Coffee to Legacy: Phillip Di Bella’s Guide to Proactive Tech and Legacy Building

How can you use technology to transform your business and leave a lasting legacy? In this exciting episode of Redd’s Business & Technology Podcast, join host Nigel Heyn as he engages with guest Phillip Di Bella from The Coffee Commune. Together, they uncover valuable insights on leveraging technology for innovation, seizing opportunities, and making a meaningful impact.

Phillip emphasises the powerful potential of technology as a resource, rather than a reactive tool. With his forward-thinking approach to utilising technology for long-term progress and his vision for the Brisbane 2032 Olympics, Phillip demonstrates the power of embracing advanced technology to make a meaningful impact. He envisions the Olympics as a platform to showcase Brisbane’s technological advancements and leave a lasting global impression.

For small business owners, his key advice is profound: focus on the impact you have rather than just what you possess. Phillip emphasises that true success is about the legacy you leave, not just the achievements you rack up. As you navigate your journey, remember that making a difference is the ultimate measure of your success. Embrace technology, seize opportunities, and leave a lasting impact on those around you.

#Leadership #Inspiration #BusinessGrowth #Olympics2023 #Legacy

00:00 – Start
00:25 – Guest Introduction
00:46 – Phil DiBella’s Early Life and Values
03:49 – Founding and Scaling DiBella Coffee
06:32 – The Coffee Commune: Collaboration and Innovation
10:10 – Planning for Business and Life Transitions
13:41 – Transitioning Post-Exit
16:28 – The Importance of Community in Success
18:42 – Embracing Technology as a Resource
21:46 – Be Proactive, Not Reactive with Technology
24:16 – Immigration and Housing Crisis
28:08 – The Brisbane 2032 Olympics: A Long-Term Opportunity
33:35 – Legacy Advice for Small Business Owners
35:40 – Future Goals: Personal and Professional Impact
37:11 – Closing Thoughts on Leadership and Success

If you would like to discuss any of the topics discussed in this episode further with a REDD expert or if you would like to be a guest on the show, please get in touch either via our website, [email protected], or through any of the links below. https://redd.com.au

https://www.linkedin.com/company/redd-digital/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nheyn/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/phillip-di-bella-1556936b/

(00:20):

Welcome to Redd’s Business and Technology podcast. I’m your host, Nigel Heyn, and today I’ve got a really special guest. I’m Phillip Di Belle, who about 10 years ago I remember fondly meeting you in Singapore on a trade mission. Phil, thank you so much. I really appreciate you coming on, Nigel. Pleasure, Phil. Let’s start with the background about where you came from to what you’re doing today. Do you just share to the audience that doesn’t know fill the bill even though it’s such a strong brand? Keen to unpack that a bit.

(00:44):

Yeah, look, in short, son of migrants instilled great values. My parents migrated here with my brother and sister. I’m the youngest of three 11 years difference between me and my sister. They migrated over here when they were both four and two with my parents. Dad talks about four people came off a boat with two suitcases, so very, very humble beginnings, yet they paid their house off within 10 years, never owned anything more than their house. Dad earned $450 a week. I was an afterthought, came along in 1975 and nine years after they’d arrived into the country. In short, I was brought up with amazing values, so very limited dollars, but amazing values, good work ethic from my parents. Dad boasts about working for 35 years and only ever having two sick days, and when he decided to retire due to having heart problems, he had something like a year and a half of leave owing to him because he’d never took holidays.

(01:36):

Now, amazing work ethic. We didn’t have brand new cars, we only had one tv. I was the remote control. We didn’t have air conditioning and we didn’t go on overseas holidays, but we had amazing food on the table. We had amazing, our house was a very humble three bedroom house, but we were very safe and we had great moments with great people around us every weekend at the beach, barbecues, people, food, things that mattered. So grew up as a son of migrants, but at that point knew that I wanted to be in control of my destiny and dad set us up really well, paid for our education, didn’t go to private schools, couldn’t afford it obviously on four 50 a week, but gave us amazing life skills and surround us with good people. And the stuff I’d learned at a young age is that I wanted to be in control of my own destiny.

(02:22):

I learned the value of money. I learned the value of money, which I use to this day at 49, is to have enough money to do what you want when you want, and that’s different for different people. I learned that life is measured in moments. I learned that life is not measured in possessions. We unfortunately go to many funerals as we get older and we don’t see removalist trucks following a hearst to the funeral. So we die with nothing except our memories and our moments. So that is something that was instilled with me young in saying that money’s a resource and the more you’ve got, the more you can do. And that means more for community, more for people that need it, more for your employees if you’re a business. So understanding that money is a byproduct of a good work ethic, dedication, focus, and attention.

