B1G1 Business For Good

In this special episode of Biz Bites, host Anthony welcomes Paul Dunn, a renowned communications expert, speaker, and author, known for his work on pricing and businesses for good. Dunn shares his journey from a young engineer to a co-founder of B1G1, highlighting pivotal moments that shaped his career and insights on the importance of communication, creating impactful business strategies, and the power of small changes in language and approach. They discuss the intricacies of pricing, the concept of business for good, and how using AI and strategic wording can elevate a business’s impact. Dunn’s philosophy of ‘for us’ over ‘for them’ encapsulates the essence of creating a shared value in every interaction, aiming to serve not just the business but the larger community. The episode encourages entrepreneurs to leverage their unique position to make a difference, emphasizing that business for good is indeed good for business.

00:00 Welcome to a Special Episode with Paul Dunn

02:37 The Power of Words and Career Pivotal Moments

05:28 Mastering the Art of Pricing in Business

16:03 Navigating Pricing Strategies in Changing Markets

19:54 Identifying and Serving Your Ideal Customer

24:02 Leveraging AI for Business Innovation

26:31 Paul Dunn’s Early Days and Origin Story

28:01 From Antennas to Silicon Valley: A Career Journey

30:19 The Birth of Results Corporation

30:56 The Accountants Bootcamp and a Shift in Life Direction

33:59 Embracing the Power of Storytelling and Legacy

35:27 Introducing B1G1: Business for Good

36:57 The Impact of B1G1 and the Importance of Business for Good

46:32 The Art of Communication and Making a Difference

55:22 Concluding Thoughts and the Power of Small Changes

Description: Embark on an insightful journey, inspiring change and driving success through impactful business approaches. In this conversation with Paul Dunn, we unravel the secrets of communication, pricing strategies, and the art of storytelling, all leading to transformative outcomes in business and personal development. Discover the keys to success in effective pricing, understanding customer psychology, and driving positive social impact through purposeful communication strategies and sustainable business practices.

Transcript:

Anthony Perl: Well, hello everybody. And welcome to a special episode of Biz Bites. And I say special episode because, uh, Here’s a guest today that I have known for many, many years, but I’ve wanted him as a guest on the program for the longest time. And we finally made it happen. He is a guru in so many areas.

He’s a guru in communications. He’s a sought after speaker. He’s done TEDx talks. He’s written the book quite literally on pricing. And of course he is all about businesses for good as well. Paul Dunn. It is an honor to have you as a guest on BizBytes.

Paul Dunn: Anthony, thank you. And look, um, I just want you, as a result of that, I want you to introduce me on everything I speak on, okay?

And, you know, my name’s defensive, but that was, that was a brilliant introduction. But it’s me that feels honored, actually, to, uh, to be with you. And, uh, when I say with you, I don’t just mean with you, Anthony, I mean with your subscribers who are joining us right now. So wherever you are, uh, Thank you for listening here.

It’s going to be a really, you mentioned the word special, and yes, it is going to be that. So I’m thrilled to be here.

Anthony Perl: And I think it’s, what’s interesting for me is, is that often with big guests that I’ve had on the program, I’ve had only a limited opportunities to get to know them beforehand. In fact, in one or two cases, we actually deliberately did it.

So we didn’t really know each other. And here’s something different because you and I have got to know each other quite well over a number of years. Now I still recall, and I think I’ve said it in past episodes of the program. I still remember one of the first times that I heard you speak, and I’m guessing it was probably around about 13 or 14 years ago now.

Uh, and, uh, I still remember the line that you said that your career is nothing more than a collection of selected pivotal moments. It’s a line that always stuck with me. Um, and, uh, but I think the, the, you know, from a starting point of view was that, I think that was, that was when I think you first inspired me because I looked at what you were doing.

And the, how you were finessing communication and strategically how you were thinking about things, and it made me sort of go, Oh, wow, if you can just breathe and think about things in a slightly different way, and bother to put a bit of language around it, it can be a game changer. And I think that’s, you know, more so than just the, that, you know, we could delve into for hours about that whole idea of, of, um, of your career.

But I think it was really bringing it up at that level that, you know, really, um, stood out for me. And, and is that something that has been there from the beginning for you? Is that, is, how did that develop? Yeah,

Paul Dunn: fine. It’s a, it’s a great question. Uh, and the answer is yes. I will remember. Uh, way back before probably many people joining us were actually born.

I well remember being absolutely fascinated with the power of words and, uh, people like Herschel Gordon Lewis, who was, uh, you know, an early writer on the power of words way back in the 1980s was just like a god for me and, and he showed me And, you know, zillions of others, how very tiny, tiny things, particularly words that we use can seriously change the, the outcomes that, that, that people get.

I mean, you know, there’s one of them there. I just put the word seriously in, in there. And all of a sudden it just, it just landed differently. Do you see what I mean? And it’s these tiny, tiny things that we just need to be aware of. And as you said, where we are in our life and in our business is just a collection, uh, of our reaction at the various moments of, of our life.

That that’s it. And so what we need to do is to consider all of those, all of those, every interaction we have as a moment, you know, and then go, what can we do in this moment to actually transform that particular moment so that it benefits. The other person in ways that even they didn’t imagine.

Anthony Perl: And I think what I love about that is that seemingly, you know, and I talked about in the introduction about the different areas that you’ve.

Um, specialized in from pricing to businesses for good and communication. And in many respects, when you first think about that, you go, well, there are three different things. Surely there’s no overlap between any of those things. Isn’t doesn’t pricing in a business for good pull in a different direction.

And doesn’t the whole idea of communication and marketing really fight with ever talking about pricing. And yet. You’ve brought them up to a level with some of those little words that do that. You start to see that that finessing that difference that it can make.

