1068 – Reflections on Lessons Learned and Business Success

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Since James left his corporate job 16 years ago and pursued online business full-time, the shape of what he does has changed.

In this episode, he shares those changes, what his business was then and looks like now, and the great lessons he’s learned in the entrepreneurial journey.

You’ll hear what strategies went into his business growth and company success.

He’ll talk about his business evolution over 16 years.

And you’ll learn how and why factors of success have changed for James since starting online.

Table of contents

1. Donkeys and bridges
2. How the numbers can fool you
3. Big NO to compromise
4. The perks of a smallish business
5. Looking to go recurring?
6. The most significant changes
7. A decade to remember
8. What was reduced and added
9. The stuff outside the hustle and grind
10. Keeping a low profile
11. The current state of affairs
12. Just what is the point?
13. Cutting costs and keeping the earnings
14. The very simplest shape of things

Donkeys and bridges

In the years leading up to quitting his job, James managed a Mercedes-Benz dealership under a boss who idolized General Patton.

At his employer’s urging, James watched the Patton film many, many times. A scene that stands out to him is where Patton decisively removes an obstacle to his troops – a gypsy caravan and donkeys on a bridge – by shooting the donkeys and pushing them off.

This scene influenced James’s managerial perspective and offered a metaphor for handling obstructions in business. The principle—that quickly addressing and resolving bottlenecks lets operations proceed smoothly—became a guiding philosophy for James. He learned that in business, as in the movie, obstacles must be swiftly addressed, even when the obstacle is oneself.

How the numbers can fool you

At the time when James was General Manager, the dealership was generating around $2 million a week in revenue, which seemed impressive. The big numbers, however, were misleading. The average car dealership in Australia only made about one to two percent profit, meaning a $50 million yearly business would only net a couple of million, surprising considering the scale of the operation.

This realization shifted James’s focus from revenue to profit. Despite receiving a substantial salary, James knew the financial structure was deceptive, and that smaller, leaner businesses could potentially yield higher profit without the complexities and limitations of larger enterprises. Profitability over revenue figures counted more in business sustainability.

Big NO to compromise

James learned a crucial lesson about compromise when, in a dramatic confrontation, his boss accused him of betrayal in a dispute with a co-owner and threatened him with a knife, demanding his resignation.

This showed James clearly the dangers of compromising too much in toxic environments. Despite his deep connections with the Mercedes-Benz brand, he left the job.

Then working for BMW, James reached out to the head of Mercedes-Benz in Australia, who valued him highly and offered to find him another position within the network.

Mercedes-Benz placed James in a dealership that was performing poorly, where he turned the business around to profitability within four years.

The experience with his former boss, however, emboldened James to pursue greater independence and placed him on the path to entrepreneurship. He aimed never to rely on a single source of income again, and to avoid the compromises that had endangered his career. He learned to prioritize control over his professional destiny and finances.

Business ownership isn’t for everyone, James admits, but it is a viable path to autonomy and security for those who can navigate its challenges. So while still working for Mercedes-Benz, he devoted his free hours to building his own business and learning how to make money online.

The perks of a smallish business

When James quit his job in 2008, he was making more profit online than the dealership was making with him and his team.

At that time, he had a small agency, a couple of recurring billing clients, information products, and affiliate income.

Over the years, James deliberately expanded his business, then strategically downscaled to a smaller, more manageable operation. He’d observed that larger businesses often came with more complexity and compromise, something he preferred to avoid.

James found that a smaller business could still be extremely profitable, even outperforming larger organizations like the dealership he’d left.

The instability of affiliate incomes and the challenges with one-time payments, however, led James to reevaluate and plan for sustainability. This led to the creation of “The Mafia Plan” in 2009, a blueprint for consistent, reliable business operations that has ensured he never experienced a bad financial month or year thereafter.

Looking to go recurring?

James has mastered the art of building a reliable recurring revenue system, something he embarked on in 2009 with the start of his subscription membership service. Despite changes in its name and platform, this subscription remains a cornerstone of his business strategy. Alongside this, he began podcasting the same year, which allowed him to significantly reduce his reliance on paid traffic and affiliate marketing, stabilizing his income through consistent, renewable sources.

In the Mafia Plan, James placed his recurring subscription model at the core of his business operations. He finds it funny now that younger entrepreneurs treat subscription models as a new discovery. His experience over the past 15 years with such models gives him a deep understanding of customer retention and member onboarding, areas he continues to excel in.

