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Box Advisory Services

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Produced & Edited by - Morgan Brown
‍Interviewers - Carrie Kwan and Lucy Kippist
‍Guest - Davie Mach

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Ep 65 Transcript

00:01:13:19 - 00:01:38:03

Carrie or Lucy

Today's guest is a finance and tax and accounting expert who is passionate about making this side of business life easier for business owners. So we like him already. The other part of today's story is that our guest Davie Mach is, founder of Box Advisory Services and one of our experts started his business six years ago. But more recently, he brought in a business partner who is also his fiancee.

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00:01:38:23 - 00:01:52:06

Carrie or Lucy

So today's discussion will be a little bit around the dynamic running of a business with your life partner and the types of boundaries, processes and thinking you need to put in place for everything to work in harmony. A big welcome, Davie.

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00:01:53:01 - 00:01:56:16

Davie Mach

Thank you very much, guys. I'm glad to be here honoured as well.

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00:01:57:08 - 00:02:12:12

Carrie or Lucy

Thanks so much. We are too. And we love hearing business owners share their journey. Give us a pitch so we can quickly grasp what amazing work that you do with confidence and clarity. Davie, can you please share yours?

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00:02:13:02 - 00:02:32:24

Davie Mach

Sure. So basically, I don't really have a pitch prepared the last three years during the pandemic. It's been so crazy for us accountants and I, you know, clients are knocking on our door constantly, so. And I haven't been seeing many clients because of the pandemic. So then have a pitch ready, but I'll give it a go anyway. Quite nervous actually.

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00:02:33:17 - 00:02:57:08

Davie Mach

So basically the thing with my business is that I was actually very frustrated as an accountant. I've been accounting for 16 years of my life when I first started my business, I was ten years into business, ten years into accounting, and I didn't enjoy the fact that it was all about timesheets or about money or about charging the clients, but not giving the right advice to clients.

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00:02:57:18 - 00:03:21:02

Davie Mach

And I see that accountants in the old way of doing things were already there. Like we were the guys that the bean counters will prepare the taxes, will prepare the financials and tell the business owner how much they need to pay in taxes. And give them the numbers that they kind of already know, because they can see how much money they've made, because they've been in the business for multiple years.

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00:03:21:02 - 00:03:42:21

Davie Mach

So we are always looking at historical figures and what I wanted to do in my business is to be the sounding board for business owners. And I find that a lot of business owners, they need a business partner or someone to advise them in their business so they can make better decisions. And it's very similar to having a life partner in your life, in your life.

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00:03:43:03 - 00:04:05:06

Davie Mach

And everyone wants one. And the reason why, well, most people want one and the reason why they want one is because they want someone to support them to have a sounding board. And when it comes to problems in their life and it makes life a lot more enjoyable and easier, and I find that accountants and the way I created Box Advisory Services, we’rethat support for business owners.

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00:04:05:14 - 00:04:26:03

Davie Mach

So business owners need to make very heavy decisions hard decisions in their business. And it's not a good idea. And I know a lot of people do this too, but they go back home and they ask their life partner, what should I do about my business? And sometimes the life partner makes decisions very emotionally. They don't even know the whole situation of the business.

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00:04:26:10 - 00:04:39:15

Davie Mach

And so they might be giving the wrong advice. So as accountants are a sounding board and we help the business to make decisions based on numbers that of their business so they make better decisions for their business.

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00:04:40:01 - 00:05:07:07

Carrie or Lucy

I love how you describe it as that partnership, because being in business is a like you say, it's heavy, it can be hard and also a long journey. Right. It's this is a it's a bit of a long term game because when you start it, you hopefully want to do it for a few years, like maybe a five year type of, you know, to put all your energy into building something out of nothing.

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00:05:08:00 - 00:05:44:06

Carrie or Lucy

You know, I love how you also mentioned the the right type of advice because your partner is absolutely there to emotionally support you and want the best for you. But they don't see it from a business lens necessarily. Yeah. And they perhaps don't know that sort of, you know, the cyclical journey, right? The the ups and downs of it, you know, knowing that you might just be at the precipice of a bit of a change where it's going to it's going to go up or improve or actually, it's, you know, there's some signals that we need to buckle in, you know, buckle down.