Paul Dunn: Yeah, well, I mean, that’s a really interesting observation.

Actually, I never thought of it that way. But, you know, so many of us business owners that becomes our life, right? I mean, and there’s all sorts of things you could say about that. But that’s where we spend. By far the most majority of our time interacting with others. And if we can learn to make those moments really special, then what actually happens is that impacts our entire life.

It’s not just impacting the business, if you know what I mean. Because you, you, you can’t have a different you. In different places, you can’t, well, I suppose you theoretically can, but it kind of gets hard, you know, who am I supposed to be right now? That kind of thing. So when you bring all of these things back to the way we interact with our kids, but with our, with our spouse, all of that kind of stuff, it really makes life much more interesting, I think.

Anthony Perl: Yeah, it’s, and I think it is those, Little pivotal bits that can make a huge difference and I, I wanted to, cause I want, I want to delve into lots of different areas here, but I wanted to delve into pricing perhaps first. And the reason I wanted to do that was because I think that that is an area that. Is so misunderstood in businesses and, and, and the little finessing of things.

And, and one of the, I remember one of the little tips that you, you’ve drummed into me over the years that I’ve heard you speak about is just even the way businesses write the way in a, in a proposal, uh, what the, where the pricing sits, you know, how it should actually be structured and the things around it.

Because. More often than not, and I think anyone listening and you’ll pick up from this, Paul, most people listening that are in business, the last thing that they finish on is the price.

Paul Dunn: Yes, exactly. Yeah, exactly. And, and, and there’s a, there’s a, there’s an effect that you can look it up on Google. If you want, you know, all the detail on it, or go to chat GPT and find it out, but it’s called the peak end effect.

And the peak end effect simply, simply points out that in any transaction, whether it’s by transaction, I don’t mean necessarily with someone else. I mean, a transaction of you reading something. We tend to remember and be influenced most. By the thing we, that we, we, we, we hit last. For example, Anthony, when you’re doing, you know, your sessions that you do with people, if you were to do a feedback form afterwards and say, what was the most important thing you got from that?

Invariably, they will, they will pick the last thing, but invariably they will, right? Um, and so, yeah, with the, with the pricing and proposals, by the way, let’s talk about proposals as a, or quotes or whatever. Yeah. that you call them. Why, why do we call them that? Why don’t we say, instead of saying, you know, here’s the proposal or here’s your quote, why don’t we say, here’s the plan?

But the moment we say, here’s the plan, we’ve got people thinking about the future and a future with us. And we also get, here’s the plan. Oh, these guys have really thought about me. And so that’s another simple word change, but yeah, you’re right. So when the last thing is the price, guess what? That’s what people are going to, are going to focus on.

So if you, if you think about that and you, and you do a plan and you say something like, uh, Anthony, it was great to speak with you the other day. And based on what you’ve told me, I mean, I’d probably spend a little more time there, but based on what you told me, it seems like the best solution is this and your investment in that is going to be this And that includes a number of very special things.

Now the moment we hit the sort of pricing and then on the end of it we say, and that includes a number of very special things. What does everybody want to know? They want to know what are those special things. The moment they want to know what are those special things, in effect, they’ve moved past that price number.

If that makes some sense. And then the other interesting thing is you say, Hey, It’s when people look at numbers, particularly when they look at them on a, you know, on a screen, well, whenever they look at numbers, full stop, um, the, the brain actually doesn’t see the number as we think it does. The brain is influenced by the width of the number.

So you could try this right now, wherever you are, just write this down, just write down, uh, dollar sign, one four eight zero. Dot three six. Okay, just write those numbers down. One, four, eight, zero, dot three, six, with the dollar sign up front. Underneath that, write them without the dollar sign, right?

Underneath that, Oh, by the way, I forgot to mention, put a comma after the one, right? When you first write it. Dollar, one, comma, four, eight, zero. In other words, you’re separating out the thousands. Then underneath that, just remove the comma. All of a sudden it’s getting shorter and then guess what else you do?

Remove the decimal points or the numbers after the decimals and all of a sudden it’s shorter and the brain goes oh that’s so much easier to process. I know that sounds weird and I know it sounds crazy But that’s the way the brain works and it doesn’t make, you know, very well. It doesn’t work logically.

It just doesn’t. And the other thing to think about in relation to the way we were just talking about that, that price number, and I said, you know, what you should do is you should put that up front. And by saying, you know, it’s this and that includes a number of very special things and you talk about the very special things.

The most interesting thing that happens when you talk about those very special things is that automatically you’re talking about things that Really mean something to the end user. Why? Because you’re talking about the outcomes. Outcomes are the key. Inputs are not the key. Outcomes are the key. The outcome that we produce for those people we’re privileged to serve.

And so once you get that focus, it really changes how you communicate pricing.

Anthony Perl: I just love that, you know, and I’ve practiced this over the years as well and making those little changes and it does completely change the psychology of how people think about things. I did it for a client, um, a little while back.

And one of their interesting challenges was they would be being beaten on price. They were basically what was happening was there were people that were going to someone else because their price was cheaper because it was all about the price. And this is going to sound familiar to a lot of businesses out there.

And we shifted it so that we focused on the special things that they were already doing. We didn’t actually create anything new. We did little things, little things that they were doing became the focus. And so that what happened was when people got to the end and they looked and they did see the price, they went, Oh, but there’s all of these extra things.

Well, when we compare someone else on price, are they giving us these extra things? What price do you actually put on those extra things? And often it’s even more than what probably the price difference is. And so I think it’s, but it’s, it’s such a challenge to get that right. You know, it is,

Paul Dunn: but you know, it, it happens in conversations.

I mean, sometimes when we’re talking with perspective clients, for example, uh, they say things like, you know, what’s the price of this or whatever it is. Are you talking about that? And, and, and very frequently we think that our job is to answer that question. Our job is not to answer that question. Now, by the way, I’m not saying we avoid the question.

