Hiring and Leadership

What the sessions actually say

1. Fund the first product from a services business, not a raise

   Frank's signage and brochure business gave him paying customers, gross margin and intimate knowledge of the industry's pain points before he built any software. He recommends the same reverse order: pick the sector, run a services business that needs no capital, then build tech for the inefficiencies you have personally suffered. He cites Relume (now 50,000 users) which started as a website agency before building its design and component library.

   Frank GreeffBootstrapping to a $180M sale to Domain →

2. Hold off a funding round until you have around 10 paying customers

   Frank's view is that each stage of funding trades a disproportionately larger slice of equity for a smaller cheque. His advice to a founder self-funding a SaaS product out of her marketing agency was that if you can prove product-market fit with roughly 10 paying customers first, you buy yourself a significantly better valuation. He points to Antler's model of 10% of a company for $170,000, valuing it at $1.7 million, as an example of how cheap early equity is.

   Frank GreeffBootstrapping to a $180M sale to Domain →

3. Create optionality before any partnership or merger negotiation

   Frank negotiated a 50/50 merger with a company doing $37 million revenue when Realbase was doing $4.5 million, because he genuinely did not need the deal. He warns against putting all your eggs in one basket, citing a founder who spent 2.5 years in due diligence on a single $350 million buyer and had it fall through. Even if the first co-founder or investor turns out to be the right one, tease out other options first so your confidence is real and felt.

   Frank GreeffBootstrapping to a $180M sale to Domain →

4. Balance speed with a pause before you build

   Frank credits compressing the gap between idea and execution for Realbase's growth, but says they took it too far. They launched the Realbase tech product and rebuilt it three times inside a year because they had chased the wrong customer and wrong product market fit. At Kinzo he is spending 10 to 20 times more time on user experience and design than he did at Realbase, deliberately celebrating thinking time while still moving at pace.

   Frank GreeffFrank Greeff: Lessons From a $180M Exit, Applied Again →

5. Run a three-month trial before you hand over equity

   Frank's rule for any co-founder or joint venture: if you have never worked together, do not sign. Instead set up a three-month window where you work together exactly as you would as equity partners, with clearly agreed levers on both sides for either party to walk away. Everything looks like blue skies on paper. The realities of business are what break partnerships, and he has seen VC-backed businesses go insolvent purely because two founders split.

   Frank GreeffFrank Greeff: Lessons From a $180M Exit, Applied Again →

6. Treat a shareholder as forever, because at exit they hold the pen

   At sale, Realbase had a shareholder who had not worked in the business for four years but still owned 7 percent. The team chased that person for six weeks with no reply, and could not complete the sale until they signed. Apply the same seriousness to equity given to employees. No handshake deals, and as Daniel Hakim's lawyer put it, contracts are not for when things are going well, they are for when things go bad.

   Frank GreeffFrank Greeff: Lessons From a $180M Exit, Applied Again →

7. Raise capital instead of waiting to save the fit out cost

   Caitlin and her co-founder were 25 with about $1,000 in the bank and a shopfront concept that needed over half a million dollars. They stalled for months assuming they had to save it. The unlock was pitching venture capital with three things: the problem in the market, their business as the solution, and the addressable market and opportunity for the investor. That raise is the only reason Facechelle launched.

   Panel EventBoa Live Panel: Brand, Team and Staying Power →

8. Say the words 'what does that mean' in the investor room

   Once the raise closed, Caitlin sat in board meetings feeling like an idiot, too embarrassed to admit she did not know a term, so she went quiet and let the conversation run past her. Jules does the opposite: she stops the conversation and asks what a word means, even if it looks silly. The cost of looking uninformed for ten seconds is far lower than the cost of agreeing to something you did not understand.

   Panel EventBoa Live Panel: Brand, Team and Staying Power →

9. Cold DM the person one step ahead of you

   Before launching Figur, Jules messaged the owner of Budgy Smuggler, a person she had never met, and asked to meet up. He said yes and shared what he had learned building an Australian apparel brand overseas. Jake Jaggard hired someone who found her through LinkedIn DMs and hustled her into a coffee. Her rule: you will not get a yes unless you ask the question.

