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The Amazing Authorities Podcast
Building a Global Tutoring Empire — Michael Black on Franchising, Execution, and the Power of Education Entrepreneurship
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- [00:02]
Mitch Carson
Welcome to the Amazing Authorities podcast where game changers, visionaries and category leaders share how they built their brands, platforms and global influence. Your host is Mitch Carson, international speaker, media strategist and creator of the Instant Authority system. If you're ready to learn from those who've done it and want to become the go to expert in your space, you're in the right place.
- [00:31]
Michael Black is in the house today and he's going to dispense great information. He's a young entrepreneur that has broken all sorts of records from Australia. Michael, welcome to the Amazing Authorities podcast.
- [00:47]
Michael Black
Thanks Mitch. Pleasure to be here.
- [00:49]
Mitch Carson
Yeah, and it's great to have you. As I mentioned before, I've spent a lot of time in Australia either speaking at or producing close to 200 events during my years in the 2006 through 8. And I miss your country. So this is going to be cool today and I promise not to talk about Vegemite. All right, so we'll just.
- [01:10]
Michael Black
Fantastic.
- [01:11]
Mitch Carson
Focused on, on business and you started out very young and I would say your barriers to thinking is probably your greatest asset or lack of barriers to thinking. You were 17 when you started your first business. Tell us about that.
- [01:30]
Michael Black
Yeah, well thanks Mitch. And I'm really excited to share my story. So, started in a spare room in my parents house in a suburb called Bosley park in Sydney, Australia and that's where the business started. Straight out of high school, I knew that I needed to make a little bit of extra money while studying at college and I studied a Bachelor of Commerce majoring in management and law at the University of Sydney. And I knew I needed to make a bit of extra money so I ended up starting some doing a bit of tutoring in a spare room in my parents house. And it was more of a side hustle when I first started but it quickly grew into something much, much more bigger than I originally had anticipated.
- [02:24]
Mitch Carson
And what was the. Because we were talking a little bit. Now you're over 100 franchises in Australia. How long did that take you to go from zero, let's say zero to 10. What was your time frame?
- [02:40]
Michael Black
Well, Mitch, the first franchise took us about eight months to sell. So the first franchise was eight months. And, and, and coincidentally as well, that was the same duration it took to bring on the first customer at success. Shooting was about 8. Well, so it certainly takes a long time and it's not something that happens overnight. There's no such thing as overnight success. So it does take a bit of time. And, and, and that, and that's what happened and we've been around for almost eight and a half years now. With a hundred franchises sold across Australia and New Zealand, there's no signs of slowing down. We're continuously growing and improving the business and, and working really hard with our franchise partners and our members to ensure that, that the business continues to grow and, and heads in the right direction.
- [03:34]
Mitch Carson
Why is your model better than others or what makes it different? Because Tutoring. Tell us a little bit about what makes your, your company unique, Michael.
- [03:45]
Michael Black
There's a few factors and I think one thing that you can never replicate, and I always say this is, is, is the people. You know, ideas are great, execution is better. You might have the best ideas in the world, but if you don't have the right team to execute it, then they're worth nothing. If you look at the best companies in the world, such as, let's look at Facebook for example. Facebook, their, their business. When, when Mark launched it, it wasn't the first, you know, it wasn't the only social media network there was my.
- [04:15]
Mitch Carson
Was not.
- [04:16]
Michael Black
And yes. And, and it became successful not just because of the idea, but because of the execution of it. And I think execution trumps ideas all the time. And I think that's one of the key differentiating factors that makes success tuning. It's the execution of the ideas that we have now at success Tutoring. We have revolutionized tutoring in our gym membership model of education. So it's a weekly membership with no locking contracts, which allows for a very profitable business model for franchise partners and extreme flexibility for our members. So we have changed the education landscape a lot. And on top of that, our learning material is based on the US Curriculum in the United States in New Zealand space in New Zealand curriculum. In Canada, it's based on the Canadian curriculum. That is how we localize the material. Because the reality is that students and parents want they, you know, they want their kids to learn what is relevant to what they're doing at school.