(03:08):

And in short, these are things that I grew up with. But in short, I went to uni not knowing if I wanted to be a lawyer or an accountant. If I did law, I probably would’ve put somebody else in jail or myself because I’m a speed reader and skip a few words. And accounting, I thought I had too much personality for an accountant, sorry, to my accountant friends. So I fell in love with, I did commerce not knowing what I want to do and fell in love with marketing. So if you said, what’s your qualifications these days, it’s I’m a strategic marketing branding person that knows how to take something from concept to execution and commercialise it and everything in between.

(03:43):

Fantastic, phenomenal values that have set you up for success. And what are you doing today? Tell us a bit about Coffee Commune and all the other ventures.

(03:49):

Well, I started Di Bella in 2002. We grew up from nothing, never thought it would become what it did, which is a perfect example of people say, what’s your secret source to scale and how do you make money? Well, money and scale are a byproduct of solving problems better than anybody else, and we can unpack that later. But you don’t build a strategy to scale. The strategy is to actually build something that solves problems better than the alternative is more relative than the alternative. And you tell a better story than the alternative. And in 2002 started a coffee company with 2000 competitors. I started with $5,000 an amazing journey. And what I learned was that it wasn’t about your product. Too many people talk about how good their product or service is. It’s not about that. It’s how well it engages or how well it solves the problem.

(04:32):

And the problem we solved was to help cafe owners make money. Whilst a lot of my colleagues wanted to sell bags of coffee, I wanted to sell solutions to help cafe owners make money. Selling them coffee was how we got paid and transacted. Little did we know at the time that that strategy was a winning strategy. And we compounded and compounded and compounded constantly thought about how we could dedicate to deliver to our clientele. How can we keep solving more problems? How can we be more relevant? And every time we did that, we told a story really, really well. We marketed really well, we emotionally engaged. And the byproduct was that we became Australia’s largest specialty coffee company and exited in 2017, the exit, in short, well, we were making plenty of money, but I was 70 kilos overweight and I was travelling three weeks a month.

(05:15):

So I was pretty shit at personal life and I was very shit at being a husband and a father because I was travelling so much. And whilst I was very successful in business and we had enough money, it was at that point that was well, when’s enough? Getting back to the values and the ethos, enough money to do what you want when you want, it was time to sell the company. So when I sold, I sold because I wanted to get my life, personal life in order and get healthy, and I certainly wanted to become a better husband and a better father. And the business had to go when we started. Then again now in 2020 with the Coffee Commune, I’ve set the same boundaries. I still take the time to keep fit and healthy for myself. I take all the school holidays off and I have the luxury to do that.

(05:56):

I’ve the resources because of the exit and business is third and I work school hours. So I’ve got four GMs. I’ve given ’em a share of the business. And in short, the Coffee Commune is an amazing project. It’s something we don’t do things in halves. Nigel, I looked at it and said, what problem are we going to solve? It certainly isn’t a coffee problem. I built the Coffee Commune as a place of collaboration. There was no collaboration in our industry. No two roasters would get together and share ideas. This is in 2020. So we start in 2020, we built the Coffee Commune. The premise was to be a place of collaboration and it’s made up of two functions. One is it’s a World-class facility where you can come and manufacture a hundred grammes of coffee to thousands of kilos. You can manufacture it yourself, we can do it for you.

(06:40):

You can bring your own green beans. So our audience, there are startups. There’s over 35 startups working out of the commune. Now, if we fast forward to 2024, you’ve got another 30 odd that use us for top-ups. So if they get massive orders, they can’t fill with their small equipment, they’ll use our equipment. It’s a $20 million facility use that if they break down, they had nowhere to go. You certainly can’t go to a competitor. So these are all the problems that we solve and what makes us relevant from a manufacturing facility. We don’t have our own brand that goes into store. We have people that we produce bespoke products for. Like Cafe 63 is a massive client, CJ’s Patisserie. But then we do small clients like Echo Bistro that have been around for 30 years. So we do anything from small to large, but it’s their own product, their own ip, their own brand, everything’s done or they can manufacture it themselves so they don’t need their own facility.

(07:29):

On the other side, it’s only a chamber of commerce, so we’re not a registered chamber. It comes with too much red tape and holds us back. And someone like me doesn’t like to be held back, no government money. And we have over 900 members now, part of the coffee commune, a lot of ’em are cafe owners, over 500 cafe owners, and there’s a lot of partners that deal with hospitality that are part of it. And the whole premise of that is for people to do business together. No rebates, no kickbacks back to us. They do business together. Preferential buying, buying power, advocacy is a big one. We’ve just come off the back of running round tables, which will present a paper to local, state and federal government with the problems that are happening, but with solutions that we suggest that they can fast track and help our industry with.

