, if I die tomorrow, am I happy with where I'm at now, in what I'm doing? Are my priorities in line? And if the answer is yes, and for me the answer is yes, I think your priorities are in good shape. If you sit there and say, no, I wanna be doing this or I wanna be doing that.
David Caruso:
That's where you maybe have to think about your priorities and if they're aligned. And in terms of following through on those priorities that, and I'm sorry to hold the conversation here Nigel. How do you make sure your priorities are aligned with what you're doing and how do you make sure?
Nigel:
Go for your life I see a loss?
Nigel:
You.
David Caruso:
Those priorities are taking priority in your life.
Nigel:
But look, I love what you said. Love the way, I don't want to steal your answer, but I love your response to the question. I thought that was very good. And to tell you the truth, it's something similar. I don't generally put it in the terms of dying as such. It's mainly, Sunday night is what I set aside as planning night now.
David Caruso:
Yeah.
Nigel:
That's, it's nothing too onerous. Basically, I just get the tablet out and I've got like a, well, it's one note where you can make notes on the tablet. I just have a look at the priorities or what I wanted to achieve last week and how they've gone and then update them about what I want to do next week. It's generally a week. I can do a week or a month, but it's generally just that.
Nigel:
Constant, okay, it's the end of the week or start of a new week. Am I on track? Am I just wasting time on things that aren't necessary? So it's just that Sunday night, sitting down watching a movie, just, you know, don't have a formal planning session. It's just okay. It's just for me. It's just my notes. This is what I wanted to achieve. Did that one, that one, that one. Didn't get around to that one. I need to do that. What else do I want to do? So it's more of a weekly thing as opposed to.
Nigel:
What happens if I die tomorrow.
David Caruso:
Yeah.
David Caruso:
Priorities and goals that in my presentations, like I said, I was doing motivational speaking there for about seven, eight years. And I used to talk about goal setting, a little bit what you're doing on that week to week situation. And a lot of people in business, even in general life, and I used to talk about this quite a bit in my presentations, they would set wishy-washy goals, wishy-washy business goals.
David Caruso:
And a wishy-washy goal might be, you know, I want to be rich. So that's a bit wishy-washy. So what I used to talk about is having clear and concise goals. It might be better said that instead of having wishy-washy goal, I want to be wealthy, I want to be rich. It might be better said, I want to be worth five million in the next five years. And by having that clear and concise goal, we can then deconstruct to reconstruct how we're going to get there. So a lot of people, think.
Nigel:
Yep, that's the old art. If you can't measure it, you can't manage it.
David Caruso:
100%, 100%. So the wishy-washy is kind of sitting out there and the clear and concise goal, once again, deconstruct to reconstruct how we get there. I think a lot of people are, you know, and we're talking bigger picture here, that a lot of people are kind of afraid to set a kind of clear and concise goal. They want to keep it wishy-washy because if it's clear and concise and they get to the time point where whatever that goal might be and they don't reach it.
David Caruso:
They think they're failed. They think, you know, and this is what I talk about. I like to fail all the time. So for me, you know, if I had a business goal, say, I business goal, I want to increase average customer spend by $20 in the next six months. And I deconstruct, reconstruct how I get there, but I only reached $10 in the next six months. Do I sit there and think that I'm a failure? I don't think I'm a failure at all. I look at that and I can look at the steps that I took and then tweak.
Nigel:
Bye-bye.
David Caruso:
Give me an opportunity to tweak some of those steps to maybe in the next six months reach that $20. So the point being, set a clear and concise goal. If you don't reach that goal, that's okay. It's nothing. See where you can tweak and massage those steps to maybe reach that goal in the next time period per se. So don't be afraid to fail. I fail all the time. I love failure. We're always learning from failure, if that makes sense.
Nigel:
Well, you learn more from your failures as they say. Now back to your point that you mentioned about.
David Caruso:
I'm sorry.
Nigel:
Businesses and ventures you've embarked on and I want to know what is one achievement or event that you rank above the others as a great achievement or success story and why you're choosing this story over others.
Nigel:
And is there one that stands out in your mind when you think at that moment, aha, yes, I am so proud of what I've just done.