Our job is not to answer that question. Our job is to communicate the extraordinary value that we’re providing for the people who, you know, we hopefully are about to serve. And so the whole conversation needs to be around value. So, for example, um, you know, when you’re talking about something, you go, da da da da da da da, whatever, however you’ve said it, and you say, you say, John, What really fascinates me is what you feel the impact of having that in your business would be, what would it be?

Oh, it’d be this and this and this and this. And, and in, I mean, obviously that’s going to be significantly higher than, than the price that they pay for it. So, and that’s another thing you see what happens is the brain anchors, it anchors, it doesn’t see numbers on its own. It anchors to, uh, there’s this thing it’s called, it’s called an anchor.

So, For example, when I say to someone, so what will the impact of that be on your business? Oh, my goodness. The impact of that would be, you know, whatever the impact is, whatever it is, like 100, 000 or whatever it is. And now they’re contrasting that as the key number and their brain, their brain is now Contrasting my number against that 100, 000 and my number would be lower.

So it seems like, uh, a much better option for them, which of course it is, you know, so it’s just realizing that everything it’s like everything is not always as it seems, if that makes sense.

Anthony Perl: No, and it, and, and that, that context is so important. I mean, it gets back to what we were talking about in the beginning in terms of little things with wording and that high level.

Um, idea, because once you give something context, what you price it at, if it’s lower than that, suddenly seems like a really great deal. And it’s a bit like, it’s a bit like, isn’t it? When we go to buy a car, they never start off with the lowest model. They always start off with the highest model and work your way down because you want to feel, they make you feel comfortable, but In that, uh, top level vehicle

no one: and,

Anthony Perl: uh, and you suddenly you’re picturing yourself with the leather seats and the, uh, the sports wheels and the sunroof and all of the rest of it.

And when they bring you down, you feel let down on it. And it’s that little psychology, isn’t it? In pricing that people forget about.

Paul Dunn: Exactly. And as you were talking about that, it made me also think of this point. Someone actually mentioned this to me the other day, and I thought, Whoa, that’s such a cool way of expressing it.

And what they said was, Price has no meaning in the absence of value. I really love that. Right. And very frequently, all we talk about is that so there’s no value. So therefore, we’re not, we’re just not communicating it effectively because we’re not thinking of the outcomes. And by the way, it’s very normal for us because of, you know, depending on what our training is, for example, if you were a lawyer, or if you were an accountant, uh, you were told, you know, you had to complete time sheets and do that every 6 minutes and so on and so forth.

And that became the input. And that was how you measured the value of what you did.

It’s profoundly inappropriate. It really is inappropriate. The amount of time you spend on something has nothing to do with the value that the, that the potential customer gets. And so we need to get rid of those things that are anchoring us back in inappropriate behaviors. We really do.

Anthony Perl: Oh, absolutely. It, it, it definitely irks me and I think it irks most business owners when they say, well, you know, how much is that an hour?

And they’re like, well, you know,

Paul Dunn: oh my God, ,

Anthony Perl: it’s, uh, it’s that, it’s that horrible question that you get asked. But, but I wanted to delve a little bit more into, into pricing for a moment because Sure. You know, I know you’ve written a couple of books on it. Yeah. And, and one of them is about subscriptions.

But, but I really wanted to, we’re in an interesting time in the world at the moment. Um, you know, there are, there are arguments about whether there’s a recession or not, and depending on where in the world you’re listening to us, that may be true and it may not be true. Um, but you know, I, I ran a forum, uh, recently where I surveyed everyone.

To in that forum to say, where are we? Are we, are we about in a, in a growth phase now? Or where are we positioned? And everyone, everyone felt that we were 50 50, probably slightly still on the recession side, but not far away from a boom period. But at the same time, you know, certainly talking rent prices are a good example in Australia.

Anyone that’s renting in Australia will know that pricing is a huge issue there. And there is a shortage on the market, but all of the, uh, all of the landlords are kind of going, well, one’s raising their prices. So we’ll raise our prices. So everybody raises their prices. So the, so the people that are looking to buy have limited opportunities and are being forced into higher prices.

The implication of that is that they either have to demand more wages or they Or they have to charge more for their, um, for their products and services. And it’s this endless upward spiral at the moment. So the question is, is how do you find the right pricing in a market that is constantly changing? Do you have to, you know, should you be anchoring your pricing?

Should you be looking at changing it? Do you position it as lower as higher? How do you, you know, where do you see, and I think that’s going to be different for every business, but my question really is, is how do you see pricing as changing in the way we think about it moving forward, given the kind of environment that we’ve got now, is it going to change?

Paul Dunn: Yeah, it’s, it’s a great question. And, and, and by the way, there will always be these quote, unquote, interesting times. There always will, you know, many of us went through 2008 and wondered what the heck happened, right? So they’re always there. But the question is, how do you think about it? And where do you position yourself in that?

So if you, if you think for a moment about Let’s, let’s say, uh, you think of a circle, and you draw a couple of lines across the circle. That is to say you, you, you divide it into three chunks. And obviously the chunk in the middle will be the biggest bit, if that, if that makes sense. So you’ve got a little bit at the top, you’ve got a little bit at the bottom.

Now, the interesting question is, Where are most people? Most people are in that middle chunk. That’s, that’s where they are, because that’s how they think, that’s how they choose to play. And that’s where most of the competitors are and so on and so forth. Now, you might say, well, I’m going to get in that lower chunk, which is, you know, the lower price thing down the bottom there.

The problem with that is the only place to be in that To actually win is the person with the lowest price. You do not want to be the person with the second lowest price, because you just, it’s going to get killed. So where do you need to be? You need to be up in, up in that top level. And the way for you to get in that top level is not to think, oh, my gosh, or as we get into these times are interesting, is not to think, oh, my gosh, okay.