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00:05:44:06 - 00:05:47:04

Carrie or Lucy

So I love that partnership analogy.

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00:05:47:04 - 00:06:10:20

Davie Mach

Yeah. And the accountant is there. So they can tell you that it's going to be okay because we've checked all the numbers for the next 12 months and yes, it's going to be tough on these mums so they can mentally prepare themselves. And that's why I find that when we first started, when I first started in the accounting business, a lot of entrepreneurs and business owners said that this is exactly what we needed.

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00:06:11:00 - 00:06:22:19

Davie Mach

And then our previous accountant didn't do that. They were just there to prepare taxes and tell us our numbers or they'd never even had an accountant and they just relied on their bank account to tell them how much money they made.

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00:06:24:11 - 00:06:50:24

Lucy or Carrie

Yeah. And that that's super interesting because it's almost like being reactive and then and then proactive, isn't it, in terms of the accounting space. And we know that, you know, getting on top of finances or even understanding them is is a barrier for a lot of our community members. And we know that, you work and we work with a lot of small business owners, as you say, varying stages of business experience.

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00:06:50:24 - 00:07:11:15

Lucy or Carrie

So without giving all of your professional secrets away, but is there sort of like is there a hack or is there a tip or is there even a mindset that you think that someone who's currently feeling overwhelmed with the financial aspect of their business could adopt in order to make it kind of just a bit more easeful?

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00:07:12:14 - 00:07:36:12

Davie Mach

Yeah, that's a great question, by the way. So what I always tell all my business owners, whenever they just started in business or wherever they have just they've been in business for more than five years or they're making millions of dollars. I always tell them to invest in themselves, and that's one of the most crucial things you need to do and you kind of constantly invest in yourself.

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00:07:36:16 - 00:07:59:24

Davie Mach

And I've been doing that constantly for the last 16 years in accounting. I still learn so much about accounting every single week. We had a staff meeting and one of the employees were teaching us about superannuation and all the new rules and superannuation. And we sat down with a Q&A after and we went off and did our own research after that.

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00:08:00:07 - 00:08:25:05

Davie Mach

So it's really important to invest in yourself. And I believe that a lot of business owners, they get the wrong advice where they say outsource to accounting and finance work straight away because it's boring, because it's hard. It's not crucial or not that important. So you can outsource it. I actually think that's bad advice. I think that for business owners, they should learn and understand the numbers before they outsource at work.

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00:08:25:16 - 00:08:50:04

Davie Mach

And I see that a lot of business owners don't actually understand accounting and tax throughout the whole journey of running a business. And that's a crucial part of their business. You know, that making money and doing day to day operations is important, but without knowing your numbers, you don't actually know how your business is going and how to keep it alive.

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00:08:50:12 - 00:09:11:14

Davie Mach

And essentially flying blind. And if you don't do your taxes in accounting or and you or you outsource it out, you're basically handing the keys to your car like your prized car to someone else. And don't get me wrong, people do this all, all the time. Like I would give my car out, too, for someone else to drive because I can't be bothered driving myself.

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00:09:11:14 - 00:09:32:22

Davie Mach

But when I give my car to someone, I need to know that that person knows how to drive the car. And they're a good driver because this is my pride and joy. So how do you know that that person's a good driver? You need to know how to drive yourself. That's the same thing that goes for accounting. Learn how to do yourself and then outsource that work.

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00:09:33:07 - 00:09:52:08

Davie Mach

Because a lot of people out there just go, I'm fed up with accounting. I don't even I don't understand it. It drives me nuts. And I just palm it off straight away. I think it's very important for you to learn to find yourself and educate yourself and speak to accountants to, you know, fully understand what accounting is, how to do it.

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00:09:52:19 - 00:09:54:06

Davie Mach

And so you can run your business better.

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00:09:55:06 - 00:10:11:03

Lucy or Carrie

That's brilliant. Advice is like know what you don't know as well. So exactly, yes. If you don't if you don't understand the basics, you don't really understand what you don't know. It's like pushing it all over, going it. You just do it.