(08:09):

So we want to be very proactive. We’re not there to fight or lobby. We’re there to lobby for what’s right, not to lobby for the sake of lobbying. And we’re certainly not lobbying against people that we collect money from because we don’t take government money. But the whole thing is what spits out of it is to help accelerate people’s potential. Now I know it’s a long-winded answer, but it is a first of its kind concept in Australia, if not the world. It is something that follows my premise of any business owner, small or big, or anyone looking to go into business. You’ve got to solve problems. If you’re not solving a problem, you don’t have a point of difference. If you’re not more relevant than the alternative or the competition, if you want to use that word, then you’re not going to stand out or scale or be best in class.

(08:49):

And then once you get your problem and your relevance, right, you’ve got to tell a story better than anybody else because you could be doing great things. And there’s many businesses out there doing great things, but they’re not telling a story, which is what we call marketing. It’s the art of telling a story. So that engages people emotionally to choose you. And that’s what I found has worked for me, not only in Australia, but when we started in New York, when we did India, when we did business in China, and we did a great collaboration called Dark by Philip debell in Indonesia and Bangkok with the owner of h and m in that region there, Mr. Js Gill. And that was an amazing concept, which is now they’re up to about eight stores. They just called Dark because the branding licence finished. They didn’t need my support and help anymore, so we just dropped the by Philip de Bella. And that’s an amazing project where we learn a lot internationally and really pioneered specialty coffee in a country that you thought wouldn’t really exist.

(09:42):

Yeah. Well Phil, so much to unpack there. Thank you for sharing all of that. I’m very conscious we want to try and keep this part one, so I have to get you back for part two. But interesting, we have a lot of business owners that listen to this podcast, so probably something I’m keen to unpack is in 2017 when you did your transaction, how did you know you needed to make a change? I talk to business owners every day and they go, oh look, I’m working really, really hard. My EBITDA’s growing. I’ve got a great asset, but I feel like I’m stuck. I can’t walk away from the business. How did you mentally know that the time was right?

(10:12):

Yeah, great question. Look, I look at the now, but I always plan three years in advance. And that’s something that I come across a lot of business owners that don’t do. So I’ll always say to somebody, I say this when I’m employing somebody, what do you want to achieve in 12 months? What do you want to achieve in three years? And it scares me that a lot of people know where they want to be in the next 12 months. People know where they are in the now, but do they know where they want to be in three years? So that’s something that is really, really flabbergasting. So if we all sat down, took the time and go, where is it we want to be in three years time? It forces you to plan ahead. When I got to 2017, it was in 2014 that I made the decision to exit. And it all came from when your wife sits down and says, something’s got to give. You can’t keep travelling three weeks a month. When you look at yourself in the mirror and you go, shit, I didn’t realise I put on so much weight. And you go to your doctor for your annual checkup and he goes, you’re the fittest fat. Fuck I know now lose weight. And that’s quote unquote, that’s not me being crass. That was my doctor’s words.

(11:11):

You’re just going to not wake up one day just because you’re healthy now, but you’re overweight. The body’s not going to maintain this just because you’ve got no diabetes and no cholesterol and all the rest of it. He said, don’t think now think three years. And so the short answer is know where you are now, know where you want to be in 12 months, but please, please, please, if you’re listening to this plan where you want to be in three years, and this is the key part, personal, professional, family,

(11:39):

Too many people I talk to just talk about their business life and I did that for so many years. Plan where you want to be, know where you are now, plan where you want to be in 12 months and three years, three separate pieces of paper, my personal all about you, it’s all about you. Where do you want to be? All about your family? Where do you want that to be and what does it look like and your business, where does that want to be? And in short, what you’re doing there is you’re actually reverse engineering. You’re starting with the outcome in mind, rather what we get caught up in doing, there’s so much going on, right? Anyone running a business knows how much is going on. There’s HR law changes changing all the time, finance changes, changing all the time, regulation, red tape. Then you’ve got the economy slowing.

(12:22):

Some industries are growing, some are not. Cost of living. There’s just so much to one pack that we get caught up in the everyday go, go, go. But you need to take the time to stop. Pause. I do it twice a year. I take a week out twice a year and I go off to a health retreat. I love going down to Eden Health Retreat down at Currumbin, and that’s me time. That’s me pausing, stopping. Not only am I working on me personally, good food, movement, all that sort of stuff, meditation, but I’m also sitting down there with a pen and paper and going, right, what does the next three years look like personally? What does the next three years look like professionally? What does the next three years look like for my family? And then I come back and I work from the start with the outcome in mind and I reverse engineer it back to today.

