Troy Hazard: Valuing Your Time Over Money

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Today’s guest is a serial entrepreneur who has found and nurtured 13 businesses over three decades and has consulted to countless successful companies around the world, including over 300 brands in 16 different countries. He has also been a leader of leaders having served as international president of the elite. 

Entrepreneurs organization on their global board. And Troy now shares his experience dances through his speaking engagements, his media appearances and books, and his most recent. Future proofing. Your business is an Amazon business best seller Troy hazard. Hey, thanks for jumping on. No worries. Thanks for having me.  

Um, you know, it’s always great to talk to kind of these serial entrepreneurs that have had a longterm career because every once in a while, um, you know, there’s a lot of entrepreneurs that have great success, but they end up kind of having just one hit and one good one, one good success story. So it’s nice to talk to somebody that’s had multiples.  

Um, why don’t we start with a little bit, dive in a little bit more into your background. Um, you know, three decades over 300 brands, um, you know, where did this all start? Yeah. So the first, uh, iteration of the entrepreneurial journey started when I lost my job. Uh, I worked at a radio station for a number of years as a, as a host and as a program director.  

And we had a change of management and the boss that I knew in love left and the new guy moved in and we didn’t have that same love anymore.  

Yeah. I don’t know if you know, um, I did seven years in radio, so I know exactly what you’re talking about. I did know that that’s why I mentioned it because I thought you’d get a laugh out of that. So you know how that works. Um, when your time is up, your time is up and there’s no use arguing. So I took the ride out the front door and the property market in Australia at the time was going well.  

I mean, we lived in America now for over a decade, but back in the day I was still at home and, uh, the market was moving and I thought, you know what, maybe I could renovate properties. And my mother was an interior decorator and I rang her after I lost my job and said, look, mom, I’m looking for something to do.  

How about I go on? We renovate properties and you can do the interior decorating and we’ll flip them together. And we’ll say how we get, and she said, it’s a fabulous idea, Troy, but you’re not very handy. Oh, sorry. So we ended up getting a bunch of contractors together and we in fact did 13 properties in 18 months and had a really good run.  

Yeah, we did really, really well. Surprisingly, cause I had no clue what I was doing, but we made a bit of money out of that and that kind of thing opened the door. To have, uh, an opportunity to look at other businesses that we might like to either create or get into. And that’s when the journey really started when we had a bit of money and we could take a breath and take a step back and actually understand why we were getting into business.  

Not just because we wanted to. Yeah. So, uh, it’s amazing how many times entrepreneurs journeys start out of necessity because of losing a job? You know, it’s, it’s just try 50, 50, I guess, where it’s, you know, some, some strategic effort, but the other 50% is, Hey, it’s now, or never, you just kind of get shoved in a corner and you gotta make a decision.  

Well, it’s a motivator because you got to eat. Yeah, exactly. Well, so after you had that little bit of success, um, And like you said, he took a step back and said, Hey, you know, w w what can we do beyond just chasing a dollar? What can we do? Maybe that’s more of interest to us when we’re passionate about what, what did you realize in retrospect with that first success about, Hey, now that I’m making a proactive thought towards this, I want to do this different, what was this?  

Yeah, look, I think the big thing was, was that while I had that epiphany, it took me another four companies to really understand how to activate a strategy to match the epiphany. And in fact, the next business we got into was a recording studio because that was my background in media and in radio. And I’d had a history of that.  

Had a bunch of people that I knew that it could be great support in that business. And it was frankly, one of the worst businesses. We have a hat and, and a lot of it was to do with the fact that we were good at it. But we weren’t really good at the strategy that sat behind it. So I, I I’ve prided myself being a pretty good audio engineer by way of example.  

But as a business person, I had no clue about generating income or building a strategy or cash flows or any of those sorts of things that were acutely important. And so as a result, That really had me dive even deeper into creating a more specific strategic plan to ride some of those bumps out. And as a result of that, we diversified into other things.  