How can I reduce the price in order to compete with blah, right? That’s not the question. The question we should be asking ourselves is how can I add more value in order to complete with bar if that if that makes sense. Um, and that’s always a winning strategy. It always is.

Anthony Perl: Yeah, and I think it’s interesting.

I hope that makes sense. No, no, absolutely. And I think it’s worth pointing out something that you and I were in a discussion the other day and there was someone else there who said, I’ve raised my pricing by 40%. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. And I love, I loved that because, you know, that was them positioning themselves as saying, well, we’re the best in the market.

So our prices need to reflect that.

Paul Dunn: Yes, yes, exactly. And one of the things that also reflects is, if you like, um, the people that you quote unquote hang out with, that’s not the way to say it, but the people who are your kids. Your ideal customers. The reality is you can look at the business and you and you can almost predict where it where it’s at by looking at who its customers are.

And yet, typically, when we think about where we’re going to go, we don’t spend any time thinking about who is our ideal customer. And many of us are dealing with customers that we don’t like. Why are they doing that? Why on earth are we doing that? Right? So getting the right mix of customers, customers who you appreciate, who appreciate you and so on and so forth, is really a starting place.

And the moment you start to think about the ideal customer, You, you have to think about the, the ideal value that you can provide that ideal customer. And by the way, what you choose to do is not deal with anyone else. It’s almost like, and by the way, I know this sounds like, oh, this is impossible to do.

No, it’s not. It’s almost like we’re saying you have to kind of meet these criteria in order for me to say, yes, we’re going to deal with you. And that’s a very powerful position to be in, and we all can choose to be in it.

Anthony Perl: Yeah, and I think that that’s, it is so important. And again, this gets back to that little finessing, doesn’t it?

It’s that, it’s those little words that you’re using for yourself to position, uh, and to position things for the client, which can make all of the difference as to, as to where it is. I mean, perception is reality for a lot of people.

Paul Dunn: Yeah, and it’s also words that you don’t even know you’re using, right? So, for example, someone says, So what’s the price of blah, blah, blah.

And let’s imagine you, so imagine someone’s like, what’s the price? And the first word out of your mouth is, uh, or well, it’s straight away, straight away. It’s, it’s just the wrong place to be. Um, and again, it, it, it’s just, um, you know, it’s just a mindset that, that we have. That for some reason we get sort of locked into and just on that, by the way, you know, because we talk about it.

The reality is that most of us. I don’t know of too many exceptions to this. Most of us have much more problem with our pricing than the customers ever do. Most of us, right? We really do. Um, and in various ways we transmit that, uh, to the customer. So the level of trust goes down, the level of belief goes down, and so on and so forth.

So, yeah. Pricing is, you know, You know, so, so interesting. I was talking with someone this morning who pointed out they were doing a whole series of numbers. These are numbers things they were going through and they were looking at a very interesting business and they had done it in such a way that the profit or the revenue rather was 1.

2 million dollars. And then they looked. At their pricing and said, well, what would happen if we just increase that by a 10 percent number? And the answer is that that that cooked that business from 1. 2 million to 1. 6 million, just like that. And yet it’s the last thing we tend to think of. And it’s the first thing.

And your example of the sauna is a really, really interesting example. It really can be done.

Anthony Perl: Yeah, absolutely. And I think it’s the, um, it’s the willingness to have that self belief as well. I think that’s part of it is that, uh, you know, a lot of businesses and business owners and you and I both talk to plenty of them all the time that don’t feel as secure that they stand out from the others.

And, and I think, and, and, and we live in a day and age where, um, you know, AI. Is kind of evening the playing field and unless you’re prepared to put yourself out there and be your authentic self and stand out and really take ownership of your expertise, then you’re going to fall back to the field and be compared to everyone.

Paul Dunn: It’s so, so true. And by the way, I mean, I know, you know, you and I do spend time talking about AI and it’s something that we use, you know, we, we use, why? Because it’s very fast to get you to some answers that would take you forever to find. Now, so, so does, does that mean that, you know, this whole sort of thing about AI will replace you?

No, it doesn’t mean that. It would mean you will be replaced by people who are using AI. Uh, to in, in an effective way and by the way, you can do some very interesting things with like pricing analogies and all those kind of things through things like chat GPT and it’s amazing how you go, Oh, I, his, the thing that I do when I use it frequently, I say to myself, what I’ve been prompting something on chat.

Oh, I’ve never thought of that that way before. That’s such an interesting way to be because you’re always inventing new moments, right?

Anthony Perl: What I love is as well, and you’re right about the ease of, of access to information. So I did a presentation, um, yesterday and, uh, I was preparing for that presentation and I’d written down a whole heap of points that I wanted to cover in that, in that timeframe.

And then I, then after I’d written those points down, I then went on to chat GPT and. Asked a similar question to what the talk was about to see if I’d captured everything. Thankfully I had, um, but it gave, it chose a couple of different words for some of the things that I’d used. And I thought, Oh, actually that might, you know, tweaking it.

And I think that’s how it can be used. Um, I wanted to, Kind of, because eventually I want to get to a detailed discussion about businesses for good, because that makes up a large part of what you’re doing these days. But I wanted to go back into the early journey, because you and I have never actually really talked about this.

So, so tell me a little bit about the early days of Paul Dunn going back, you know, at least five years to when you started, when you were sort of school age. Oh, right. Okay.

Paul Dunn: Okay. Okay. We’re going

Anthony Perl: right back. Where did you? Oh, my goodness. Well, bearing in mind my

Paul Dunn: age, Anthony, bearing in mind my age, you realize this could be a long answer, but I’ll make it as short as I can.

