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When Australian man Sabri Suby was young, he watched his single mother do three strenuous jobs to support her children.
She then returned to the family home in Byron Bay to cook healthy, homemade meals for him and his sister. This taught him a crucial, lifelong lesson – something he calls “work ethic for single mothers”.
It had a “profound impact,” and as soon as he could, Mr. Suby began taking on extra-curricular jobs to help, including his first role in grinding peanut butter in a health food store for only $ 2.50 an hour.
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“I also started using my harmonica in markets on weekends to make $ 80-100 for electricity bills or groceries. I gave all my money to my mother,” he told news.com.au.
“Seeing you work so hard has had a profound impact on me and helped me in life.
“You may have more connections or grew up in a better area or with two parents, but one thing you can’t take away from me is my work ethic.”
Mr. Suby got an extra-curricular sales job at 16 and discovered a natural talent for it.
After graduating from high school, he made a conscious decision not to go straight to university, packed his bags and moved to London for two years, where he worked in sales “door to door, face to face and over the phone”.
Again, it was an industry where he succeeded and he decided to move back to Australia and study business marketing at RMIT.
He worked full-time for a company that sold Google AdWords and specialized in online marketing and search engine optimization to support himself during his studies. He earned a minimum salary and received additional sales commissions.
However, he “was by no means leading a lavish lifestyle” and the wages “just enough to survive”. At the age of 21, he went into business for himself after realizing that he could do better.
Revenue exceeded $ 1 million and Suby founded a number of other companies.
“Some failed, others were fine, others were sold,” he said.
Then, five years ago, he founded the digital marketing company King Kong.
At the time, he had only a few hundred dollars in the bank after years of business ups and downs and just getting married.
“I was at zero, but I was committed to this girl and it was time to start a real business career,” he said.
“It was the moment I drew a line in the sand – I literally wondered how I would pay the rent and decided to go back to my roots and make 150 calls a day.
“I didn’t have a rich uncle, no venture capital, no loans or savings, so I had to get out of there and do it myself.”
In the beginning, Mr. Suby worked 18 hours a day and did everything himself, from running errands to cleaning the office and accounting.
But then he came across a simple rule that changed everything.
It was the “80-20 rule” – also known as the Pareto principle.
“The principle is that 20 percent of the input from anything brings 80 percent of the output – so 20 percent of the customers give 80 percent of the profit, or 20 percent of the streets in a city carry 80 percent of the traffic,” he said.
“It was only when I sat down and thoroughly checked my time that I realized that my actions were unsustainable. So I asked myself: What am I actually doing to move the money pin? and drive the business or generate more revenue? “So I started automating or delegating the business and taking the grunt out of the business.
Then things really “exploded”.
“It was like a change – when I made the conscious decision to spend all my time selling within a few days instead of getting one or two customers a week, it was four to five. Sales almost doubled overnight, ”he said.
Today, King Kong is valued at $ 30 million with a three-year growth rate of 314 percent, employs 65 people in its shiny new office in Melbourne, and attracts thousands of new customers every month.
Mr. Suby, now a 34-year-old father, said it was a “humiliating experience” to have grown from a humble upbringing to a multi-million dollar success story.
“The opportunities we have in Australia are incredible – they can come from an unhappy parenting education that does three jobs without money, without a private school, and without a college check … and turns into a million dollar success . ” said.
“You can go there without resources from an unfortunate situation … but when people roll up their sleeves and get the job done, it doesn’t matter what skin color you are, where you are from or who your parents are, it does the same from the field.
“Don’t wait until someone tells you that you are worth it, just go outside.”
Mr. Suby, whose first book, Sell like crazy, became a bestseller this year, saying that the secret of success was “working tirelessly” – but also working wisely.
“Isolate the things you need to do to keep the business going and work like a dog on these things. Find the little hinges that swing the big doors, ”he said.
“One thing that remains constant is that the hardest worker in the room will be a success. My advice is that you want to train your work ethic like a muscle – you won’t make any money without hard work.”
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