- [05:20]
Mitch Carson
And when you say I love that because I took notes and had it there and it's going to be part of the highlights when I have the show notes later. Execution trumps ideas. Execution is everything. And I think there was an expression for Thomas Edison. It's 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration. So you got to execute. So what, how do you execute differently?
- [05:48]
Michael Black
Well, I think making changes quickly, rapidly and learning and failing quick because in order to succeed you need to know what works and what doesn't. And there's only one way to know if something Works, you can get advice and I think getting advice is very important and very wise. But the reality is the way to really succeed is by trying to failing and then adapting and understanding what's worked and what hasn't. So I think one of the key factors of running a successful business, as a founder of education business, is the fact that you need to be, you can't be afraid to fail. You need to feel. There's a book actually, and it's called Fear the Fear, Feel the fear and do it anyway. So you need to feel that you're going to be, there's going to be fear, but you just got to do it anyway. Because if you are scared to fail, then you can't succeed. And I always say this to people, you can fail. If you keep failing, that's fine. But there's only a limited amount of times you can fail. I mean, if you keep trying, unless you're trying to fail, which nobody wants to try to fail, if you're, if you keep trying, you will succeed and there is no way of, if you don't quit, you'll always succeed.
- [07:06]
Mitch Carson
Face Everything in Rise is how I've twisted the acronym of Fear, Face Everything and Rise. Because if you work through that pain, you will seek that pleasure of success. It's just embracing that fear. I love that. Because no pain, no gain, you don't get big biceps. I mean all of us have gone to the gym at some point. Some stick with it, some don't, but you don't get big biceps without doing the reps and you have to endure that pain. I was off working out for about a month because I had to travel the United States recently and I had had a few things that came up health wise. And I went back yesterday to work out to do my Pilates reformer class. Oh my gosh, am I sore today. But I know that when I go back again tomorrow, I'm taking a day off, going back tomorrow, I'll get through it and slowly the pain will go away and then the benefits will happen. Have you, do you possess that sort of mindset with making mistakes?
- [08:11]
Michael Black
Yeah, absolutely. And I think, I think if you are afraid to fail, then you will not succeed because fear of failure limits your ability to make decisions. And I think of course there needs to be, you know, there needs to be a risk appetite for everything. You can't just take on, you know, uncalculated risks, but there needs to be a risk in order to make a decision and in order to succeed. And so understanding the fact that the Quicker you make decisions determines how successful you're going to be. Because the quicker you can implement things, you know, okay, okay, it works. It doesn't. Okay, it works great, let's stick to it. It doesn't. Okay, let's pivot. Let's try something else. Because in life in general, and this is what I've noticed with a lot of business entrepreneurs and highly successful individuals in any field, is that they're very persistent, they continue to work really hard, but also they're very, very agile. So they'll make changes really quickly. That's what makes them successful. There's no magic formula. There's no magic place where you can go, where you can just get all the information uploaded in your mind. The only way is real life experience and actually knowing for yourself whether it works or whether it doesn't totally agree.
- [09:34]
Mitch Carson
With you because you have to take the risk, because you will get the reward eventually. I'm in total agreement. And if you don't get into the ring and understand what it's like, as opposed to intellectualizing this. I taught martial arts for years. That's how I worked myself through college. And I used to teach people how to fight in the ring sport, in the sport of taekwondo. And there were black belts that got there that never fought. And guess what happened when they finally got it in the ring? They got their ears boxed because they hadn't gone through. Sometimes you have to get punched. And Mike Tyson quoted it real well, you know, the. What happens when you get punched in the face? Yeah, you gotta experience that. And that, that comes through trial and error. And what were some of the mistakes you would advise somebody to, to allow to happen in order to be successful? What did you learn early, let's say when you first started at 17, 18 years old, to where you are now, not that much older, but you're still older or more experienced.
- [10:40]
Michael Black
Yeah, well, I think, I think there's a lot of key learnings and I think a lot of the learnings come from what you never knew from the start. So, for example, like something very basic that I understand extremely well now, what at the beginning I had absolutely no clue about is how to sign a commercial lease. Seems very basic for a lot of, you know, successful entrepreneurs and business people. But for somebody that's, you know, in their teenage years have absolutely no idea how to do it. And I think just leaning on the right people and, and seeking their advice and learning is very important. So in the early days, looking for a commercial space was very tricky because I had no idea what terms to negotiate. I mean, of course agents are going to be wanting you to sign a lease. They're going to give you the terms. They're not going to tell you that there's such thing as a rent free period. They're not going to tell you that there's such things, a contribution or, or, you know, the rights that you have as a, you know, as a tenant.