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00:10:11:03 - 00:10:32:09

Davie Mach

Yeah, it's tough. It's tough for business owners because it's like you don't learn it in school and you have to feel like you're a grown adult. So you don't want to feel vulnerable when it comes to accounting and tax. But the worst feeling ever for a business owners is not being able to sleep at night because they don't know how much tax they're going to be paying.

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00:10:32:09 - 00:10:58:03

Carrie or Lucy

So can I just drop in? I follow your videos because they're just so accessible and you break down the basics. And even though I'm a two time business owner, I sometimes go, Oh, yeah, that's, you know, that's right. Or I didn't actually know that. Or It's just that sort of refresher. Do you feel like I know this sense of weird, but do you feel like sometimes your clients may not necessarily want to ask you those questions?

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00:10:58:03 - 00:11:00:11

Carrie or Lucy

Like they don't want to seem like they don't know what they're doing?

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00:11:01:09 - 00:11:24:10

Davie Mach

Yeah, not 100%. A lot of people apologize for asking them questions every single day. To me and for me I, I always say to them like Isaac questions because you don't know what, you don't know why. And I always say to them back then when I was a business owner, I sorry, not even a business. Then when I was the accountant, I asked the same questions and I was I had a degree.

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00:11:24:10 - 00:11:48:02

Davie Mach

I started a chartered accounting program in school. And I still ask these silly questions because you don't learn anywhere. And the crazy thing about this is that people say it's okay for you to make the mistakes and, you know, stuff up and fail your business. Sometimes the fail, the failure, the consequences are very disastrous to your emotional or mental health.

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00:11:48:20 - 00:12:29:00

Davie Mach

And it could cause significant issues with your family. So it's better that you try to minimize the consequences by learning as much as you can and asking that silly question, because it actually could save and make or break your business as always, your, you know, your family. I, I tend to find that it's also in the attitude and the like I spoke to I'm Asian background and I speak to a lot of older generation clients and they always say to me that I feel embarrassed to ask the accountant because we see accountants as, you know, very professional, you know, very wise people.

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00:12:29:08 - 00:12:43:18

Davie Mach

So we find it rude sometimes to ask silly questions. And I say, well, I'm a young person, I'm younger than you. You can ask all the questions you want. Wouldn't matter. So yeah, I totally agree with you, Carrie.

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00:12:43:18 - 00:12:52:21

Carrie or Lucy

There are no dumb questions, right? Like, yeah, well, there are other questions we just have to answer.

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00:12:52:21 - 00:13:16:10

Davie Mach

Yeah. And it's funny because like, I talk to my clients like they're friends now. I have them on WhatsApp, you know, they send me funny photos, you know. So it's very chilled the relationship I have with my clients. So I develop that type of relationship. I prefer that because then, yeah, they can ask silly questions and it would be okay and sometimes I ask silly questions to them as well.

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00:13:18:01 - 00:13:38:00

Lucy or Carrie

Thank you. I want to turn the conversation now a little bit to how you run your business. And as we mentioned in the intro that you've run your business for six years, what is it that you've had to stop doing as a business group to keep it aligned in terms of where you want it to head and how you want it to work?

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00:13:38:24 - 00:14:07:07

Davie Mach

Mm hmm. So I just think about this one. What did I have to stop? I always say to a lot of business owners that there's a difference between self-employed and running a business. And it's only recently that I had to stop being a technician in my business. So what I define a technician is someone that is an expert. They know basically the ins and outs of, you know, their field.

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00:14:07:15 - 00:14:35:19

Davie Mach

They do really good work. And I think there's a difference between, yeah, being self-employed versus running a business. Technicians, self anomaly people that are really great self-employed business owners, they care about efficiency, they're very good at making money, but they're also very good at not making mistakes in their field. And obviously there's a lot of profit to be made as well when they are very good at what they do because everyone wants to work with them.

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00:14:36:08 - 00:15:05:17

Davie Mach

But there's a problem with that because technicians run out of time. There's only so much time in the day that you can help people and they usually burn out. And the disadvantage of being a good technician or self-employed person is that you can't scale and you're like, you have a lack of time in your business. So as accountants don't have enough time to help all the clients that we have and during the pandemic, I realized that that was one big problem that I had.