Um, and also I want to, I want to contrast it. You know, whenever you talk about your journey, your origin story or something, it’s supposed to be You know, it’s classically the hero’s journey where there are all these, you know, dark nights of the soul and all of these kind of things. And I have to say, uh, when I think about my life, uh, I just think it’s just one of luck.

It’s, it’s, it’s just amazing. So I was born, uh, in, uh, in Dover in the United Kingdom. Uh, my, my dad was a miner. Uh, coal miner. And, uh, so, you know, I was in the villages and I saw the, the, the ambulances come home, uh, very, very frequently. Um, and, uh, my dad always said to me, you’re never going to go down the mine.

And when I went to London to study, all my friends wanted to go home and go down the mine, but I never actually did. So that was the beginning and then, you know, I started and I got a job offer from the BBC, which was really cool in engineering. So I’m an engineer by profession and I decided not to take that one.

I thought that would be a little bit safe. And I went to, I was designing antenna systems, believe it or not. Um, and, um, that led to a very interesting thing that one day the, uh, I was in the research department of this organization and one day the Australian, uh, the Australian general manager of the company, uh, in the Australian branch came in.

His name, I remember very clearly, his name was Jim Snitch. That’s true. That was his name. Ginger hair. And, uh, he said, Oh, good. I, you know, he gets into research. He’s a good eye. I’m, I’m looking for a chief engineer in Australia. And I, you know, if anybody wants to put it up their hand, we’ll have a conversation.

So I stuck my hand up. I was 21 at the time and I got to go. Um, and as a result of that, I started to do some work with, uh, with Hewlett Packard. And then. One of the people, the, one of the people who then, if you look back out in Australia, there were only like five people in there, said, oh my goodness, this looks pretty interesting.

Why don’t you come and work for us? So I was, One of the first 10 in HP and, and I mean, that’s, that’s just pure luck. You know, you’re sitting down with people like Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard, you know, the founders of Silicon Valley and getting all of that. Uh, and so I did that for a while and then I put that into a practice and, and created my own business in the computer field.

Uh, I discovered the other day, Anthony, I’m not sure whether this is something I should talk about, but I am actually in Silicon Valley. The Australian Computer Museum history section. Seriously, I have.

But again, that was interesting and I and I focused on the accounting profession and we grew that way back in the 70s to a business doing Uh, some 23 million dollars in those days. It was, that was like unheard of in that, uh, the sector. Uh, so then I decided one, one day to a thing called a seminar. I didn’t even know what that was.

And, uh, I heard this guy, Jim Rohn, you would know of James Rohn, and And he stood there and I saw myself in him. I thought, wow, I can do that. I can do that. And that was the day I called up my colleagues in the computer company and said, actually, I’m out of here. And they said, could you give us a bit of notice?

So. Six months later, which happened to be April the 1st, 1981. Seriously, uh, I, uh, created a thing called Results Corporation, kind of an interesting name when you think about outcomes, uh, and, uh, was very lucky and fortunate enough to grow that to a business, which was serving, uh, 23, 000, uh, businesses around Australia, both from, you know, the large level businesses to tiny ones, and then sold that in the, uh, in the early nineties and created, uh, that specifically for accountants, um, grew that some really interesting points.

We had. Uh, some, um, uh, the number was 17,000, uh, 700 people came through that particular program, which is called The Accountants Bootcamp. Uh, and they were investing a lot of money to do that. And then in the year 2000, uh, it was a love issue actually. My then partners, I, I remember I was sitting in the Ritz Carlton in, um, in Chicago.

We just finished a program there. And, uh, and, uh, I, I said to her. Uh, because when we finished this program, it was a four day program, I would, and there would typically be 400 people in the program, I would literally shake everybody’s hand before they left, saying, you know, thank you for being here, literally, took a long time, and every single person said, every single person said, I know this sounds like an exaggeration, it’s not, every single person said, this four days changed my life.

And so the next morning I’m sitting, I’m sitting having this coffee at the Ritz Carlton in Chicago and my, my then love partner was sitting opposite me and I said to her, isn’t it great that we’re changing people’s lives? And she looked at me in a funny way and she said, maybe it’s about time you changed yours.

Seriously, that’s what she said.

We are, we are going on this place. We’re going to France. She had just read Peter Mayles A Year in Provence, and we’re going to France, and we’re going to stay in some lovely places, and you’re going to leave your computer system in the UK office and all that kind of stuff. And anyway, long story short, I fell in love with being in France.

Sadly, we kind of fell out of love. So, um, uh, which was, but we’re still very, very, very good friends. And, uh, as a result of all of that, I, I sold all my business interests in that, in that 2000, uh, time. And of course, when I did that, I was prevented from doing anything, you know, with all the legal stuff, um, let’s say, and then around 2003, I got back to that and in 2007 was when, if you’d have asked me in 2000, let’s imagine we’re having this conversation in 2006, and you’d have said to me, well, what’s the secret to building a great business?

I would have said to you. Anthony, there’s really two things. Oh, really? That should be easy. Yes, two things. Okay, what are they? And I would say, one, you, you just have to add extraordinary value to the people you’re privileged to serve. That’s number one. Number two, you have to have fun doing that. That was it.

Those were the two big things, right? And then, uh, something occurred, right? Uh, where I, um, I, I realized that there was a particular sequence of events, uh, which was all around the tsunami, actually, remember the tsunami in the way that I see for, um, and I realized there was much more to, there was the thing that I was missing.

And that thing that I was missing was the opportunity to make a difference in the world as well. In other words, what you, I love what Steve Jobs said in 1996. He said, the storyteller, and by the way, every single one of us are storytellers. We really are. Yeah. And this is not a, not a how to tell stories session.