Beyond subscriptions, James expanded his business model in 2009 to include a team of virtual assistants from the Philippines. He also organized various workshops and speaking engagements. By 2010, he added a premium offering to his services: a high-level weekly call group that remains the most robust product in his lineup. This group, priced at $1,000 per month, has attracted numerous high-profile members and provided substantial results, proving the value of focusing on high-return services.

Throughout his entrepreneurial journey, James has also managed and eventually downscaled his involvement in more traditional business ventures, such as SEO and website development agencies. By focusing on what truly works—his subscription and consultancy services—he has simplified his operations.

This streamlined approach not only maximizes profits but also allows him to run his business from anywhere, affording him a desirable lifestyle and the freedom to manage a small, efficient team remotely.

The most significant changes

Perhaps the biggest changes James made to his business portfolio were selling off his website development and SEO agencies, decisions driven by both personal and strategic considerations.

Selling the website development agency was particularly satisfying for James, because it relieved him from an industry that was becoming increasingly commoditized and challenging.

The buyer was a former client who was amazed at the profitability James achieved with less personal effort. He took over the entire operation, benefiting from the established team and business structure.

The sale of the SEO agency was to another client who was a major buyer of the services. This made the transaction mutually beneficial by one, reducing risk for James, and two, providing the buyer with a cost-effective way to control more of the supply chain.

Later on, circumstances reconnected James with some of the team members and clients, in a new partnership under SEOLeverage.com, which continues to thrive.

A decade to remember

Between 2010 and 2020, James made major shifts in how he conducted his business, notably stepping away from hosting live events—a staple activity for his membership growth.

James ran his final event in March 2020, just as global events began restricting such gatherings. This was part of a broader strategy to simplify his offerings, with more focus on content delivery and internal marketing within his membership programs, rather than external events.

James also shifted towards higher-level memberships, moving away from efforts that targeted broader, less engaged audiences. He rebranded his business under his personal name, aiming to enhance the value proposition of his premium services.

This rebranding was influenced in part by an experience where someone supposedly interested in buying his business copied it instead. This led James to concentrate on creating a more exclusive and high-value offering.

Despite winding down certain activities, the lower-level memberships continued to thrive, with former members rejoining, attracted by the simplified yet valuable offerings like monthly AMAs and playbooks. This ongoing engagement underscored the lasting appeal of his membership model, even as he pared it down and focused on its most beneficial parts.

For his premium membership tier, James stripped back the offerings to core elements that delivered the highest value: weekly group calls, private chats, and highly focused playbooks.

This streamlined approach reduced the operational stress of constant marketing and sales, and also resulted in remarkable retention rates. Quality and direct value, it appears, win over broad-scale conversion tactics.

What was reduced and added

James has adjusted his professional life to better balance his personal responsibilities, particularly to spend more time with his young daughter. By reducing his working hours to around 10 a week and eliminating travel and speaking engagements, he has shifted focus towards a more sustainable and family-oriented lifestyle.

He also closed his affiliate program to cut down on administrative burdens, and shifted his marketing strategy towards an evergreen campaign to promote his book.

In 2016, James embraced a new business model involving revenue-sharing deals, starting 15 of these agreements and maintaining eight that now generate over half his income. This method allows him to earn a percentage from the businesses he helps grow, a strategy he finds rewarding and teaches to his mentor clients.

Each successful sale under these deals earns him a royalty, a practice inspired by the business lessons from his grandfather, who ran a timber brokerage.

Additionally, James ventured into the recruitment sector with VisionFind.com, capitalizing on his wife’s knack for sourcing and managing Filipino talent, a common challenge among his clients.

James pursues personal passions as well, such as his surf brand, BlinkSurf, which not only represents a leisure activity but has also become a significant part of his business portfolio. His experience with the brand has proven it’s viable to enter and monetize new markets, even with a relatively small following. Looking forward, James plans to eventually sell BlinkSurf, aligning with a broader strategy of leveraging personal interests into business opportunities.

The stuff outside the hustle and grind

James relishes the simpler pleasures of life such as taking his daughter to school, preparing her meals, and enjoying family activities like swimming and art, highlighting the benefits of his three-day workweek.

This shift away from the intense hustle culture challenges the relentless work narrative, stressing that life outside work is rich and fulfilling, especially for those with children.

James also criticizes the superficial aspects of fame and success that dominate much of the cultural conversation around work and lifestyle. He cites Viktor Frankl’s quote that in between stimulus, there is a gap before you have to respond. And a lot of the stimulus people have today, he believes, is wrong. He has some concern, too, for people deeply intertwined with their public personas and the scrutiny that follows.