- [11:46]
Mitch Carson
Leasing to negotiate, build outs and things. Yes, they want their commission. That's it. They want it to be done fast and not exactly.
- [11:54]
Michael Black
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So these things that, like, you know, that you sort of learn, like these things come with experience and, and I think this is also one of the key reasons why franchise partners, you know, come, come and work with us is the fact that we can give them that experience and that, and that assistance as well. Because I didn't have it and I had to learn the hard way. You know, the first space that we, at least we still do. And I think it's a, it's a really good space. But I think in terms of, as we come and we learn every step of the way, there's things that we can do better and better. And I think that was one key thing. Another thing is just like, you know, managing cash flow I think is very important. You know, as, as money comes into the business, understanding that a percentage of that goes to tax, a percentage of that goes to staff, percentage of that needs to be a buffer. There's a really good book I read called Profit first, which changed my life and my ability to see money in a completely different way, which helped me a lot. And I think, you know, learning as well that, you know, taking time to read books and, and learning is so important because it opens your mind to new things. You know, I, I didn't really grow up in a, in a household of business people or, or people that I could just say, you know, I'll speak to my, you know, Uncle Jerry over here, which, which is, you know, which runs, you know, an organization or has a business. I didn't have that, so I had to learn everything myself. You know, YouTube was very, very important for me, learning and then also going into, you know, reading books as well and, and also, you know, seeking mentors eventually as the business grew and I was able to afford, you know, paying for mentors. But initially YouTube and books are two single most important resource to learn from.
- [13:49]
Mitch Carson
And who are some of your important mentors?
- [13:53]
Michael Black
So I look up to a lot of, you know, business people in the, in the space, you know, Sales and marketing. I think they've done, done an exceptional job in a lot of, you know, their, their businesses and you know, continuously growing, you know, being, being in the franchise space. I always look up to like some really big brands. Like everybody knows McDonald's, of course, and you know, there's actually a chapter in my book which is called building the McDonald's of tutoring. And, and I write that on purpose because actually that's what we're building. We're building because McDonald's is not, it's not. You know, most people think McDonald's, it's a burger place, they sell burgers. But the reality is their business model, their success is not actually in the burgers, it's in the processes and the systems that they built to make a business model so strong that they can even own the land that the, that the building sits on.
- [14:47]
Mitch Carson
So they're in the real estate business.
- [14:49]
Michael Black
Exactly. And I think, you know, a lot of people understand that. But then also in the same, in the same breath, I think the fact that they have such a strong business model and good processes allows them to have really sustainable long term property investments and it gives them that confidence to buy the land. So I think having good systems and processes are very important. So I always look up to these really, you know, big brands that are continuously growing and pushing the limits of what's possible in the franchise world.
- [15:19]
Mitch Carson
No, I think that's great. And so you're, would you say one of the keys to your success because you're a franchisor is your SOPs, your standard operating procedures, your processes, and also educating people about how to negotiate a lease. Now it might, you're in Australia and New Zealand, but then coming to the US that's an entirely different world. You know, we, we speak different, our culture is a little bit different. We say trunk, you say boot, we use an elevator, you call it a lift. Which confused the heck out of me when I first came to Australia, over to the lift onto the fourth floor, I said lift what it is an adjustment culturally. And now you've made a presence, you're in the process of making a presence into the United States. How have you adjusted your normal operating procedure, your strategy coming into the big market of the United States?
- [16:17]
Michael Black
Yeah, that's a really good question, Mitch. And I think one thing that we've worked on very closely is making sure we've got a local team in the US So for example, we've just brought on board Isabelle, which is our growth and performance manager based in the United States. She lives there. Grew up in the United States, actually came to Sydney, worked here for over a year, and then went back to the US and she assists a lot of our franchise partners in the United States and will continue to assist, you know, the new ones that come on board as well. So I think having the right team locally is very important. Secondly, adapting the material based on the local curriculum. So our curriculum is based on the US Curriculum. As we know, there's a lot of Spanish speaking people in the United States. So even adapting the curriculum and translating key marketing.