David Caruso:
That's a good question. Just trying to think of one event that's kind of stand out. I suppose...
Nigel:
I know you, I was just going to mention, I know there was one Thursday night around about Liverpool, somewhere where you beat me at Street Fighter, but there's probably something else beside.
David Caruso:
I used to enjoy those times. We're talking about 35 years ago, maybe 36 years ago. We'd be talking about the future, bouncing ideas around that. I think it's important always to have those kind of people in your life that are supportive, who think on the same wavelength, who want to progress and improve and be successful, what have you.
Nigel:
Yeah, yeah, early 90s, yep.
David Caruso:
So I used to enjoy those times, Nige. And sometimes we forget. You ring me up one time, maybe 10 years after we did that, and you mentioned our business name. I'd totally forgotten about the business name. Or maybe we go through life and we forget about a lot of things. Maybe as I'm getting older, perhaps, I forget a lot of things. But yeah, so I apologize one time when you contact me and I what was that? Well, I don't remember that. But anyway.
David Caruso:
I do remember now, you remind me. But yeah, I used to enjoy those times. I suppose probably the biggest thing that I'm proud of, a couple of things, so I have a great relationship with my wife that we're 22, 23 years in. So having that relationship with my wife and where we're at at the moment is, I'm pretty proud that in regards to, we sit and we...
Nigel:
Yeah.
David Caruso:
We spend 24 hours a day, seven days a week together, except on a Sunday. My wife preaches on a Sunday, so she'll go to church, do her preaching. She's gone for half a day. Like I said, we work together, we 24-7 together, and we talk about how can we spend more time together? How can we get those extra hours? I'm proud of the relationship that we have. Yes, exactly right.
Nigel:
You.
Nigel:
You've got to go to the sermons.
David Caruso:
Thank you. Another thing I'm proud about is my daughter's kind of success in business. So I'm very proud of that. That's a dad's proud dad moment and seeing my daughter succeed in business. It's funny, and I've talked about my one daughter, I've got two daughters. I don't mean to not include my second daughter. My second daughter.
David Caruso:
Doesn't want business at all. Almost anything dad says, like dad wants her to go into business, totally anti-business. But proud of her because she just finished her seven years of university. I always get confused. I think as a doctorate, I think, of psychology. I could be mistaken. I'm not sure if it's a doctorate. It's one before the doctorate, but I get confused.
Nigel:
You.
Nigel:
Wow.
David Caruso:
So I'm very proud of her and she's just coming into the workforce now. So mind you, I've created a website. She does speech pathology. Maybe I need it now. She does speech pathology for children. So I've already kind of, I'm warming up a website for her. She doesn't know. Maybe she knows if she listens now. I'm warming up a website. I'm warming up a business for her because I'm in her ear That's how I like, don't work for somebody. Just do your own speech pathology. do your own speech.
Nigel:
Right? wow.
Nigel:
Okay.
David Caruso:
Anyway, so I'm proud of my daughters. I'm proud of my relationship, my wife. And you put me on the spot. I did ask you to send me some questions beforehand, which you didn't do, but then I did and I didn't have this.
Nigel:
Mm-mm.
Nigel:
Well, I wasn't going to let you off that easy. I sent you a couple. Yeah, well, I just, I just really wanted to see how intelligent you were. now, but look, they are great things to be proud of. And really at the end of the day, that's what matters most. Now, if we flip that and we do the reverse and we say, what is a failure that you encountered and what did you learn from it?
David Caruso:
You did, you did. But this was a curve-ball.
Nigel:
And you can't use your family again.
David Caruso:
Can't use the family again. Failures. I've had plenty of failures. monetary failures. Still making mistakes today. That monetary things in life, businesses.
Nigel:
Yep.
Nigel:
But was there one like maybe business venture or something that you went on and you thought, geez, that was a mistake. I won't do that again. Next time I'll do A, B and C.
David Caruso:
Yeah, yeah that's um okay so there was I haven't spoken this I haven't spoken about this for.