James’s contentment comes from simple, authentic experiences like surfing, not from societal approval or social media validation. It’s a grounded perspective in a world often caught up in appearances.

Keeping a low profile

James has adopted a reserved approach to personal sharing on social media, intentionally avoiding the display of his family, wealth, or lifestyle achievements. This shift from his earlier years, when he sought validation through outside approval, reflects a deeper maturity and self-assuredness that has developed with age.

Now in his 50s, James’s focus has pivoted towards personal health, strength, and satisfaction without the need for public acknowledgment or comparison. Moreover, he questions the modern obsession with sharing minutiae online. Decisions as trivial as paint color for a bathroom, he says, have become subjects for social media debate, pointing to an issue of over-sharing and seeking validation from external sources.

The current state of affairs

James’s business strategy has been consistent and successful, maintaining long-standing ventures like his 15-year-old podcast and memberships that have been operational for nearly 14 years. This consistency has allowed him to master the art of stacking millions annually by perfecting his offerings and processes.

His client roster includes individuals like Dan Corkill and Pat Flynn, and he benefits from a revenue share deal portfolio that significantly contributes to both his income and asset sale values.

James’s effective use of social media involves leveraging content to enhance organic reach, supplemented by targeted paid advertising. Despite the scale of his operations, he maintains a lean work schedule of approximately 10 hours per week, showing the efficiency and effectiveness of a business model which relies on a small, capable team. This approach underscores a core business philosophy he adopted early in his career, focusing on sustainable and manageable growth without overextending himself.

Just what is the point?

In his professional endeavors, James emphasizes a purpose-driven approach, highlighted in content creation for his YouTube channel. He sticks to a process of understanding the purpose and target audience of each video before production begins. This approach ensures that every piece of content is crafted with intent, focusing on the desired outcomes for the viewer, something he credits to advice from Zac Mason.

By following this method, James aims to maximize the impact of his efforts, adhering to the principle of doing less but achieving more.

In refining his online presence, James has applied a filtering process to his website and membership platform, deleting any content that doesn’t serve a direct purpose or generate engagement. This included cutting over a thousand unnecessary pages from his website to streamline the user experience and improve SEO visibility. Moreover, he transitioned his membership platform to Kleq, praising the way it allows personal branding without pervasive platform branding, unlike competitors like, say, Skool.

Cutting costs and keeping the earnings

James has strategically minimized his service obligations by adjusting his contract terms to a 30-day notice period. This approach aligns with his preference for maintaining control over his professional life and reducing long-term commitments, thereby allowing him to step back whenever he chooses without significant consequences.

In addition to reducing his service debt, James focuses on financial security through investments in real estate and other areas. By extracting profits from his business rather than continuously reinvesting them, he secures a stable income stream independent of his business operations. This strategy reflects his broader financial philosophy of not relying on his business for financial stability, and allows him to make decisions from a position of strength and choice, rather than necessity or urgency.

The very simplest shape of things

There’s an emphasis on simplicity in James’s business approach, adopting the principle of Occam’s razor by focusing on minimum viable products. This philosophy extends to thorough preparation and execution, ensuring each project or product is well-researched and carefully planned before launch, thereby maximizing efficiency and effectiveness.

In his digital operations, James prioritizes control over his platforms, maintaining ownership of his domain names and directing his audience as needed. This control extends to his use of social media, where he uses it to funnel traffic back to his primary web properties. He also maintains a backup of essential data like email lists to safeguard against potential system failures.

James has implemented a strategic redundancy system within his business to ensure operational continuity. This includes, as mentioned, the ability to inform all parties of a closure within 30 days and maintaining the capability to redirect his domain or communicate directly with his audience, underscoring his commitment to being prepared for any business disruptions.

James’s team management is also a reflection of his broader business philosophy, which values long-term relationships and minimal staff turnover. By maintaining a small, dedicated team that has outlasted his tenure at any previous companies, Schramko ensures a stable and supportive work environment. This setup helps avoid the typical corporate hierarchy and excess, focusing instead on a streamlined, efficient team dynamic that leverages outside expertise on an as-needed basis.

The low-tier, high-churn models of many online businesses do not appeal to James. He prefers to focus on higher-tier offerings that provide more value and stability. His personal approach to life and business avoids unnecessary complications and prioritizes meaningful, sustainable growth and personal satisfaction over the endless pursuit of more money or fame.

If you’ve watched or listened to this episode, have a little review of where you are. Where have you made complications? What is the donkey on the bridge you need to deal with?

And if you’d like help with it, and think James might be the person to help you, you’re invited to join his membership.

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