We kept renovating properties in the background. I started an advertising agency to support. Some of that history of, of being around media and average pausing and having an understanding of that sector. And then we started to really understand how to integrate these opportunities, to have them help each other out, but more importantly, to take the lumps out of the business  

So we weren’t going from the penthouse to the outhouse every other day. We actually had a reasonable life where we weren’t worried about payroll every Friday. So you started to have the businesses support each other. Is that what you said? Little bit, but that too was a bit of a, because what I learned is you should never make one child sick to save another.  

And so while the recording studio was sinking, we’re making money out of the advertising agency and the property renovation business, and feeding it into that. A recording studio and I’m gone, hang on. This has got to stop because now we’ve got two other businesses that are getting sick because they don’t know I have the cash to grow and develop, and we eventually had to cut it loose.  

It was just too much. We, um, found an arrangement with some of the other partners I had. They took the recording side of the business. I took the Amazon advertising side of the business. Unfortunately, we got out without having too much disruption. Uh, and we, we didn’t guy brought it, which was probably the most important thing, but it was really a tough time for me because while I thought I had it, I really didn’t.  

And so there’s a lot of self realization that comes with that. And the introspection from that then is where do I go to learn? Uh, and so that sort of thing you’re doing right here is the places I went to to find out more information and, and gather some more data from those who’d been there and done that.  

It’s interesting. You say that because I’ve gone through something similar, you know, I had, um, so my wife is a licensed cosmetologist and so, you know, 10 years ago I built a salon for her and wanted to introduce her to the world of entrepreneurship. And what was interesting that I learned through that is it was a profitable business, but, uh, you know, there’s a cost of opportunity because for every dollar I made there.  

I would take away $2 from my main business because the profit margins were wildly different. The amount of time needed to make that $1 was astronomically larger than the time. It took me to make the $2 at my main business. And so, um, W we were fortunate enough to be able to sell that, uh, to one of our Silas it was working for us.  

But yeah, I think it’s a great point that you bring up that just because you think you’re doing well, or maybe you are making profit, um, but you could be limiting the greater profit that that’s lying ahead of you. Oh, absolutely. And what happens is that these other things you’re getting into become a bigger distraction.  

And the interesting thing for me was a shift back in the mid nineties, where I joined the entrepreneur’s organization, which she’s one of the leading networking groups in the world and about 14,000 members now around the world. And that was pretty cool for me because I didn’t have that network. I didn’t have yeah.  

That opportunity to learn from others. So for me, that was my platform to get out there into the world and ask questions of smart guys and girls. And that journey really gave me the focus to go back to my businesses and either find leaders for those I wasn’t leading well or find a place in space for me in those businesses that I knew I could add value and get out of the others.  

In other words, focus on what, what I was good at. And let go of the things that I wasn’t necessarily good at. And that was a big shift because I think what happened was we, we found it was okay to fail fast and move forward. It was okay to find a way in and out of business. You didn’t have to be married for the rest of your natural life.  

You could, you could build it to a point where you felt you’d kind of reached your pay grade and then moving on to somebody else and still make money out of that. And that was a, a step for me to go from just running a business, to being able to not only run it, but to try it and move on to another opportunity.  

What’s your take on that? Um, you know, we’ve had guests that are totally different opinions on exiting a business. So some of ‘em say, you know, cut out the emotions. It’s a business. Get in and get out. And then others understandably say, well, you know, there’s a passionate side to it and it’s hard to leave my baby.  

Um, so are you kind of somewhere in the middle? It sounds like. Uh, not really. I think I used to be. I think back in the day I used to be, when I sort of started an ad, it was bad. Conquering the world and, you know, making a billion dollars, Alexa, the great things you do when you’re young and silly, I had a very good business mentor.  

Way back in the early days. And he gave me one really Sage piece of advice, and that was never fall in love with a deal or an asset. And there’s two parts to that. The first part is just because you want it doesn’t mean you have to have it. So if a business comes along, you think you could buy, get into bills, whatever, and you’re passionate about it.  

Doesn’t mean you’re going to be good at it. And this all con whole concept of, you know, make what you love, what you do. That’s rubbish because you might laugh. I love racing cars, but I’m a lousy race car driver seller should never do that for a job. And then the second part of his advice was to have a fall in love with an acid.  