   Panel EventBoa Live Panel: Brand, Team and Staying Power →

10. Build a referral engine with businesses that serve your customer but do not compete

    With no ad budget, Raso cold called web design companies, creative agencies and PR firms because they had clients who needed SEO but could not deliver it. He paid them a commission once the deal was signed, not on the lead. That channel grew the agency for years before it ever spent on paid ads. Ask who already sells to your customer and cannot do what you do, then offer them either a commission or a lead swap.

    Andrew RasoFrom $500 to 200 staff: how Andrew Raso scaled an agency →

11. Make a retainer or membership your first business model, at any price point

    Raso says the first thing any owner should build is recurring revenue, whether that is $50, $100, $1,000 or $2,000 a month. Predictable monthly income is what gives you the confidence to budget and, more importantly, the confidence to hire. Without it you stay stuck doing everything yourself. He points to e-commerce brands like pet food that moved customers onto subscription as the ones now winning.

    Andrew RasoFrom $500 to 200 staff: how Andrew Raso scaled an agency →

12. Test unglamorous cash flow mechanics like gift vouchers

    Raso cites his friend Babak Moini of Laser Clinics, who made most of his early money by putting laser clients on memberships. Selling gift vouchers turned out to be a second cash engine, because a large share of vouchers were never redeemed. The point is to actually trial these mechanics in your own business rather than assume they will not apply.

    Andrew RasoFrom $500 to 200 staff: how Andrew Raso scaled an agency →

13. Validate with free ebooks, then charge for the next one

    Chontel started NuForm's concept testing with free ebooks posted to her community and a comment-to-claim mechanic. Free downloads show genuine interest and grow the algorithm. Then she charged for ebooks, which showed what people actually placed value on. It costs nothing to run and it is still effective.

    Chontel DuncanChontel Duncan on validating a digital product cheaply →

14. Use newsletter behaviour as a live demand signal

    Track lifetime value on your email list, not just list size. Chontel watches how long subscribers stay, whether the response rate changes and whether people are still opening at all. When she pivots the content, subscriber and open behaviour tells her which one or two areas to feed and nourish.

    Chontel DuncanChontel Duncan on validating a digital product cheaply →

15. Sell a physical product to learn what you are not

    Chontel dabbled in apparel and a resistance band for at-home training around the start of COVID. It sold well, but it confirmed the business was best at training programs and nutrition. A side venture either pivots you in the right direction or signals what to stay focused on. Both answers are useful.

    Chontel DuncanChontel Duncan on validating a digital product cheaply →

16. Kill the commission breath before you walk in the door

    D'Leanne says clients can smell when a call is about your commission, not their outcome ("here come the shiny shoes"). Her fix is to spend the first part of any meeting on things that have nothing to do with the transaction, because the connection is what makes the relationship real. If you cannot do that honestly with a particular client, tell them you are not the right person for the job rather than performing a false version of yourself.

    D'Leanne Lewis33 years of relationship selling, from D'Leanne Lewis →

17. Make people think of you first, even for a plumber

    Her mentor Billy Bridges taught her that if someone is thinking about real estate, they should be thinking about you. D'Leanne extended that: she wanted people to call her if they needed a gardener, a plumber, or help for their mum. She worked Sundays and seven days a week, not to build a brand, but to make her name the default in one category.

    D'Leanne Lewis33 years of relationship selling, from D'Leanne Lewis →

18. Beat experience with enthusiasm and a call funnel

    With no runs on the board against shinier, older competitors, D'Leanne competed on effort: hardest working, most enthusiastic, best service, not stopping until the job was done. Practically, that meant hundreds of calls out of the office to get 10 people through, working those 10 to bring 5 back, working the 5 to get 2 back. If you are new, the numbers and the hours are the only proof you have.