This is just to recognize the power that we have. To influence people. And Mr. Jobs said this in 1996 when he was at Pixar. He said, the storyteller is the most powerful person in the world. Now, I’m not into that power thing, so you can ignore that. But the next thing he said was really good. He said, the storyteller sets the vision.

I’m going to say this really slowly so that you get it. The storyteller, and that’s you that I’m talking to right now, right? You, not you, Anthony, but everyone else listening, sets the vision, the values, and the agenda, and here’s the punchline, for an entire generation yet to come. The storyteller sets the vision, the values, and the agenda for an entire generation yet to come.

And once you track those last seven words, and for an entire generation yet to come, you realize, and here’s the, here’s the important shit. You realize that it’s not about you. It’s actually about something bigger than you. And the really interesting thing is when you get that, that it’s something bigger than you, guess what?

You instantly become more attractive because it’s bigger than you if that if that makes sense and and so that all boils down into my I I guess some people call it an obsession With my uh my current uh role if you will which is uh as The co founder of b1g1 business for good and and what’s really great Is that we are now creating, and you’re one of them, uh, businesses around the world that are called businesses or business for good.

And what they’re discovering, which is really cool, is that business for good is actually great for business, right? It really is. And, and, and it’s because You’re not focusing on yourself, you’re focusing on much more than yourself. And when you do that, well the, the whole world changes, it really does. And so, you know, as we’re talking today, I think we’re at something like 344 million, uh, giving impacts.

Who could have imagined that, you know, when started this thing in, in, in, uh, 2007. Um, and it, it, it’s really, really, you know, I mean, I know that you’re doing it in very different ways as well. You know, I’m doing it like, for example, you and I are on zoom right now. And just as a result of that, five kids are getting access to game changing education just as a result of that.

So you can integrate this, uh, directly into your business and it’s a, it’s a game changer. It really is.

Anthony Perl: I, I absolutely, I mean, you know, I’m a big fan of it. So, but. Well, let’s take a step back from that because, um, whilst in the, in actually, I think it’s in our most recent episodes, uh, we spoke to, uh, I spoke to a, uh, someone you introduced me to in, in Johan, who, uh, is behind, uh, behind, uh, Comet Suite and other things, um, And we were talking about B1G1, but I want you to give, give people who are listening who maybe don’t know, I don’t know how you don’t know, but if you don’t know what is B1G1, how do you introduce it to people?

Paul Dunn: Well, it’s this extraordinary way of creating more impacts, positive impacts in your business and in our world simultaneously that you’ve just not experienced before. Because before, if you thought about, you know, quote unquote, I really don’t like this term, but But, you know, common terms like giving back, you know, so if you, if you thought about that, it would be, oh, let me go pick a charity.

Let me, you know, all of that sort of stuff. And it’s kind of hard to do. And you end up by saying, you know, we proudly support XYZ charity. Nothing wrong with that, by the way. I mean, if you’re doing that, keep doing it. But so much better to be able to say, when this happens, Transcribed This happened. When you send an email, a kid in need gets access to life saving water.

It’s one of the things, I mean, you can do all of these things because you have access to these verified projects, as you know, Anthony, some 447 of them, um, that we’ve kind of micro sized, if that makes sense, so that you don’t need to be able to say, Oh, this, how about this? You don’t need to be able to say, well, one day when I’ve made it, I’ll start contributing.

No, no, no, no, no, no. You can do it, you know, like from today. I mean, as you know, you can make those impacts from, in some cases, one cent. You really can. And the other thing that I think is very important to understand, once you go back to that jobs quote, right? The storyteller sets the vision, the values and the agenda for an entire generation to come, which means it’s not about you.

Now, let’s just, let’s just think about that for a minute. And why is it critical that we really get a hold of this concept called business for good? It is because it’s not governments who, who create all of this. Government certainly can influence it. But in the end, business is the one that actually makes a difference in the world.

It really is. So, but anyway, let’s get back to, to the whole concept of. Uh, for, sets the agenda for an entire generation yet to come. The moment you get that, you start to think about different words. You, you start to think, for example, about legacy. Now, because of my age, perhaps, H. P., I think about legacy perhaps more than the, you know, 26 year old.

I think as you’re older, you tend to think about these things and we all think about them too late, right? And legacy is really interesting because we think about it this way. We think, oh, we think about like leaving a legacy. We think about that, right? It’s like something down there, right? But as you know, I play with alliteration a lot.

I love alliteration where you string words together, like, for example, in your business. Why, let’s say your business is a standard business. Why wouldn’t you move from standard to stand out because you stand for something, right? Just think about that progression. And in exactly the same way with legacy, instead of just thinking, oh, it’s about leaving a legacy.

Why not? Let’s play with alliteration. See, there it is with words again, but changing moments, right? So, instead of thinking leaving a legacy, why don’t we think of living a legacy? Well, that’s an interesting shift, right? It’s like every day. And then, why don’t we think about leveraging that? Legacy. Why don’t we think of being able to share that with others who we, you know, who we relate to, like, for example, on this podcast?

Why don’t we think about doing that? So, you, you live it, you leverage it, and why? For an entire generation yet to come. And let’s be very specific about what an entire generation yet to come means. It means it’s about your children and their children’s children. That’s what this means. And that’s why this is so, so, so important for everybody listening right now to at least, you know, have a look see at B1G1 Business for Good.

Anthony Perl: I hope that was a

Paul Dunn: good explanation of it. It

Anthony Perl: is a very good explanation. I think what I would add to that for people listening in. So I’ve, I’ve worked. In corporate organizations in the past, where someone has come in and said, we should do something for charity and someone has chosen a charity that usually has nothing to do with the business.