- [17:07]
Mitch Carson
Bravo, bravo.
- [17:09]
Michael Black
Spanish, I think, is very important.
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Mitch Carson
Yeah, yeah. It's my second language. And growing up in Los Angeles, half the city is Hispanic. So you're missing half the market of 18 million people if you don't address the Spanish population. That's very smart. I think coming from Australia, you guys have one language for the most part. Unless I guess some people come from or aborigines, I don't know if they have their own language or not. But Australia being an isolated country, you know. Yeah. You've had to adjust. That's smart. Tell us about your book. Do you have one handy to share with us, Michael? Is it right?
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Michael Black
Yeah, I sure do. It's right here. Okay.
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Mitch Carson
Millionaire Tutor. I love the COVID Great color, great cover design. And Michael, Black in white. That's good. You got the. The front and the side. Let's see what's on the back. Show us on the back. Okay, so that's a. It looks like. Is that testimonials or is it details about what's inside, but very nicely done and it's chock full of information. I said, I just noticed. I went to Amazon and it's available there in paperback. And that's fantastic. So tell us about what's in their book. In the book, yeah.
- [18:22]
Michael Black
Fantastic. So I think the reason why I wrote this book initially was to provide value to people looking at starting their own business. Whether it's in the tutoring space or something else, just. Just providing that value. I think there's a lot of key challenges and learnings that I had in the early days that have allowed me to share this information and be able to spread the message out that it is possible. I speak a lot about my upbringing as, you know, growing up and some of the key influences that made a really big difference in my early childhood and my ability to, you know, to build. To build this business. There's a lot of key things as well. I do target this book to a lot of people that are looking at starting their own business, but also those that are considering a franchise as well. You know, I think, you know, by having this book and by people being able to read it, they can learn a lot from the experiences that I had. You know, getting the business set up and then understanding the very philosophy of what makes success tutoring unique. But then also how this can actually help them escape their, their nine to five. I mean I hear this time and time again a lot of people are just unhappy in their 9 to 5. They're just not satisfied. They feel like they're stuck, they're in prison. And so that's why the book is called Millionaire Tutor. Escape your soul crushing 9 to 5 by building an outrageously profitable tutoring business. So it's, it's about getting out there and, and starting their business. And I think that's the reason why I wrote this book and I think there's. Yeah, a lot of people have read it and there's more and more people that will continue to read it and it will change their life for sure.
- [20:09]
Mitch Carson
Well, I'm going to, I'm going to read it myself. I'm going to buy a copy. I'm in Thailand so I'll have to wait for the E book version or maybe it can get shipped here. We'll figure that out. But I certainly want to read it and give you a review which is always helpful for the book. Where can people find this book right now? Because you have a site for that, correct?
- [20:32]
Michael Black
Yeah, that's right. So they can actually go onto the website millionairetutorbook.com and they can access this book and they can order it the other way as well is it's available on, on, on where everybody gets their book from these days, Amazon and yes on Google as well. So everyone can just search up Millionaire tutor Michael Black and I'm sure the book will come up and they'll be able to order is available for purchase all across the globe and yeah, it's very fast delivery as well across the United States. So there's a lot of opportunity for those that are looking at getting a copy to get their hands on one.
- [21:08]
Mitch Carson
Great. Well Michael, you've been a great guest today and I wasn't sure at the beginning did you deserve the yellow chicken for contribution or the special green one for money making tips that will change their lives? I think I'm going to give you a proper green squeeze. You've been a great guest. I know I'm a little bit corny and I'm growing up every day. I'll finally reach maturity. Never. Michael, thank you so much for your time today and I wish you the best success in the US My native country and signing off from Thailand.
- [21:44]
Michael Black
Thanks Mitch. It's a pleasure being here.
- [21:46]
Mitch Carson
Thanks for tuning in to the Amazing Authorities podcast. If today's episode inspired you, take a moment to subscribe, rate and leave a review. It helps more experts like you rise to the top. For behind the scenes access and free resources to boost your authority. Head to MitchCarson.com until next time, stay amazing.