    D'Leanne Lewis33 years of relationship selling, from D'Leanne Lewis →

19. Set a daily revenue number before anyone quits their job

    Don did not wait for a million dollar plan. The first milestone was a consistent $500 a day, enough to cover rent, before he left his job. Matilda's trigger was ten times that, roughly $5K a day, before she left recruitment. Pick a daily number tied to a real bill, hit it consistently, then make the leap.

    Don RobertsonSTAX: 10 Years of Building a Cult Activewear Brand →

20. Hire for demand, not for the org chart you want

    STAX's first meaningful hire was customer service, not marketing or brand. They had oversold a collection and were drowning in around 800 emails overnight on Outlook with no ticketing system. Matilda was answering them at 3am and giving things away for free. Hire into the place that is currently breaking, and hire someone who loves the brand but is not so emotionally invested that every angry email ruins them.

    Don RobertsonSTAX: 10 Years of Building a Cult Activewear Brand →

21. If you have to negotiate with yourself to hire someone, it is a no

    Don's rule after several bad hires. Matilda adds that every time they second-guessed their gut and hired anyway, it was a disaster. She also warns against treating interviews as a PR pitch: they used to run a PowerPoint on why you should work at STAX, and people arrived expecting the Instagram personalities rather than bosses. Make interviews an even exchange so both sides can test the fit honestly.

    Don RobertsonSTAX: 10 Years of Building a Cult Activewear Brand →

22. Stop trying to eliminate stress and aim for the Goldilocks level

    Dr Lillian uses the Yerkes-Dodson Law from a 1908 mouse study, where weak shocks produced slow learning, strong shocks produced distress and poor performance, and moderate arousal produced the best learning. Anything meaningful (a business, a relationship, children) carries stress. So the target is a moderate level of physiological activation, not zero, and every strategy should be chosen to move you toward that point rather than flatten you out.

    Dr Lillian NejadMaster Your Mental Game: regulate the body first →

23. Run the two minute short form of progressive muscle relaxation

    Tense and release muscle groups in sequence: squeeze the thighs and release, extend the fingers as far as they go and release, lift the shoulders to the ears and release, then cross the arms and hunch forward before opening the chest and sitting up straight. Notice the feeling after each release. Finish by scanning the body for any last remaining tension. Relaxation is incompatible with tension, and PMR has the strongest evidence base of any relaxation technique, dating to the 1930s.

    Dr Lillian NejadMaster Your Mental Game: regulate the body first →

24. Dose PMR twice a day for a week, then once a day for four weeks

    The long form takes 15 to 30 minutes, sitting or lying comfortably somewhere relaxing. Dr Lillian's protocol is twice daily for the first week, then once daily for four weeks, then grade it down. The point is that you learn the difference between tense and relaxed, so eventually you can just tell yourself to relax and the body follows without the full 20 minute exercise.

    Dr Lillian NejadMaster Your Mental Game: regulate the body first →

25. Book a daily 15 to 30 minute worry time and hold it like a meeting

    Dr Lillian's core strategy is to set aside a specific slot every day, ideally at the same time, for 15 to 30 minutes. Treat it exactly like a work meeting: a set time, a set place, and your worries as the agenda items. After a couple of weeks of doing it habitually you can adjust the timing to suit your schedule.

    Dr Lillian NejadWorry time: the clinical method for founders who overthink →

26. Choose an evening slot before dinner so worry does not follow you to bed

    Many people pick something like 5:30pm to 6:00pm, after work and before dinner. It catches the worries that accumulated during the day while you still have free time to do something about them. Dr Lillian says this also helps sleep, because you have already dealt with the things on your mind before you lie down.

    Dr Lillian NejadWorry time: the clinical method for founders who overthink →

27. Pick a worry place that is not your bedroom and not too comfortable

    Choose somewhere you can access every day, such as a particular table and chair, a corner of a room, or a spot at work. Deliberately avoid the bedroom so you do not train your brain to associate bed with worry. Avoid anywhere too comfortable, because worry time is meant to be short and focused, not a place you settle into.

    Dr Lillian NejadWorry time: the clinical method for founders who overthink →

28. Write the one-sentence version of your product before anything else

    Gael's first step is a piece of paper: what does the idea do, who is the audience, what is the target market, what is the business model. Then compress it to a single sentence, for example "a solution for business owners and entrepreneurs that lets them network and meet each other". That sentence becomes the test every feature has to pass.