(13:06):

And that’s the biggest takeaway I can give to people is you’ve got to break that cycle of the everyday because it is tough and it needs to be tough. It doesn’t need to be as tough as it is right now, let’s be honest. But if it was easy, everybody would be doing it. Nigel, if business was easy, if opening a cafe was easy, if opening a tech business was easy, I always find that if it’s easy today, it’s going to be very difficult tomorrow. Something that’s harder today normally becomes easier tomorrow, but you need to break the cycle. You need to take the time out and you need to forward plan three year cycles.

(13:35):

Fantastic advice, Phil. And it’s interesting, how did you transition, because I do know that back of that conversation is that business owners I talk to, they go, look, my identity is my business knowledge. If I sell the business, sure I’m going to have hundreds of millions, tens of millions of dollars, but what do I do? How did you find that change? Because you were in charge of your destiny, you’re selling to a listed entity, and then what next? Can you share a bit about that?

(13:56):

Look, I don’t think you’re ever going to get rid of that, but you surely do mitigate it. And especially for me, I like to talk logic. I like to talk facts, not opinions. Technically, I sold part of my name. I didn’t sell my name. My name’s Philip Ella, right on my birth certificate. There you go. I didn’t sell Philip debell, I sold Ella Coffee, but there was a part of my identity in that Debella coffee. But because I ran on three years of a dance, I had a transition period. So like I said in 2014, I made the decision to sell. I didn’t step out until 2017, so I had three years to transition that. What does life look like post exit? What do I want to do post exit? What does it mean to me? What matters to me? But the keyword there is me.

(14:40):

What happens in people and brands is they get caught up because brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room, right? Let’s really demystify that. The brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room. And people get caught up about what say about them when they’re not in the room. Now when people to this day still say, I love your coffee. Oh, wood coffee. Oh, Della, I don’t own it anymore. Oh yeah, but I still see it. Yeah, but I don’t own it. It’s not mine. I sold that. Oh, but I still relate it back to you. Okay, well that tells me that we build a powerful brand. However, it’s not me, it’s not my identity. But if you’re working with a three year cycle and going, Hey, I’ve got a transition, then it’s going to help with breaking those ties because we do.

(15:17):

Do you build something, it’s like our kids, why do we get so attached to our kids? My parents, I’ll never forget saying, my parents saying, you’ll understand when you have kids one day. And I was that kid that go, yeah, bullshit mom. But it’s true. I’ve got a 16-year-old daughter and a 14-year-old boy and it doesn’t matter if they’re 66 or 76, they’re still your kids, right? And I see that with mom, with my brother, with my sister, with myself. My mom and my dad. We’re still their kids. Once you have kids, they never leave you. They, they’re your babies, businesses the same. And you grow it, you start it, you nurture it, you dedicate so many resources to it, you dedicate your time to it, you bleed for it, it causes pleasure, it causes pain. So of course you’re going to be attached to it. So I suppose the short answer is you’re never going to break the tie completely. But if you’re working on a three year cycle and you transition, then you’ll mitigate that feeling of loss. Don’t get caught up. Your personal brand is your personal brand. Your business brand is your business brand. Take the time to start separating that. Phil,

(16:18):

You grew up with very strong values, which obviously contributed a lot to your success. When you are stuck or as a business owner now involved in lots of different things, how do you get through things? Who do you turn to for help? What do you read? What’s your go-to? Because I know, again, another question that I get asked all the time is, Nigel, you built a successful tech business, but who do you turn to when you are stuck? So how have you done that

(16:38):

Community? You need good people, community around you. I’ve got a handful of amazing, amazing friends in all different walks of life. I always say that you don’t want to be the smartest person in the room. You don’t want to be the wisest person in the room. And if you spend a year with the same people and you are the smartest person in the room and the wisest person in the room, it’s time to get new friends. It doesn’t mean that you get rid of old friends. It just means you need to start putting yourself in new company. I love community. I do a lot of stuff. I’m part of the YPO Community young President’s organisation. I have been for 16 years. I’m been part of two groups that gives me great pleasure and great inspiration. I’m never the smartest person in that room and nor do I ever want to be.

(17:16):

I learn so much from them. I contribute a lot back as well. But that keeps me on my toes, it keeps me grounded. I’m also part of the Rajo community where I chair a board on the Gold Coast soon to chair a board here in Brisbane of small business owners to medium business owners. That’s another community. And like I said, I’ve got a handful of exceptional friends doing great things in different spaces. Some are employees, some have their own businesses. But the short answer is community. You need good community around you. And you know what? The second part I would say is meaningful conversations. So when you start to have meaningful conversations with the different people around you, I’ve now onto book number four that got referred to me from book number one, from the one book where I had a meaningful conversation with somebody. He said, you need to read the 5:00 AM Club by Robin Sharma. I’m now reading his next book, which is about wealth, true meaning of wealth, which is not money I’ve read The Happiest Man on Earth. Now these all came from that one person that have now trickled down and having meaningful conversations. If you love that book, read this book if you like that book, read this book. But it all comes down to meaningful conversations and having meaningful conversations filters down to being around the right community.