And that was no wind to let it go. And I have learned over the years when I get to my pay grade and my level of influence over that business, it’s time for me to move on whether there’s more blue sky in front of me or not, because I’m probably not the guy to take it through that blue sky because I’ve kind of added as much value as I can.  

And now I need to pop my ego and let someone else take it forward because that’s the precipice where you can actually make some decent money on exit. Yeah. You know, it’s interesting. And you saying it because it gives me a different perspective that I haven’t really thought about. And it’s maybe it’s a Rite of passage when you’re a first time entrepreneur that you have to go through that emotional phase because a lot of the people, um, You know, w w when they’re forced into the decision of starting a business or not, of course, they’re going to lean on what they know and what they know is optimal, what they’re passionate about.  

So maybe, maybe that’s something you have to go through as an early entrepreneur is do the passion thing first. And then after, hopefully you’ll learn like, Hey, um, there’s other opportunities, or, um, you know, Being passionate about it doesn’t necessarily equate to profits. Absolutely. And there’s probably a balance in there as well.  

I’ll give you a very brief example. I was at a function in Los Angeles some time back with a young gentlemen, uh, having a drink and a chat. And at the time I was the global president of the entrepreneurs organization and he knew that. And so he was tapping my brain on some of the people I’ve made and the journey I’ve taken.  

And I said, well, tell me about yourself. What are you doing? And he was, he just graduated from UCLA and he said, I’ve got nine companies that I’m growing on startups. And I went on to explain Ali and go for about 20 minutes. And he said, what do you think? I said, maybe you, haven’t got a single company. You know, you’ve got nine bad jobs and, and, and you need to understand that because I know you’re passionate about this and that’s wonderful.  

I can see your enthusiasm, but right now you’re so distracted by so many things going on. You’ve got to just choose one of them. And, and focus on that because right now you don’t have a business, you’ve got a job. And the definition of that is if you’re the person that has to answer the telephone, it’s a job.  

If you’re the person that has to do the work, once that telephone has been answered, it’s still a job. And so until you find the infrastructure, you’re not the CEO of anything. And I think that’s, that’s a big step for young entrepreneurs to understand. Uh, what their pay grade is and what their skill set is, and really hone in on math because that’s what will make them successful at the end of the day.  

There’s a quote that Mark Cuban said. Um, if I remember right, it’s Mark Cuban on shark tank and it really stood out that I think is important for early entrepreneurs. Is he talked about exactly what you were just talking about, but the way he paraphrased it was that you. You know, don’t drown in opportunity.  

Like sure. There’s all sorts of great things you can do, but if you do them all, you’re going to suck it all up. Well, and you’re going to spread yourself too thin. And to your point earlier, you start not really making a lot of money out of anything and making a little money out of a lot. And that just makes you tired at the end of the day.  

And I’ve been there on two or three occasions where I’ve just woken up and while we’ve been making money, I’ve still had to ask herself. Why am I doing this? I’m just tired. I’m not having fun at all. Yeah. You know, it’s been interesting on that. I’ve noticed, um, in my personal network, uh, really a lot lately in the last three years or so.  

Um, so I’ve been fortunate enough to be surrounded with a lot of friends that have had great success as well, but the majority of them. Dabble in a lot of things. So me, I, I ran an SEO agency for 13 years and very early on, I said, that’s my thing. And I’m not going to try and do a ton of things. I’m just gonna be really good at this one thing.  

And over the years, I had these other friends that have had exits and granted, a lot of them are private, smaller exits every once in a while. There’s a bigger one, but. So many of them do so many things and on the front and it, everything looks great and they look successful. But then over the years, as we have more intimate friendships and I talked to them on deeper levels behind closed doors and all of that break down and they’re like, Hmm.  

This is too much. Like, I wish I could just do one thing. Like you, I got to reel it in. And I really think it’s like, what you were saying is they’re just tired. And so even, even though your friends may look like they’re having home runs left and right. They’re probably having just a lot of single, single base runs.  

That’s a, an ongoing battle to don’t for one minute. Think that even after, you know, you’ve had a level of success or things have been going great, that it gets any easier. You to find that balance. I mean, I’ve been doing this for 30 years now. I’ve had two or three series occasions where I’ve hit that wall.  