David Caruso:
10 years, 11 years, 12 years. And this is kind of partly why I got burnt out. I'll just give a kind of a quick overview. I won't go into too much details. So basically I had a party hire company. I had a hire company. One of the divisions was party hire. We used to do party hire, equipment hire, big earth moving machinery. Party hire in Sydney, Australia. There wasn't one company that...
David Caruso:
Person would wake up and think about Party Hire as a there wasn't a known brand in Australia that think Party Hire. So I approached one of the big companies that I won't mention names that it approached one of the big Australian companies they had 120 branches and they were a recognised name you wake up and if you wanted to hire equipment you think about this name and I thought okay well if I can associate with this company and make them up you know have a Party Hire division.
Nigel:
Hmm.
David Caruso:
You would think about this brand name as a party high division. I worked on this deal for about a year. brought a friend in who had a company in Canberra. And basically it was about a $10 million deal. And principally this company was gonna buy my friend's company, gonna buy my company. And we would get, I think at the time it was about 35 % each of this company and the main company, the brand would own 30 % of the company. But they would buy my whole business.
Nigel:
Bye.
David Caruso:
By my company's, by my friend's company and things like that. My friend ended up doing me over big time. So I brought him another deal. I spent a year with these top corporate executives and what have you, even the owner of the business. We went to America together with the owner of this big company and looked at different companies, how we're to structure and what have you.
David Caruso:
And basically they just did me over at of the day. They still ran with the idea. And they did me over because they said, when the final crunch came to it was all going to happen. Dave, we're not going to buy your business. Listen, can still be part of this. This was their pitch to me. You can still be part of this, Dave. But we're only going to offer you 5%. And then you have to pay X around, I think it was something like about $600,000.
Nigel:
Well...
David Caruso:
Now had the money to buy that 5 % share in this new business, but I thought, mate, if you done, and also the share structure, was, I was kind of like a B class share. I looked at the share, I'm like, if they did me over at the start, they're going to do me over and I have to pay money to do me over. So I kind of not so politely declined if that makes sense. then basically the good thing, the happy side of the story, and I don't want to.
Nigel:
Hello.
Nigel:
Yeah. Yeah.
David Caruso:
Revel in somebody else's misery, they collapsed in about 18 months. And mostly because, well, I wouldn't say that, but they weren't, the divide happened with my friend and I because he was more corporatey, I was more small business, and he wanted to take the thing in a different direction than I. Obviously, the big company kind of went in that direction, and it didn't work.
Nigel:
Because they didn't have your expertise.
Nigel:
Yeah, migrated towards him.
David Caruso:
Yeah, but, so that, and I, and I did get, you know, I was kind of a bit shattered for bit a month afterwards. I was kind of in a, in a kind of, wow, and that's how big businesses, corporations, that cut throat, know, stabbing in the back. I've never, never been part of that before. It's not, not in my makeup and not, not, not in my world anyway. But when you start going into that world, yeah, mate, that's...
Nigel:
Live.
David Caruso:
My goodness, I couldn't believe it. But anyway, it is what it is.
Nigel:
Yeah, but I mean, it's, I've had this philosophy because, with my previous business, with the business consulting, you get screwed over a lot. Then we did, we worked on sort of financing deals as well, getting investors in and this and that. Anyway, getting stabbed in the back. Yeah, I know it all too well then.
Nigel:
Now realise that being successful in business is just basically surviving long enough to find a circle of friends that you trust, people that you trust to do business with. If everyone trusts each other and plays nice and respects each other, business becomes a hell of a lot easier and becomes a lot more enjoyable.
David Caruso:
You know, 20, 30 years ago, that's 40, 50 years ago, handshake deals that we'd make deals on. I'm still of that thinking and because my dad kind of put into my mind, whatever you say, son, you must do that. was kind of like a philosophy, but not everybody plays for by those rules. So you just got to be like, it's nice to be the nice guy. It's nice to be fair and things, but just be conscious that it's a bit of a rough world out there and not everybody's playing on the same ruleset as.
Nigel:
Yeah.
David Caruso:
As you're playing.
Nigel:
Yep, yep. Now David, one last question before we wrap it up. Do you have a business success philosophy that you abide by, that you'd like to pass on?
David Caruso:
Hmm?