(18:28):

Yeah, fantastic. That’s really great advice. I can’t go without asking you about technology, right? So 10 years ago when I said I first met you, you were an early adopter, you always embrace technology, you always cutting edge, you are always the leader. Share with me and to the listeners what you take is on technology because I guess a lot of owners and business people, we, they see it as a foreign language. They don’t understand it. They know they need it, but they dunno how to embrace it. So how have you embraced technology as a real differentiator to everything you do?

(18:55):

Nigel? Technology is like money. It’s a resource. And if you’re not using that resource, then you’re left behind, right? Technology in short is a resource. If you don’t understand it, which a lot of technology I don’t ask, surround yourself with the community that does understand it. Talk to experts that do understand technology, have meaningful conversations with people that get technology. But in short, technology’s all around us. If you’re not embracing it, you’re not part of it. Key ones that stand out for me is like your payroll systems. I’ve seen amazing colleagues around the country get into a lot of trouble, not because their intention was wrong, they weren’t trying to rip their staff off, but what listeners might not understand in hospitality is before 7:00 AM is a different rate. After 7:00 AM is a different rate after 6:00 PM is a different rate after 10:00 PM is another rate after 12:00 AM in the midnight is another rate.

(19:42):

So people that are running 24 7 are more likely to get themselves in trouble because firstly, they might not know the laws, but two, they’re relying on a bookkeeper to do that. There’s now systems like Found j Tander, there’s a whole heap of them. We use found Jew that all people have to do is log in with their foot thumbprint, log out with their thumbprint, and this automatically updates the awards and it automatically spits out what the weekly pay should be and all the rest of it. And technology’s just gotten rid of say, let’s call it two hours per employee to work out what their rates are for someone that’s operating 24 7. So that’s a standout in technology, coffee, machine technology, we were starting to get a lot of issues with RSI with manual tamping.

(20:22):

There’s a great product called Puck Press where you grind the coffee automatically grinds now to weight, it drops it to your group handle, you put it into this machine, it automatically tamps to whatever pressure you want. It gets rid of the manual wrist action and it’s getting rid of RSI. That’s technology. In the coffee space, we’ve seen technology all around us and they’re two classic examples of technology. Of course with the, I always say somebody invents a virus, somebody’s smart enough to clean it, someone cleans it, somebody else invents a virus. All the technology available now with your spyware and what’s going on with cybersecurity, you’ve got to be proactive. We’re operating in a different world. I say that smart business people are evolving, but so are the criminals and technology like a lot what you guys do here is take the proactive approach, not the reactive.

(21:13):

So if you want to bottle it all down and say what’s my advice in technology is be proactive with technology, not reactive. If you spend the money putting it in place before you need it, it’s going to be a hell of a lot cheaper. It’s a bit like a lawyer. If you use a lawyer before you need the lawyer. So if you’re proactive with a lawyer, it’s a lot cheaper than being reactive with a lawyer. I think technology is a lot the same. Fantastic. If you are proactive with using technology rather than reactive, you’re going to save a lot of money. I love that saying Phil. We’ll put that on your

(21:37):

Caption. Changing gears slightly, before we got on the air, we were talking a bit about I guess hospitality industry. What’s your take on the economy? I know that you’ve been very vocal just in terms of government support and things like that. You are very good at crystal balling, I feel. Where do you see the immediate and I guess midterm future for Queensland in particular?

(21:58):

I’ve been doing a lot of work of this for a long time, but especially in the last few months, I really, really hone it in and have meaningful conversations because there’s a lot of noise out there again, and to present it in a way of logic. So here goes something that could talk for two hours, but I’ll try and put it down to 60 seconds. The short answer is this. What starts off in a good intention often gets executed poorly. Why? Because firstly, politicians don’t need to have the answers. So step one is we need to go back to local, state and federal government, local government here in Brisbane does it. Well, we need to go back to local, state and federal governments using experts. If they need to know about technology, talk to you. If they need to know about hospitality, put me around a table.

(22:35):

You need to know about plumbers association. Put the Master Plumbers Association around the table. If you want to know about builders, put the construction head guys around. You want to fix ramping in hospitals and emergency and ambulance, put the ambulance people around the table and the head of emergency at the hospitals, they’ll tell you the solution. But no, we’ve got politicians who think they need to have the answers because if they don’t, they’re not incompetent. Well, they’re actually incompetent by thinking they’ve got the answers, but they’re not qualified. Again, that’s not an opinion to become treasurer of local, state, or federal government. You don’t need to have an accounting degree. Would you hire A CFO or an accountant in your business without an accounting degree? You wouldn’t. Logic, however it happens in government. Now take it away from bashing politicians. They just need to get smarter and wiser.