    Gael DonnayHow to build an MVP without blowing your budget →

29. Work backwards from your feature wish list to find the MVP

    Take every feature you have imagined and remove them one at a time. For each, ask whether the solution still does what it needs to do and still delivers the value it has to deliver. What survives is the lean MVP. Gael quotes Steve Jobs: simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

    Gael DonnayHow to build an MVP without blowing your budget →

30. Sort features with the MoSCoW matrix and only build the must-haves

    When scope gets hard and budget is fixed, split every feature into must have, should have, could have and won't have. Only the must-haves belong in the MVP. Could-haves come later if budget allows, and Gael's view is that they generally should not. Be honest in the sorting, and expect your tech partner to push back.

    Gael DonnayHow to build an MVP without blowing your budget →

31. Hire a videographer before an assistant

    Jack's first hire at Henderson was a videographer, not an associate, PA or EA. He started with an iPhone and a camera on a tripod with his partner filming, editing on a laptop, which he found too slow to do volume. Bringing media in-house early meant marketing sat at the top of the funnel from day one, even when he had 600 followers and people thought walking around with a videographer was strange.

    Jack HendersonJack Henderson: content, hiring and buying your first property →

32. Separate reach content from converting content

    Jack's best performing posts are controversial or mass-market topics (a post on the new $3 million super contribution cap did very well) but they do not book calls. The content that converts is specific to his niche of small business owners and high-paid PAYG earners, and it usually gets fewer views. Track the direct correlation between content and booked calls, and do not let a social media hire optimise purely for views.

    Jack HendersonJack Henderson: content, hiring and buying your first property →

33. Post two to three times a day across three platforms

    Jack aims for one post in the morning, one at midday and one at night. Instagram and TikTok take the same short form content, so one asset covers both. LinkedIn gets written content, where he says organic reach with no connections or followers is unusually strong. A copywriter reviews his best performing video content and writes LinkedIn copy off the back of it, which he sometimes edits before posting.

    Jack HendersonJack Henderson: content, hiring and buying your first property →

34. Split your week into $10 and $100 an hour tasks on paper

    Jess grabs a sheet of paper and draws a line down the middle, writing $10 in one column and $100 in the other. Every task she does across the day and week gets handwritten into one column. Recording a session where no one else can stand in is a $100 task. Sitting on her phone drafting replies to client emails is a $10 task her team can do.

    Jess WhatmanHow to hire, brief and keep a great virtual assistant →

35. Benchmark against your hourly rate before you touch any task

    If your hourly rate is $250, do not do work you could pay someone else less than $250 an hour to do. Jess names the usual suspects: social media management, designing tiles in Canva, chasing invoices, data entry. Most of it can be done for $10 to $15 an hour by someone else.

    Jess WhatmanHow to hire, brief and keep a great virtual assistant →

36. Build a procedure in five minutes with Loom

    When you hit a task you hate, open Loom (free plan, around 100 videos of up to five minutes) and press record on your screen while you do the task, talking as you go. One more click turns the recording into a written procedure. Your VA gets both the video of you explaining it and the written steps, and you have spent five minutes.

    Jess WhatmanHow to hire, brief and keep a great virtual assistant →

37. Plan backwards from 3 years, then 12 months, then 90 days

    Start by describing what great looks like 3 years out across business metrics, brand positioning, market share, consumer perception, assortment and channels. Pull that back to 12 months with specific milestones you must hit to have conviction the 3-year picture is on track. Then pull back to 90 days and name the projects, the outcomes, the owner for each, how success is measured, and how it flows into team KPIs and incentives. Josh's point: the 3-year layer is your job, the 90-day layer is what you delegate.

    Josh SparksFrom operator to CEO: strategy, teams and tactical autonomy →

38. Aim for three conditions: strategic clarity, team alignment, tactical autonomy

    Strategic clarity means everyone knows what you are moving towards. Team alignment includes investors and board, not just staff. Tactical autonomy means the team runs the business day to day. Josh's line for the shift: you lead, coach and hold accountable the leadership team, and the team manages the business.