It’s usually a personal interest does not undervalue that. That’s what that charity is doing, but there’s no logical. Um, pull between the business and the, and the charity, and there’s probably even less pull between individual staff members and the charity that often has happened in the past. And as well intentioned as that is, it’s not a, a impactful relationship.

And so to me, this is the game changer because being able to, as you say, make small impacts. On an individual basis, allowing people at times to make choices on where those impacts are directed, rather than even the business making those choices, having them spread globally. And as you say, starting them at a very low number, so it’s possible for anyone to be involved, whatever the size of your business.

I think is that is that in itself is not only a game changer, but I think when people experience as I only did recently, the back end of the website and the possibilities of how you can utilize this and integrate it into things. This is a piece of technology, which is, um, beyond what most people can think about.

And it does make it incredibly easy. And I think where it all gets back down to is something again, back to words, and you touched on it for me. is the businesses for good. See the, the, that whole wording is relatively new. In terms of into the psychology and a lot of people have been thinking about, um, I think the, the association between working with a charitable organization in quite a different way.

There are lots of the forced government regulations that are starting to be imposed, particularly at the higher corporate levels. But what really leads change in society is small and medium businesses. And the, the whole concept of business for good is something that’s being driven by that movement primarily.

And I think that’s, that is where the game changer is because it’s entering into the psychology. And that whole idea of business for good, it still puts people. Business first, but it’s still that idea of having something that we’re actually driving to a purpose that is beyond even your own business that I think is, is where the game changer is.

Paul Dunn: And so that’s so nice of you to say that. And by the way, interestingly enough, um, you know, it sounds like sort of I’m pontificating on things that I know and stuff like that. But of course, every interaction is a learning interaction. Like, for example, the other day. I was talking to someone about b1g1 and they said, uh, they said, Oh, this just makes it so easy, so easy.

And I started to think about that. That all of us know, pretty much every one of us wants to do good, right? But then the problem is we don’t know how to do it. So, that day when this person said, Oh, it just makes it so easy. On the front page of the B1G1 website, at that time, it said this, Become a B1G1 business for good.

And then underneath a little subtext said, We help you build a better business, dot, dot, dot. And together, we build a better world. B1G1. com If you looked at it right now at g1. com, you would see this. We help you build a better business, dot, dot, dot, and together we build a better world, full stop, effortlessly.

It’s that, it’s that, it’s that one little piece on the end. See, it’s just that, it’s that little

Anthony Perl: word, isn’t it? It, you know, it goes back to where we sort of started the conversations and it’s that, you know, we, you know, you’ve got these contrasting things that you’ve been dealing with, um, over the years, but ultimately it’s that little finessing at that, at that level, um, that just makes a difference, doesn’t it?

I mean, it’s, you know, you and I spoke about it and it’s, and people are generally speaking going to be listening to this rather than seeing it. But, you know, my, one of my product offerings is. Is the podcast done for you and it was after a discussion that we had that we added the word brilliantly to the end of it.

Yeah, I’m looking at it right

Paul Dunn: now. Podcast done for you. Okay, that’s pretty cool. But then you get podcast done for you dot, dot, dot, brilliantly. Therein is the magic.

Anthony Perl: And it’s all about the positioning, isn’t it? It’s just where that leaves people, the psychology behind it. Um, I wanted to just change tack for a moment and just finish up with this, finish up with this discussion because you’ve, um, given plenty of talks on, on many stages over the years, uh, including TEDx talks.

Yeah. Tell me, how do you, there are people that will dream about getting to that point. How do you, how does that actually happen? And what does that, what does that feel like to be on that sort of stage?

Paul Dunn: Well, it’s interesting. Um, I think now it’s so much more difficult to actually get to do a TED talk because essentially they, Search you out rather than you going to search them.

Uh, so, but how that started, uh, I saw this little note that said, Oh, uh, TEDx, TEDx is opening in Singapore and, uh, we’re going to be doing some things. So I called the guy, his name is Dave Lim. And they said, Oh, Paul, I’ve heard of you. And I thought, Oh, great. You know, so instantly I became one of the first TEDx talkers in Singapore.

But then what happens, it’s really interesting, Anthony, because they put, um, some people would call them constraints. On you that you, you know, you, you have to, they give you the 10 commandments, right? The literal 10 commandments of a TED talk. Um, and you, you have to apply for them because if you don’t, I think a trap door opens up and swallows you.

But it’s really interesting because The moment you start to be able to work within constraints. Does that make sense? When you work within constraints, you go, Oh, wow, that was a great experience. And, you know, like, for example, last night, as you know, a TEDx talk cannot go for longer than 18 minutes, unless your name Uh, is Tony Robbins and, uh, Al Gore happens to be in the audience and then they’ll allow you to stretch it.

Um, but that’s the only time it’s ever stretched. A reasonable

Anthony Perl: exception to make.

Paul Dunn: Yeah. Yeah. Reasonable exception. So last night I was, a couple of weeks ago, I was asked to do a session in the United Kingdom, which I was doing, uh, last night. And, uh, I said, so how long, how long do we have? And, uh, the guy said, well, we, we’ve got four speakers and, and, uh, so we, so that’s means we, and because we’ve got an hour, then that’s just 10 minutes per person.

And I went, Oh my God, it takes me 25 minutes to say hello. How am I, how am I going to get

no one: in 10

Paul Dunn: minutes? But, but then working within that constraint, all of a sudden you start to find additional ways of, of, you know, of, of engaging people and, and doing the same thing that used to take you, you know, 30 minutes or whatever it was.

And so, uh, that’s why I think one of the, one of the great things that we can do, and you’re a great example of this, you really are. is to just go for it, you know, just, just go for it. I mean, there’s, there’s, what’s the downside? Very, very little downside, but the upside is amazing to get featured on that stage.