And one, I actually wrote a book about back in 2006 and seven. And, uh, that was that’s what borders to America at that book in America helped us make that decision to come and live here. But it was a very serious book about a life change while we were going. I K I wasn’t. I just was running out of steam.  

I’d run out of enthusiasm. I’ve run out of purpose. I’ve run out of direction. And that’s a pretty, pretty poor place to be in when you’ve worked so hard to get there. But even since then, I still have to monitor that today. And we live on the beach in Fort Lauderdale. We’ve got two young daughters, an eight year old and a six year old.  

We have a pretty good life. I try and only work three days a week. And I check myself on that as regularly as I can. And in fact, before I got on this call today, I went back over and double check my plans for the next three months to make sure that I was true to that. Cause because that’s our balance and that’s our commitment to family before the business.  

Then we have a couple of things in our household where we say we build the business around the beach. So it’s about. I can do to spend time with Dominic, my wife and our two daughters  and when I’m off track, she’ll call me on it. And she still does every other month. So there’ll be something that pulls me off track cause of distracted by something or I’m going up a rabbit hole.  

We shouldn’t be, and she’ll reel it back in and, and, and very simply ask me a couple of quick to put me back on track. And one of those is. She’ll challenge me by saying is that thing you’re doing worth a sandcastle. And, and the depth of that is, is that project. Did you been offered that board position you’ve been offered that, that thing that’s got in front of you that you think might be good?  

Is that worth taking you off the beach, making sand castles with the kids and nine times attend. The answer is no, but unless you you’ve got that clarity or that support as I have with Dominique, then it’s pretty easy to go back into those yeah. Habits of running at a hundred miles an hour. And I know because I’ve done that on three or four occasions over my business career, all of them ended up badly.  

Yeah. You know, I admire that a lot because I’m the same, same way. I tried to put a lot of emphasis on family and I’ve talked in the past and wrote a lot of articles about, um, you know, prioritizing, uh, you know, making hard, stops and hard lines where this is family time. And you know, that way you have a structure to it where things are less likely to infiltrate that time you’re protecting  

But I think it’s maybe an interesting topic for us to talk a little bit more on for, um, other entrepreneurs, uh, you know, have you. Always proactively had that mindset about protecting your personal time or did you have to have some safety net instability with some success to be able to afford, to be more flexible with that later?  

Yeah, that’s a really good question. And the simple answer is no. Uh, and even today, uh, you still have to stop and, and focus on that to make sure that I’m true to those words. And some days I’m not. And I put my hand on my heart and have to go back and reassess. And like I mentioned, even this morning, I’ve going back over the next three months and I’m checking off time and blocking off time for Dom.  

Looking off time for, and the kids as a family time moment, and even blocking off time for me, where I can maybe jump in the race car and have a day out and clear my head and, and just, uh, you know, refocus or recalibrate my life and, and my thoughts. And it’s a tough balance, even though I don’t have a nine to five job anymore, I still have projects I’m involved in.  

I’ve got boards that I sit on. Some with greater duties than others. And I are on the speaking circuit, which we try and limit so that I don’t spend time away from home. And I’m away from home. They come wispy. Most of it was their homeschool. Uh, and, and finding that balance in amongst all that noise is still challenging.  

And like I said earlier, my greatest support, I think is Dominique, where. She’ll be the one that sees that we’re off the rails, or more importantly, I’ve gone back into some old bad habits of being too, too excited about too much. And she’ll just have a little word with me or one of our beach walks and, and say, I think it’s time for you to, it might be take next week off for her to reel it back in a little bit or.  

How about we go and do this, or what should we just wake up one day and say, Hey, by the way, I’ve just booked a five day cruise to the Caribbean. I’m turning the internet off. So sometimes I don’t even get a choice, but that’s good of grow into that role and learn to help you find that balance. Or has she always been that way?  

Now look, she’s an entrepreneur in her own, right. She had a, a successful picture for him, every business in Australia. Uh, and she was a very successful travel agent before that. And in fact, uh, because she liked working with woods so much, it, her framing because she went on to become a carpenter. So she’s had a fabulous Korea.  