    Josh SparksFrom operator to CEO: strategy, teams and tactical autonomy →

39. Destroy your old idea of leadership before you can grow into the new one

    Josh uses the Buddhist cycle of growth, maintenance and destruction. When you are maintaining and want growth again, something must be destroyed first. For most founder CEOs the thing to destroy is a love of micromanagement and the fear that the team is not ready. The usual excuses (the team's not ready, I'm the only one who knows the detail, the systems aren't mature) are all solvable problems expressing the same underlying fear.

    Josh SparksFrom operator to CEO: strategy, teams and tactical autonomy →

40. Build up to your promise, do not start with it

    Sparks runs a brand pyramid workshop that takes roughly a day or two, and it works bottom up. Start with the central organising idea (your reason for being), then points of parity (the rational hygiene factors that get you on the field but never win the game), then points of difference (both rational and emotional), then your value set, then a single archetype, and only then the promise. Asked cold, most founders describe their offer ("we sell supplements", "we own hair salons") rather than a promise.

    Joshua SparksBuilding a brand promise that lifts company value →

41. Write the promise as two words you can build product against

    For MJ Bale the promise landed on "rugged elegance". The tailoring and knitwear could have drifted towards a soft English or Ralph Lauren feel, but founder Matt Jensen is the son of a sheep farmer with a farm in Barrow, so a tougher, functional element was authentic to him. Find the phrase that sits at the intersection of the category and the founder's real story, then make product decisions against it.

    Joshua SparksBuilding a brand promise that lifts company value →

42. Audit every touchpoint against the promise

    Once the promise is set, break it down across product, in-store experience, online experience, wholesale accounts, third party e-com platforms, all marketing, ambassadors and influencers. Every point where you touch the consumer either honours the promise or breaks it. Inconsistency is what fractures trust fastest, in brands the same as in personal relationships.

    Joshua SparksBuilding a brand promise that lifts company value →

43. Hire to take jobs off the founder, not to fill a job title

    Kirstin-Lee pushes back on the standard advice to hire a head of marketing or an e-commerce manager. Instead, open your calendar and ask what is clogging your focus, then employ someone to take those specific jobs away. Her reasoning: the most valuable person in the business is the founder, and buying back headspace is what lets the vision grow.

    Kirstin-Lee KeysersKivari's founder on delegation, brand filters and saying no →

44. Use the 80 per cent rule to force yourself to delegate

    The rule she keeps coming back to: if someone else can do the job at 80 per cent, that beats it being done at 100 per cent by you. She still catches herself wanting to jump back in and repeats the rule to stop herself. It works as a live filter every time you are tempted to take a task back off a team member.

    Kirstin-Lee KeysersKivari's founder on delegation, brand filters and saying no →

45. Audit your week on paper, then circle the two or three jobs only you can do

    Write down everything you did this week, including gym, cleaning the house and the school drop-off, not just work tasks. Then circle the jobs only the founder can do. Kirstin-Lee guarantees there will be two or three. Everything else gets delegated, systemised or deleted, and she says deleting is her favourite of the three.

    Kirstin-Lee KeysersKivari's founder on delegation, brand filters and saying no →

46. Audit the fuel source before you audit the strategy

    Lewis splits every action into two drivers: inspiration (pulled towards something, grateful, aligned) or desperation ("I'm not enough, I need this to be enough"). No behaviour is inherently unhealthy, the reason behind it is what matters. Before committing to a new offer, hire or raise, ask which of the two is driving it. If it is the second, the number you hit will not fix the feeling.

    Lewis HuckstepLewis Huckstep: purpose, values and the founder ego trap →

47. Build the personal plan in this order: purpose, mission, vision, values, outcomes

    Lewis works clients through a fixed sequence. Purpose is an expression of your greatest core wound and is not measurable (his is to heal and raise consciousness). Mission is the measurable version of it ("coach 100 million people to live a life that inspires them"). Vision is what life looks like once you hit the mission. Values are the areas of life that fulfil you. Outcomes are the master plan: five to ten year mission, then three year, two year, twelve month, quarterly, monthly, weekly and daily goals.