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00:15:05:17 - 00:15:23:17

Davie Mach

I kept burning out every couple of months because I just worked way too hard. I was working day night mornings and it was a very big strain on my family as well as just me mentally. And so I wanted to be more of a business owner because I didn't want to give away, I didn't want to slow down.

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00:15:23:17 - 00:15:46:07

Davie Mach

I loved doing what I was doing. And so I decided that I need to take a bit of a step back in the in the business and hire new employees, train employees, trust them, build a really good relationship with my employees and coach them and motivate them because for my business, that's what I needed to do to ensure that I can grow.

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00:15:46:07 - 00:16:05:22

Davie Mach

Accounting businesses require human resources to be able to run, and I couldn't rush it, so I took the risks. I hired a bunch of employees, and so far it's worked out a lot. And I realized that now that I'm actually not self-employed anymore, I'm really running a business where I can take a step back and just rely on my employees.

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00:16:06:17 - 00:16:36:14

Davie Mach

And this really allowed me to grow the business more. I trust my employees and they do a very good job and that sometimes they do a better job than me these days. And I just love it. I love the fact that I can rely on these people and they prove me wrong. Like I said, I had a training session in the monthly meeting with the team and they were teaching me stuff about superannuation and that was just really cool to see.

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00:16:36:14 - 00:17:09:08

Carrie or Lucy

I think that thank you for sharing that journey and yeah, that, that moment. Sure. You know, that phase where it got that hard because I think that's very relatable to a lot of people that are on the small business path and you know, you do you do have to because you care so much. You care so much about all the details and it happens, you know, because you don't know that that's actually a wall that you're about to hit when you're going through this time as well.

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00:17:09:08 - 00:17:33:02

Carrie or Lucy

So I'm so glad that you've been able to see it pass through that. And you had taken the time to pause when you needed to and not quit. And you know that ability to take it out from a higher viewpoint and say, okay, well, if I want to grow, I do need more capability in the business.

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00:17:33:13 - 00:17:56:12

Carrie or Lucy

I need to be more efficient. So efficiency comes from processes or it comes from, you know, systems like technology and, you know, to make things automated and remove some of that. So it's a really, really good perspective I think, for a lot of our business owning community because about 80% of this is sole traders. So we micro-businesses that don't have other employees.

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00:17:57:17 - 00:18:10:15

Carrie or Lucy

So it's something that really I think now with technology and advancements and all the software programs that are out there, we can actually scale our businesses because there's only so much, so many hours in the day, as you say. Yeah.

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00:18:11:00 - 00:18:29:05

Davie Mach

And I think I'm sorry, Carrie, just by the end of it. And just to end and also to add a bit extra on is that a lot of business owners have, we're really worried about giving up a bit of their control. They don't want to take a step back because they think, one, they're going to lose money and two they their clients aren't going to be happy.

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00:18:29:05 - 00:18:57:02

Davie Mach

But sometimes you just got to be honest and transparent to your business, your clients. I actually spoke to my clients and said, look, I'm burning out. I need someone to help me. And they actually encouraged me to hire people. And they were very, very understanding when a new employee came on and they trusted the process, some clients were not as happy.

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00:18:57:02 - 00:19:15:14

Davie Mach

But when I sat down and spoke to them that I could continue to do this because if I could continue to do this, you would see me. I'm just going to burn out. And then there's not going to be a Box Advisory Services in a few years time. I needed to make this business sustainable. And to do this, I need to bring new people fresh blood.

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00:19:15:15 - 00:19:31:24

Davie Mach

They call it. I call guys fresh blood and they laugh all the time. But I call them fresh blood. And then they say to me and the clients say to me, Look, Davie, do what you need to do because I trust you. I trust you. And I know that your work and your employees will be learning off you, and eventually they're going to be really great employees.

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00:19:31:24 - 00:19:46:13

Davie Mach

So take a step back and just that's the point of business. Don't always feel like you need to be 100% or 120%. Yeah, take a step back. Sometimes you need to lose a bit of money before you can make some money.

