Ep.54 Don't Count the People You Reach. Reach the People That Count with Robert Gerrish

For the past twelve years, Robert Gerrish has been Australia's leading small business advocate, providing support and resources to entrepreneurs who are going it alone through his company Flying Solo. The membership of the Flying Solo community has surpassed over 100,000 small businesses in Australia, which is quite a significant feat, as there are only 2.2 million businesses in Australia. If you add in the numbers of the company's social media networks, it's clear Robert has positioned himself as the go-to man in the small business world.

What's striking though is Robert has designed his company to be a lifestyle business, dedicating himself to helping other solopreneurs become successful, but on his terms. In our conversation, we focus on his philosophy of pursuing work that you love and why he firmly believes in meaningfully impacting a smaller niche rather than scaling up his work to grow a larger practice. If you have a small business or are looking at leaving the corporate world to do so, you will get serious value from this episode.

We get really into all of this too:

• Building a business with a clearly designed objective, not through randomness

• Why it's necessary to evaluate the value of clients

• How Robert came to find his niche audience of supporting solo entrepreneurs

• The logistics of managing a nonlocal team, without losing a member in 12 years

• Understanding where your return on investment comes from

• The only statistical number about your audience that a business should care about

• Why a Facebook post that had 47,000 comments and 165,000 shares is meaningless

• The common struggle of business owners who do not promote the outcome of their work

• How Robert's role has evolved from front-end marketer to removing himself from the center of attention

• Why leaving a personal legacy through your business should not be the end goal

• Plus loads more…