    Lewis HuckstepLewis Huckstep: purpose, values and the founder ego trap →

48. Find your purpose by asking what you needed at your lowest

    Lewis says your purpose comes from your core wound. His father punched holes in walls and physically hurt his family, so he felt unsafe and hurt, and Asperger's meant he felt misunderstood and struggled to make friends. That produced a mission to heal others and help them understand themselves. Sit with the question "where was I at my lowest, and what did I need back then?" then ask how you give that back. Lewis says you get tears of inspiration when you land on the real one.

    Lewis HuckstepLewis Huckstep: purpose, values and the founder ego trap →

49. Give every weekday a fixed content pillar and stop deciding

    Lexie's core practical advice is to map your week: Monday education, Tuesday promotional, Wednesday testimonials, and so on, then repeat it every week. She argues generic advice like "be consistent" never gets applied, but a Monday-to-Friday formula makes content bite-sised and actually doable. Pick the pillars that suit your business and lock the days in.

    Lexie MurrayLexie Murray on organic social, influencers and content pillars →

50. Post promotional content Thursday night or Friday

    Lexie schedules selling posts to land when people have been paid. She noted that a lot of the Big Four pay salaries on those days, so people are ready to spend on a Friday. Feed the timeline when the money is in the account, not on a Monday.

    Lexie MurrayLexie Murray on organic social, influencers and content pillars →

51. Use the four content pillars if you refuse to be on camera

    Around half of Be Seen Socials' clients fit four pillars: promotional (what you sell), educational (the problem area, not the product), aspirational (the brand world and lifestyle around it) and influencer/customer (testimonials and creators). All four can be executed with no founder face. Build consistency across those four and you get enough relatability to carry the brand.

    Lexie MurrayLexie Murray on organic social, influencers and content pillars →

52. Be the boob doctor, not the general practitioner

    Lisa coached electricians, carpet layers and any small business that came her way, and it satisfied nobody. A mentor asked her whether she had ever seen the cars a boob doctor drives, because specialists get paid like specialists. She niched entirely into women running DTC brands and the business took off, because she could speak to one group's pain points intimately instead of applying general logic to everyone.

    Lisa JonesLisa Jones: pick one lane and let customers write your copy →

53. Choose a market you have already been part of

    Daniel Hakim quotes Mark Bouris: make your market someone you are, or someone you have been before. Lisa agrees, adding that most women build a product because they solved their own problem, whether that is skin, gut health or a baby product. You need a real story attached to the business, because people sniff out inauthenticity and do not buy.

    Lisa JonesLisa Jones: pick one lane and let customers write your copy →

54. Check the market is big enough to pay your price

    Passion is only half the test. Lisa's second filter is whether thousands of people will pay the price you need to make money. If only about 1,000 people in Australia need the product, and they need it once, you will always be doing a hard sell. Premium pricing is fine, cheap is not the point, but there has to be real appetite so the product is easy to sell rather than a grind.

    Lisa JonesLisa Jones: pick one lane and let customers write your copy →

55. Split leverage into three buckets, not just borrowed money

    Most people hear leverage and think financial leverage, using someone else's money to buy assets. Lloyd defines it as capital leverage, people leverage and systems leverage. Long hours happen when a founder has none of the last two. Audit which of the three you actually have before blaming your workload.

    Lloyd James RossDelegate to systems and people, then scale on partnerships →

56. Write the can't, don't want to, shouldn't list

    Lloyd's delegation filter is three columns: things you can't do, things you don't want to do, and things you shouldn't do. The shouldn't column is anything priced below your average hourly rate as an entrepreneur. Those go first. He points to Dan Sullivan's Who Not How: delegate everything but your genius.