David Caruso:
Hmm business successful. So I I think once again, I don't say I'm successful in business, but I've kind of done. All right There's one thing that I used to say my in my presentations like I do by this Actually all my presentations. It's something I live by To be successful in business. You don't have to be the best at what you do You just have to be the better marketer. You just have to be the best marketer. So now.
David Caruso:
I'm making the assumption that you're kind of half decent at what you do. You're putting out some crappy product. You've to be half decent, but you've got to be a better marketer than you are a business owner. Whereas a lot of people concentrate on, well, how many times do you see it that a great plumber, a great builder, a great whatever, and they're very good at the trade, very good at their craft, but they don't get the business success that they deserve.
Nigel:
Yeah.
Nigel:
Mm-hmm.
Nigel:
Year.
David Caruso:
And marketing is understanding your target market, designing your product. There's a big difference between marketing and advertising. lot of people don't understand. Advertising is obviously going to the world and say, hey, I sell this. That's what corporations, big business do. Us as business, small business owners, we're marketers. So I go to the, I understand my target market, go to the marketplace, I understand what they're looking for, what price points, who my competition, I understand. And then I package my product and service to meet that demand.
David Caruso:
If we're marketers or small business owners, we get a better return on investment from our limited marketing spend. Our marketing spend is obviously tied up as a KPI to our revenue. We wanna increase the revenue, so we increase our marketing spend, but we gotta get that best ROI from that limited marketing spend. marketing, once again, human operations.
Nigel:
Yeah.
David Caruso:
Well, actually also in my business, kind of try to phase myself out of day-to-day operations, become the weak link in the operations. Your SOPs, your standard operating procedures, your systems and procedures should be running the business, directing the team to run the business. But I suppose to answer your question succinctly, in roundabout way, sorry about that, be a better marketer than a business, you know.
Nigel:
So, like the old Big Mac analogy, it's not the best hamburger out there.
David Caruso:
100 % McDonald's is rubbish stuff, but they're worldwide brand for hamburgers and what have you.
Nigel:
Yeah, although I think they may pull their sponsorship of the podcast, but never mind, we'll survive.
David Caruso:
What a shame. Actually, just on that marketing too, I just want to put an addendum on that. As small business owners, we don't have to out market the Coca Colas and the McDonald's of the world. You reminded me. We don't have to out market the big corporations in the world. In a lot of cases, we only have to out market our closest competition. So me as a higher company in Blacktown, Sydney, as a party high company.
David Caruso:
I don't have to out market Coca-Cola, Bunnings or anything. I just have to out market the other party hire companies. And it's the same philosophy, actually, my daughter, I should use my daughter as an example. My daughter, when we first started, she said, that these, she started as a piano teacher. She does 13 different instruments now, but she'd done piano all her life. But she's, but the other instruments are taught by obviously, know, teachers that she employs. But she was a piano teacher and she said.
David Caruso:
There's some very smart piano teachers out there, they know a lot more than I do. I said, it doesn't matter darling, we've just got to be a better marketer than these piano teachers and I can tell you what, I think we can. So that's how she became successful or she's got a very good business.
Nigel:
Yeah, as you said earlier, it's no good being the best at something if no one knows about it.
David Caruso:
100%, 100%, 100%. So my daughter wasn't the best piano teacher in Sydney, but she quickly grew to hundreds of students.
Nigel:
Well, David, on that note, look, thank you very much for the chat. It's been an absolute pleasure having you on the podcast and catching up with you. It's been great. And look, all the success in the business and with your family. I look forward to having you on again sometime.
David Caruso:
Thanks, buddy. That's how I Enjoyed the time together. We had a nice talk beforehand about your app. Congratulations on your newly launched app I think that's that's a big winner and I look forward to seeing how that Progresses so I'll be touching base with every so often to get updates on how well that's going to go.
Nigel:
Thank you.
Nigel:
Well, thank you, please do. Okay, so.
David Caruso:
About.
Nigel:
Okay, thank you David. Now that wraps up this episode of the Priority Lane podcast. Tune into future episodes. We have some exciting guests coming up. For now, take care and have a great day.
David Caruso:
Nigel, thank you very much.