And then, you know, someone sees you there and then they go, Oh, would you come to here? And would you come to there? And would you come to there and, and do that kind of stuff? So yeah, it’s, it’s really, really cool. And that’s one of the reasons, Anthony, why whenever I go on stage, uh, or for that matter, virtually.

I have a couple of things that I say to myself. I’m not sure I’ve ever told you this. But years and years and years ago, when, um, I decided I wanted to become a speaker, um, the guy who was, in a sense, mentoring me, his name is Ron Tacky, Ron’s no longer with us sadly, but, um, and, uh, Ron said to me, he, he said, Paul, when you, when you speak, do you ever get nervous?

And I said, oh my God, I get so nervous all the time. He said, that’s fantastic. He actually, what he said was, do you ever get the butterflies? And I said, oh yeah, I do get the butterflies. He said, great, because what you need to do is get the butterflies flying in formation. He said, that’s the thing you need to do.

And so he said, you need a little thing. So the thing for me for years and years was this. I used to say, And hopefully this is of some value for all of us when we’re speaking to whoever it is, right? I used to, I used to say before I’d get on stage, I’d find a shiny object, which could be the back of a spoon at the back of the room.

Um, and I would always enter from the left, by the way, there’s all sorts of reasons for that. And so the presenter, sorry, I’d be getting introduced and I’d be saying, uh, or to a window with a reflection, I’d be saying these, these 2 words. I’d be saying. For them, for them, for them, for them, for them. Now, and I did that, like, forever.

And the idea of that was to get it off me. It’s not about me. But then one day, I saw it was a rainy day in Singapore and I was watching something and I happened to see something from, it was from Norway. And they had this little clip about how Norway was really entering into a new era of really being concerned with diversity.

And so the clip showed this woman against an infinite white background. And then towards her left shoulder, there was this guy, you know, the ultimate sort of Harley Davidson guy, you know, like earrings on every orifice, you know, and a big, big guy. And she just looks around and looks at him and just goes over and hugs him.

She doesn’t know him. She just goes over and hugs him. And then there was another lady then from over the other side who looks, you know, quote unquote, equally weird. And, and, and she came in and, and pretty soon, um, there’s all these people gently, I mean, it’s not a sort of raucous thing. They’re generally.

Coming together as one and and the the message on that was diversity and the day I saw that I realized that when I was saying for them, for them, for them, I was putting a barrier between me and them, if that makes sense, right? So now, for the last four years, what I what I always say is for us, for us, for us, for us, for us.

And I think that’s a really interesting thing to go back on when we think about where we started, right? Because when we’re thinking about outcomes, rather than inputs, right, thinking about outcomes and being a part of that outcome, what we’re thinking about is for us, for us, for us, how can we together do this thing, which is, you know, hopefully going to have some benefit for other people as well.

So. There you go. My people might practice a few for us today and see what happens.

Anthony Perl: I, I love that. And it’s, it’s, it’s one of the little things that I’ve, I’ve, um, struggled with when I write things at times for people, because often when we write, uh, whether it’s an, you know, an article or a post, uh, and we talk about you, Right.

And you will be, um, you know, you will be this or that. And the problem with writing it that way is that if I’m reading it, I’m reading it as you. Well, who’s you? It’s not me that’s reading it. And so it’s actually really hard sometimes to work it. So it’s logically so because that is a game changer as well, isn’t it?

When, when you read something that says, um, I will, et cetera, whatever it will be. Yeah.

Paul Dunn: Yeah. It’s

Anthony Perl: changing it because it’s personalizing it.

Paul Dunn: Oh, a hundred percent. A hundred percent. And somebody called George Bryant has a way of thinking about that. He calls it ICU. It doesn’t mean intensive care unit. It means whenever I’m writing to you, I see you.

And so, you know, one of the things that we see very frequently is we see people writing things and they’re writing things like in a newsletter as a, for example, and it might say, as you all know, now I get that people do that. But what we forget is it’s not, it’s not because that newsletter, that email, that whatever it is, you’ve written to multiple people is only being seen by one pair of eyes at a time.

Right? So the moment you say, as you want to bang, you depersonalize the whole thing. And again, To get back to where you started, it’s just these little tiny things that when you combine them, well, even on their own, make a huge difference. But when you have a lot of them, there’s a lot of stuff going for you to make a huge difference to the people you’re privileged to serve and, as a result, to yourself as well.

Anthony Perl: Well, I think that is an amazing way to probably wrap things up. Uh, there are so many gold nuggets, I think, for anyone that’s listening. I hope you go back and listen again and again and again, because there’s so much wisdom in there. And the little words that make a difference to So many aspects, you know, uh, whether it is about getting your pricing right, whether it is about how you turn up and show, uh, and, and speak to people, whether it’s a group of people or whether it’s just an individual and mostly so that you can be ultimately be a business for good, we will include all of the details in the show notes of how people can, uh, Can get that information for themselves and sign up with B1G1.

And if you, if you half have a think about it, then do it. That’s the, that’s my advice to you

no one: is that

Anthony Perl: there’s no reason. There’s no reason not to. And I think that, uh, you know, we’re, we’re. You know, we’re a big believer, you know, that come together has always been about. We believe in changing the world and doing it one person at a time.

That’s why I think you and I have always got on so well. And I thank you for being an incredibly generous guest, uh, with so much that you’ve given today on Biz Bites. Thank you for being a part of it.

Paul Dunn: Uh, Anthony, thank you. That’s, uh, you know, you, I always understand that questions are more important than the answers.

And thank you so much for your questions, which allowed us to go into places that I had no idea we were going to go. I’m so glad that we did. So thank you. Deeply grateful to you. And of course, to the people who’ve been listening to it. Thank you so much for having me here.

Anthony Perl: Thanks everyone for listening.

Uh, and don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode and we’ll have your company next time on Biz Bites.