    Lloyd James RossDelegate to systems and people, then scale on partnerships →

57. Start delegating outside the business before you touch the business

    The cheapest first step is getting someone else to wash your car and clean your house. Low-value personal tasks are the training wheels for delegation. If you never build the habit, Lloyd says you end up working 60 to 70 hours a week for the same money you would have earned in a 9-to-5.

    Lloyd James RossDelegate to systems and people, then scale on partnerships →

58. Automate invoices into Xero with a Claude Code routine

    Luke's exact method: open Claude Code (not Chat, not Coworker), ask it to connect Xero via the MCP connector, then say "set up a routine task to pull any invoices that come through my emails and put them into Xero as a bill". Anthropic and Xero have an official connection. Expect about half an hour of configuring. Luke runs his routine three times a day.

    Luke HekaLuke Heka: simple AI systems that actually stick →

59. Understand routines versus managed agents before you build

    Inside Claude there are two options. Routines run on your Claude subscription, so nothing extra gets charged. Managed Agents run on an API key, which means a credit card and a charge every time you use it. For simple recurring jobs like email sorting or invoice capture, Luke uses routines so the cost stays inside the plan.

    Luke HekaLuke Heka: simple AI systems that actually stick →

60. Run the 60-40 split across every role before you automate

    Luke's audit: for each team member, work out what share of their week is boring repetitive work AI can do (roughly 60 per cent) and what share actually turns the business and makes money (roughly 40 per cent). Automate the 60. Then retrain the person on what the 40 now looks like. He learned this the hard way with a Mount Isa real estate office, where inspections were being booked automatically but nobody had told the team to just check the calendar.

    Luke HekaLuke Heka: simple AI systems that actually stick →

61. Run a cost refresh every couple of years, not just in a crisis

    Bouris says if you assume revenue stays flat, the first lever is cost, not sales. In March 2020 he cut overheads at his lending business by 30%. When volumes then doubled, he discovered he had been carrying people and space he never needed. He recommends a full cost refreshment every couple of years because of what it exposes about where you spend without need.

    Mark BourisMark Bouris on Costs, Cash Flow and Pricing for 2026 →

62. Cut the space you are not using and keep the saving

    Bouris gave up one of his two floors in Chifley Tower during COVID and saved a million dollars a year. He never took the second floor back. For the month of January the business wrote $3.5 billion, against roughly $1.8 billion pre-COVID with two floors and 30% more staff. Test whether your fixed footprint is sised for the business you had or the one you have.

    Mark BourisMark Bouris on Costs, Cash Flow and Pricing for 2026 →

63. Be direction ready: cut costs now, build capacity for the upswing

    Bouris expects rate rises to flatten the economy, then the Reserve Bank to reverse and stimulate again. His instruction is to control costs today while getting the business ready for revenue to turn up. That means more innovation, AI in the business, building inventories, or more efficient delivery systems, so you can take the opportunity when it arrives rather than starting from scratch.

    Mark BourisMark Bouris on Costs, Cash Flow and Pricing for 2026 →

64. Cut cost relative to revenue, then hunt the efficiencies that fall out

    Bouris says he does this in his own business: cut the cloth to suit, then use the process to discover where efficiencies actually sit. When money is loose everyone adds subscriptions, six more employees, across the board increases. A tight cycle exposes all of it. His framing is not "cut costs" for its own sake, it is keeping costs proportionate to revenue and then looking for what the exercise reveals.

    Mark BourisMark Bouris on branding, networking and surviving the down cycle →

65. Market hard now because everyone else has pulled up stumps

    Bouris expects the tough conditions to run at least another six to eight months. His point is that when the cycle turns next year it is too late to start marketing, because everyone will be doing it then. Use digital channels through the quiet period and make the content genuinely valuable, so the audience finishes it thinking that was good information about my industry.

    Mark BourisMark Bouris on branding, networking and surviving the down cycle →

66. Improve everything, not just sales, while demand is low

    When there is huge demand you spend every day just doing. Bouris says the down cycle is the time to work on the business: sales processes, employment processes, inductions, annual conferences. Fewer clients means more hours available to rebuild the machine rather than run it.

    Mark BourisMark Bouris on branding, networking and surviving the down cycle →