(23:16):

Two fundamental problems in this country right now, one, and this is coming from a son of immigrants, immigration is a problem. Logic. We are bringing in far too many people, we can’t house the people and that is what’s causing the housing problem is overinflated the construction costs. The construction costs caused the crisis of living. And this is not opinion. You follow the data, you follow the numbers. If you take out immigration, we have right now enough housing for families to have 2.1 children per family, right? Most families in Australia right now are having 1.6 kids per family. We don’t have a housing problem if we don’t have to house excess immigration. This is not opinion, this is data you can find. It’s just the government makes it very hard for you to find this data. So it’s overinflated construction costs, it’s put pressure on constructions, put pressure on cost of living.

(24:06):

The other one is, again, remember how I started, what starts with a good intention ends up poorly executed NDIS. The NDIS system in this country is going to send this country bankrupt. If you go, and we’re going through it right now, if you want to get a cleaner to clean your house, 45 to $50 an hour, if it’s an NDIS worker, it’s 85 to 95 an hour, right? They’re handing NDIS out money to people that don’t need it. That’s a fact, not a statement. I can get a whole heap of people in a room to tell you. I heard one recently about a lady who’s got cochlear implants. She can speak perfectly. She’s talking to somebody on the phone and the guy says, I can give you 10,000 a year for speech therapy. And she goes, do I sound like I need speech therapy? I’m talking to you on the phone. I have cochlear ear implant on it, but there’s an allocation of 10,000 a person. I don’t need that. I need $500 to ensure my cochlear implant so I can save the taxpayer nine and a half thousand a year, but I can’t give you the 500 for your cochlear insurance, but I can give you 10,000 for your speech therapy. And she goes, I don’t need speech therapy. I’m saving the taxpayer nine and a half thousand. There’s one example of

(25:03):

Hundreds,

(25:04):

Right? Again, not an opinion because a lot of people will listen to this and go, oh, this guy’s full of shit. I’m talking facts, right? So we need to get away from the opinions and come down to facts. If we don’t put smart immigration policy in place right now, and if we don’t sort out the NDIS, we cannot possibly turn over enough money to support this country and what’s missing out. I do a lot of work with community and charities. You talk to charities that look after people, that look after people that have paid their taxes, the war, veterans tax, the war veterans are one of the worst. These people have fought for their country delivered to their country, but then the country’s not looking after them, right? What’s happening with them in terms of being their pensions? What are they looked after in this country?

(25:47):

Those that have paid the most taxes, they’ve worked. They don’t even get a pension. I mean, that’s logic, right? So those that have contributed more back to this country are actually get looked after worse. You can’t argue logic for too long what’s happened? If you want to bring it right down and say, what’s the magic source, so to speak, the politicians’ number one priority is to make sure they get reelected. And I don’t blame them. If your job was on the line every time you are running a business to make sure you’ve got a job tomorrow they’re running their business to make sure they’ve got a job. Tomorrow they will go with whatever gets them the votes and politicians will listen to this. They start with good intentions and execution gets wavered because at the end of the day, we saw it with Campbell, Newman, Campbell, Newman did some amazing things behind the scenes, but yet forward facing was questionable.

(26:35):

But more questionable was everyone got on a bandwagon, didn’t like him, didn’t like him, didn’t like him. He sacked 14,000 workers. Did you know that no one in government sacks anybody? That’s a fact. That’s not an opinion. They were all voluntary redundancies. When was the last time somebody got sacked in government literally sacked, nobody got sacked. Whereas to this day, they still say Camber Newman sacked 14,000 people. He didn’t sack a person because no one in government sacks, anybody. They made redundant. And I’ve got experience. Half my family worked in government. So again, not talking opinion, I’m talking logic. Now what happens is that the politicians, whilst their intention might be good, they’re worried about getting voted in. So the person who makes the most noise is the person who gets across the line what they need.

(27:14):

So wrong people, wrong seats of the bus, the system of politics needs to be sorted. You’re not going to get good people in politics that have got the experience and those that start with the experience and good intention, well, how long are they going to last if they’re not going to be voted in because they’re no good to anybody in opposition and they’re no good to anybody if they’re not there anymore. So short answer system, fix the system. Let’s get smarter as voters. Let’s reward the people that are making good decisions. Let’s hold those that are not making good decisions accountable. I don’t care what side of government they sit on, if they’re not making the right decisions, get rid of them. Bring the next lot of people in, but incentivize smart people to come through and to become politicians. Incentivize the smart people that are coming through like we would in private business, in public companies. We want smart people at the table. We want smart politicians.