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00:19:46:13 - 00:20:14:09

Carrie or Lucy

A very interesting perspective and communication is key, right? Communication and early communication. So in terms of the, you know, this might be a nice sort of transition into our next question around how you would describe your relationship to business risk? Are there any processes that you might have put in place as the business has actually grown to protect yourself?

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00:20:14:09 - 00:20:17:04

Carrie or Lucy

I think we've touched on a few.

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00:20:17:04 - 00:20:43:16

Davie Mach

Yeah, sounds great. So I don't know if everyone knows about accountants. I'm very risk averse. Where the most conservative bunch of like all business owners. And luckily for me, I also understand numbers. So when I first started in business, I actually had a plan A, a plan B, a plan C, a plan D and a plan like basically all the plans that you could have if business wasn't doing well.

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00:20:43:16 - 00:21:00:20

Davie Mach

I just had it. I just made sure that I had some sort of plan that I could fall back on. So when I started my business, I had $20,000 in the bank account. I also I had $40,000 in fees that I knew that I can make in the next few months. I also had $20,000 in credit card credit.

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00:21:01:12 - 00:21:29:03

Davie Mach

I also asked my family for funds if I needed that as well. So I just planned that if I failed, I could at least fail for the next two years. And that's like a process that's just embedded in me. Maybe because my parents were like that as well. They and my brothers were like that. I'm growing up. We were very poor and very disadvantaged, so we needed to make sure that we had enough money to survive on.

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00:21:29:11 - 00:21:48:10

Davie Mach

And so my brothers, they were all I'm the youngest in the family and my parents taught me that you need to make sure that you have a plan in place. So that was one thing that I needed to do when I set up my business. It gave me the time and commitment so I can do well. And a lot of business owners, they fail not because they have a bad product.

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00:21:49:13 - 00:22:13:18

Davie Mach

A lot of businesses have a bad product because they don't give themselves enough time and money for the business owner to keep trying with that business. And I see it so many times where they get advice, where they just want to jump into the business as quick as possible so they don't have enough cash left over to even keep the business running for a little while when it starts making losses.

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00:22:14:00 - 00:22:33:07

Davie Mach

So they have this product and when they implement it into the market, they need to test it and they need to fine tune it. They need to get the price right. And sometimes they just don't give enough leeway for the next six months or even two years for them to keep running this business at a loss so they can start making profit later on down the track.

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00:22:33:09 - 00:22:55:04

Davie Mach

They just have to be in it longer. And a lot of business owners fail because they can't be in that position longer because they run out of cash or mentally they don't have the mental headspace to take care of a business for two years or they have too many commitments on, you know, in life in general.

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00:22:55:04 - 00:23:19:15

Carrie or Lucy

That is such an insight. I thought, you know, we as a team and most of my team are all working parents. You know, we kind of think of plan A, B, C, but you've just taken it to EF. So I think that's a really, really interesting approach to think of sort of different scenarios that might play out and what your tolerances are.

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00:23:19:20 - 00:23:41:21

Carrie or Lucy

And great point too around, you know, it does take time and if I think about it I just went to an event with lots of different startup founders and angel investors and VCs last night. And if you look at that approach, they're actually looking at, you know, how do I actually fundraise for the next 12 to 18 months?

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00:23:41:21 - 00:23:54:14

Carrie or Lucy

So I've got that time to let my product get tweaked or my service get tweaked or even develop a relationship with a customer. Great. Yeah, great perspective.

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00:23:56:01 - 00:24:20:14

Davie Mach

Yeah, I agree. I don't even find it just for customers, its employees and your product. So it's important for you to just give it the time that it's needed. And, we live in a society right now. There's a lot of social media. So you're always watching people and growing their business and they go from 0 to 100 or 0 to $10 million in like 12 months.

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00:24:20:14 - 00:24:38:24

Davie Mach

That stuff, they're like, it doesn't mean that they've made the money or they're very profitable. So sometimes you just need to stop listening to what's shown on social media because it's sometimes too good to be true and take the time that you need in your business.

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00:24:38:24 - 00:24:59:03

Lucy or Carrie

Such great advice, Davie. I'm going to talk about now a risk of a different kind than risk might be the completely wrong word in here. So I mean, no offense by this, but you know, you shared with us that your life partner. So your fiancee, Molly, joined your business a couple of years ago now, is that correct?

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00:24:59:16 - 00:25:29:23

Davie Mach

Yeah. So Molly started with me, I would say in December. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, she started in December. She's an absolute gun ar Box AS and, she's a lovely lady and she is so charismatic and very motivational and she's just that works really, really good with the team as well. But she is my partner, so yeah.

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00:25:30:06 - 00:25:38:24

Lucy or Carrie

Yeah, you know, that's fantastic. But how do you actually work that to your end and also for your relationship?

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00:25:39:10 - 00:26:04:10

Davie Mach

Yeah. Yeah. So that's a really great question. Surely Shirley Is my partner, Shirley also accountant and also does work in the business. And as you probably would have realized, she is nowhere to be seen at all. She is quite a she's quiet and she's introverted when it comes to accounting and business. So she runs the back end and I run the front end in business.

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00:26:04:18 - 00:26:29:03

Davie Mach

She looks after employees. She looks after the processes she's been accounting for more than 12 years as well. And we actually met, you know, at work as well. So not at the current work that obviously my business we worked the office with back in the day and once we met we were friends at first and then we started getting along and then we started dating.

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00:26:29:03 - 00:26:56:08

Davie Mach

So it's a strange, right? Like having working in a office with a bunch of ladies as well as having my partner did it, I think communication's really important. Shirley trusts me like she trusts me and I trust her. And when I hire employees or when I work with, you know, business partners like Molly, I need to ensure that my life partner is also okay with her.

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00:26:56:08 - 00:27:15:12

Davie Mach

And, you know, she sees her as not a threat or not like, you know, someone that I she gets jealous of, but someone that would definitely improve the business. And surely when I spoke to her about Molly, I actually had this relationship with Molly for quite some time. We worked together for 12. We spoke together for 12 months.

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00:27:15:17 - 00:27:39:19

Davie Mach

Shirley has met her before, so that's when when Molly came on board and worked with us, she was completely happy with the situation because she knew that it was good for the business and it was good for us that Molly came on board. And it's it's a very strong trust. We actually go out to dinner together with Molly's partner as well, to make sure that he's okay with the whole situation.

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00:27:39:19 - 00:27:58:07

Davie Mach

And yeah, like it's just a purely a business relationship, but also friendship that we have together. So that's how we do it I guess. But at times when it comes to Shirley, like, you know, working with your life partner, there are some issues. So like a lot of people used to say to me, like, well, how would you work with your your partner?

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00:27:58:07 - 00:28:20:20

Davie Mach

I like it's a issue that's like it's a problem destined to, like, you know, blow up in your face. I've worked with Shirley back in the day as well, and I quit my job because one of the reasons why I quit my job when I worked with Shirley was, yeah, we started dating. And then Shirley actually didn't just work with me at work.

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00:28:20:20 - 00:28:52:16

Davie Mach

She also worked with me before. She worked with me twice in this company. So the first time that she worked with me, I technically fired her. And the reason why I technically fired her was that we were just too small of a business. It was just too difficult because we didn't make that much profit. So to have her and Shirley, which was a highly trained accountant as well as myself and another person that was very highly trained, it took too much of a toll in the company and I was too close with Shirley.

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00:28:52:16 - 00:29:11:07

Davie Mach

Like, I would I would wake up like with Shirley as well, and then I'll go to work with Shirley. But we would also literally work in the same room and work on the same jobs and projects together. And it was just too much talking together. So I thought that when we were running the business and we were very young, it may have been not a good idea for us to work together.

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00:29:11:16 - 00:29:42:04

Davie Mach

So I told I technically told her that, hey, I think it's a good time for you to find another job. She was very upset at first, but I explained the whole situation to her and she understood so she actually, you know, decided to take up another job and worked at another a company. It was only until I grew to business, hired more employees and had enough funds in the business to to run the business better and have, like different departments and processes in place.