(27:58):

Phil, always full of so much information, mate, it’s amazing. Two more questions I’ve got to ask because I’m very conscious. I’m try and keep this tight for the listeners and the viewers. Olympics come in Brisbane, we’ve just come off the back of a great Paris Olympics. What’s your take on that in terms of stimulated economy, construction? I know we’ve just spoken a little bit about, but I always ask people, especially people that are in the know, what’s your

(28:19):

Personal, again, let’s apply logic, right? The 2032 Olympics is, I’ll give you the short answer is great, right? And I’ll distil it down in limited time. It’s very simple. 2032 is the destination, it’s the outcome. So remember I said start with the outcome in mind. It’s not 2032, that’s going to define how great we are. It’s what we do between now and 2032. Let’s build better infrastructure. Let’s build better stadiums. If we can afford it, well, let’s just start with it. Let’s build better roads. Let’s build better stadiums. Let’s build better communities. Let’s build better everything. However, let’s not overspend beyond our means, right? Let’s do the best that we can with the resources that we’ve got and deliver the 2032 Olympics the best that we can. The opportunity is to market Brisbane, to market Queensland, to market Australia, right? But predominantly Brisbane, better than anything, it will fast track the marketing, which is the storytelling and the emotional engagement of Brisbane and Queensland better than any other event ever will. So is it a positive? Of course, the two things that are going to make it negative is one, poor leadership make a fricking decision. How many years are they going to talk about stadium?

(29:29):

And the second thing that’s going to make it is the hidden politics, the geopolitics that goes on. If we can’t afford it, don’t build it. If it’s going to stress test the economy, don’t do it. And I’ll use this as a classic example. Again, talking logic. Nobody around the world watching the opening ceremony is going to remember whether the stadium holds 95,000 people, 75,000 people or 45,000 people. True. This is logic. Nobody around the world is going to remember how many thousands of people are in the stadium. Yet that’s what the politicians want to argue. But what they will remember is when the beautiful pictures and the drones and all the new technology that will come out that airs this to the rest of the world, shows that the stadium is at Mount Gravatt, which nobody can get to, is next to a cemetery and has nothing appeasing looking around it except freeway versus having it say at Suncorp Stadium with the city in the background or having it at the GABA with the city in the background or using Victoria Park where you’ve got the river and the parks and the city in the background.

(30:25):

That’s what they will remember. They will remember what the city looks like. They’ll remember how beautiful it looks. They’ll remember how easy those that go to the opening and closing ceremony from around the world, the dignitaries, we’ll remember how easy it was to travel to it and come from it. They will not remember whether there was 95,000 or 75,000 people. So the short answer is we are looking at the wrong barometer. We are looking at the wrong measurements of success. A lot of propaganda goes into that. A lot of white noise from government. And the bottom line of that is poor leadership stand up shows some leadership. It’s not questionable whether the Olympics are on or off. They’re on, right? Get over that. Now let’s make the best decisions with the resources that we have and realise that 2032 is the celebration leading up to that is the hard work. And then the benefit of the 2032 is what happens after it.

(31:11):

Yeah. Fantastic. Well, look, when you decide to get into politics, Phil, you’ve got my vote, mate. Oh,

(31:15):

Mate, I wouldn’t want to work that hard. I mean, let’s be honest. I mean, again, the system’s broken. The politicians work hard. They start with good intentions, execution becomes poor. Why do we have strong government? And this is a great platform, Nigel. People say, okay, we’ll give us smart people listening to this. Okay, come on smarter. Give us the answer again. Why do we have progressive government at local council? So in Brisbane, gold Coast, no matter who’s gotten in it doesn’t matter if it’s male or female, labour liberal national greens, it won’t matter Why? Because the system is this, and most listeners won’t even know this. At local politics, at local council, you vote for your local counsellor. He or she has to do a great job no matter where they come from, greens independent, doesn’t matter. They have to do a great job. If they do a great job, you vote them back in.

(31:56):

You then have a second vote and the vote is for the Lord Mayor. Now, if he or she does a great job, it doesn’t matter what party they come from. If they do say, if they do the things they say they’re going to do and you like what they plan for the next four year term, you vote them in. Brisbane’s gone from strength to strength. I’ve been here 49 years. I’m born and bred Brisbane. Gold Coast has gone from strength to strength, any council Ipswich. And unfortunately Port Pass will be remembered for the 5% that he did bad. But the 95% that he did well was why? Because the local councillors did their jobs. They got voted in, the Lord Mayor did their job. They get voted in. And who wins? The community wins at state and federal politics. We don’t vote for the premier.