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00:29:42:09 - 00:30:07:13

Davie Mach

That's when Shirley came back on board. So it took, I believe, a year and a half for Shirley to come back on board and I get rehired as a manager in the business. And we've built a client base, we had teams, we had different types of services. And then Shirley came back in. And I think that was essential for the business because now Shirley, we have different teams that we manage.

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00:30:07:22 - 00:30:32:03

Davie Mach

We do have meetings together, but the communications are great. We don't actually talk on a daily basis. So sometimes when I get back home and she gets back home because sometimes she's working at home and I sometimes work at the office and I, we, we meet at dinner and I go, How's your day? And she actually has stories to talk to me about that I don't know what's going on because I always run the front end and she runs the back end.

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00:30:32:16 - 00:30:38:03

Davie Mach

So it's really interesting.

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00:30:38:03 - 00:31:04:17

Carrie or Lucy

So yeah, I think, you know, just even coming back to being clear on everyone's, everyone's roles, right? It runs very I mean, having sort of that clarity on which job is is your job and which job is my job and what we're sort of accountable for and good communication. At our recent Be MPowered conference Molly was at the helm of Our Livelihood breakout session for our digital attendees, making lots of amazing connections.

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00:31:04:17 - 00:31:14:06

Carrie or Lucy

I'm wondering what you look at post when you're making a business connection specifically online and is there any prep that you do or key information that you might look out for?

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00:31:14:06 - 00:31:46:01

Davie Mach

Yeah, so I think I take a very traditional way of approaching it. I actually get someone that may know that person to introduce me and but I actually don't just go for, you know, clients or business referral partners. I actually make sure that I do a whole range of people to meet sometimes I like. I'm always actively looking for mentors because I find that like in business, like you grow at different stages.

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00:31:46:09 - 00:32:06:11

Davie Mach

And you know, when I was a business owner of three years ago, four years ago, I mean, I needed different types of mentors or that at that stage. And now that, you know, I'm running a kind of business with 20 plus people, I need another mentor that has been there and done that and turned his $1 million business into, you know, $100 million.

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00:32:06:20 - 00:32:32:18

Davie Mach

So I'm always actively looking for mentors, and I do that by speaking to friends, other business owners about my problems and asking them for advice and asking them for, you know, contacts of, you know, very successful people that have been through what I've been through. So I can get that advice. And I approach them sometimes through a referral.

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00:32:32:18 - 00:33:00:05

Davie Mach

I throw a recommendation or sometimes I actually even just contact them on LinkedIn and message them. I know sometimes you just get rejected or sometimes they just ghost you, but it's not a big deal. People are busy in their life and as long as team mates, you tried to say the hello before, you know, maybe a year later or two years later you might bump into them and then you go, hey, by the way, I, I tried to reach out to you here a year ago, and it's a conversation starter.

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00:33:00:08 - 00:33:29:15

Davie Mach

Like it's happened a few times before where this referral panel I really wanted to work with two years ago, I contacted them and they ignored me or they rejected me. I think rejected me. And now in 2022, they're one of the biggest legal firms in Australia. And they contacted me randomly and I mentioned to them that I actually contacted them two years ago and it was really a really funny experience to talk about it.

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00:33:29:15 - 00:33:56:11

Davie Mach

And then we joked around about it after and it's it's great and motivational to finally get recognized. So that's kind of one way I do it when it comes to clients. I always have an open book where it's very easy to contact me and I say yes to a lot of meetings, and I guess that's probably not the best thing to do as well, because then you don't really value your time.

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00:33:56:11 - 00:34:18:10

Davie Mach

You are always meeting with people. But I feel like as a business owner that has been in business for six years, it's been tough for the first couple of years and sometimes I see my clients or people that I meet, they have the same issues that I have been through. So I just want to inspire them or help them go through the experiences that I went through.

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00:34:18:14 - 00:34:23:03

Davie Mach

And so they don't make the mistakes that I made.

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00:34:23:03 - 00:34:49:22

Lucy or Carrie

That's lovely. Davie, thank you so much for joining us on my ambition today. And if you'd like to find out more about Davie and Box Advisory, you can find Davie himself on our Get Advice tab on the Mums & Co platformSo you can book a one on one expert session with him or you can join one of his tax and accountancy workshops that we've booked for 2023.

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