(32:38):

We don’t vote for the Prime Minister. So those that didn’t like Scott Morrison at the recent federal election, how many didn’t vote for him? How many people lost their seats? We lost an amazing federal member, Trevor Evans in our area. We lost Trevor Evans. He was an amazing, hardworking federal minister, federal member who was smart. We lost him because of the system at state level. How many good people do we lose because they didn’t want Campbell Newman. So until we fix the system, and a lot of people are thinking, you’re dreaming, well, maybe I am dreaming, but you can’t argue data, you can’t argue. Logic make state and federal politics, like local politics is where you vote for the leader and you vote for the local member and you watch how you’ll get better people in government, you’ll get more stable government and you’ll get better decisions in government. Yeah, wow. Geez, that’s a whole nother podcast. I think that’s a whole 12 month workshop.

(33:26):

I think Phil look for the small business owners, which make up the majority of our customers and our listeners. What’s one piece of advice that you haven’t shared that you want leave, I guess your legacy. You are seen as a really successful business leader that people turn to. I always fondly think of you as the coffee guide, but what lasting legacy piece of advice that you want to leave?

(33:48):

Good question. I think one of the key ones, which wraps into that whole life as measured in moments. If you think about, there’s a poem about this called the Dash on our gravestones. If you go to cemetery and it says the date you were born and the day the person passed away, and there’s a dash in between and there’s a poem called the Dash. And I heard this the other day and it really resonated with me, is that when we die and we’ve gone, we certainly don’t want to die in the hearts of those we leave behind. And I think that’s a very powerful statement, and I’ve never shared that on there you go publicly,

(34:20):

When we pass away, we’re going to quickly be forgotten. But we don’t want to be quickly forgotten in the hearts of those that we’ve left behind, which means let’s start measuring more the impact we have. Let’s measure what we do rather than what we have. And I think that’s something that’s really, I’m heading into 50 next year and it’s something that’s really resonating with me is it’s a lot less about what I have and a lot more about what I do. And so when people have a crack at me negatively and go, here’s rich person talking about interest rates, I don’t have a home loan. So if I’m arguing about interest rates, it’s not for my benefit. It’s for my 35 staff and 98% of the public that do because it’d be very easy for me to sit there and do nothing. Gandy is one of my favourite philosophers, and he talks about be part of the change you want to see.

(35:03):

So when I talk about politics or I spend my time and frustrations and moments thinking about it and strategizing, it’s not for my benefit. I have enough money to do what I want when I want. I now have my health and I have enough time to do what I want when I want. But it’s certainly about the impact. It’s not about me. It’s what impact can I leave behind. So in short, that really resonates with me. We are going to, when we leave, we’re going to be forgotten pretty quickly. But how do we stay relevant and how do we stay memorable in the hearts of those we leave behind? It’s the impact that we’ve made and the difference that we’ve been able to contribute to

(35:36):

Amazingly words. Phil, what’s next? You turn 50 soon, in the next 10 years, what are you planning to do? What do you want to do?

(35:43):

Well, look professionally. Professionally, there’s two things. Really, really accelerate the coffee commune, help people be sustainable, help them be profitable, help ’em build their businesses and have a bigger impact on that side of things. It’s a really rewarding project. And then also get more involved in things like the Raja board that I chair. I’m about to chair another board to help the newcomers because one of the things I’m seeing is we’re not seeing a lot of 20-year-old start businesses. So I’d love to see that change in the next 10 years is have an impact on where I can play to help see 20 year olds feel aspirational, inspired, motivated to start business. Because let’s face it, it’s pretty daunting right now, right? You employ more people, payroll tax, you buy more land, land tax.

(36:24):

You start a business with no government help, but you make a profit. Capital gains tax. Like a 20-year-old looks at that and goes, really? Do I really want to play in this space? But that’s the negative. There’s a lot of positive remaining business. So I want to play in that space. In terms of family, I’ve got a 16-year-old daughter and a 14-year-old boy that never changes. They’ll transition from high school into university or whatever they choose to do to be the best support I can possibly be, to have memorable moments with my wife and family and people around us. And personally, the big one for me is to stay healthy. It’s not how long you live for. It’s certainly the quality of life you have for as long as we’re here. So breaking it down into my own words, personal, professional, family. Next for me is to keep doing and bringing it all down is about impact. More doing and less having is important.

(37:14):

Phil, thank you so much for joining us today. You’ve been an inspiration to so many, including myself. You’ve been a great leader. You’ve really put Brisbane and business on the map. Really appreciate your time.

(37:24):

Thank you. Thanks for having me. And it’s platforms like this that allow us to tell our story. So congratulations to you and your own success. You’ve built an amazing business. But thanks for building things like this that allow us to share our stories.

(37:33):

Always welcome. I’ll definitely get you back for part two I think at some stage, Phil. So thank you so much, mate. Thanks.