It’s been fairly diverse in a, essentially what’s been a male dominated world. Uh, so she’s a strong and very strong willed. But yeah, sometimes she’s got to, uh, speak a little bit louder for me to hear and sometimes, and sometimes I take a while to get that message. Cause, cause I’m a little bit slow work, you know, I don’t listen to as actively as I should.  

I don’t know that she grew into it as much as it’s part of her DNA and part of her. The way she handles or looks at life, which is different to me and between the two of us. Um, we find a place in the middle that, uh, she keeps the stability on what is an opportunity and I find the opportunities that needs to build on it.  

Oh, good for you guys. That’s good to hear of a dynamic like that. Um, well, you know, let’s talk more specifically about what you’re doing now. So you have all these past successes and you start to. Uh, recalibrate and figure out what you have more of a personal interest in. And where does that lead us to today?  

Today? I, um, I have a different perspective on. What my next decade in business looks like, uh, I’m probably a little bit more risk adverse than I’ve ever been. I’m 56. So I’m on that rundown to, how can we do nothing that you know, is still productive, but is not, um, counterproductive to the overall family stability or, uh, their future?  

Well, after I’m pushing up daisies, so there’s a bit of a, a bit of a yeah. Balancing that comes with that. Uh, I. I treat my speaking business as my day job, because it’s not really a day job. I do, you know, 40 or 50 engagements a year. The family come with me 60% of the time. Uh, so I’m not away from home that much, the other interests I have, uh, either passive or have a board position attached to it, which takes up time, but it’s strategic time.  

So I don’t have it. So turn up at nine and work till five. I can work my days around when I’m active in my head. And when I’ve got good thoughts and good ideas. And, you know, I have a personal saying at work when I’m really wired about something and I sleep when I’m tired. If I’m, if I’m not in it, if my head’s not working great today, or if I just don’t have a creative bone in my body, then I’ll just turn around a Dom.  

And I’ll just say, I’m out today. Let’s go to lunch. And I suppose that’s a. A privilege. And it’s a joy because I get to do the things I’d like to do with Dominique and the kids. But at exactly the same time, it gives me the head space to really look at challenging issues in some of the deals we’re looking at and have the perspective I did not previously have the time to create 10, 15 years ago, because you were going so hard, that stuff would just sell right past you.  

So for me, I think that. That balance is really important, but with it comes opportunity where I can look deeper at things that I previously could not have got my head around. Yeah, for sure. Because you can go all in, you can divide that and say, I am working or I am not working. So that makes you better at being a family man.  

And when you’re in family time and better at being the thinker, when you need to be a thinker, I like it. I’d like to think so. And that doesn’t mean don’t get up at three o’clock in the morning, every now and then with the rattles, you know, I’m just like any young entrepreneur where you wake up in the middle of the night with a great idea and can’t go back to sleep.  

So I do, I get up and I write things down or I’ll post the house or whatever. I still do that. Yeah, I just have the luxury of then gonna have a nap in the afternoon. All right. So let’s say, um, you know, we have somebody that’s listening and they say like this Troy guy, he seems like he might be able to help me.  

What are the type of types of people or business or deals that. That you take on nowadays as you’re more selective, like how can you help people? And it’s interesting. Um, I don’t consult anymore. Uh, it’s it’s turned out to not be a great use of my time in my later years. Uh, I, I do board positions because I like the strategic work that comes with that.  

And I like the opportunity that comes with it because I typically take an interest in the business or I take some sort of incentive in the business where that strategic, uh, input is rewarded. I do look at other deals for the merit from time to time. And I get three or four phone calls a week from different people that want to throw something at me.  

I’ve got a call tomorrow morning, um, on that same vein. So the time that they’re brief calls, because lot of it’s blue sky and unicorns, and it doesn’t suit my risk mitigation profile anymore. Uh, I do offer people the time if they are respectful of that time, for sure. Quick chat and, uh, you know, a few.  

Simple ideas that might keep them going, but that’s kind of may, at the moment, I have a very big interest in a pool business here. A company called Toolworks we have for 40 retail stores and about 600, sorry, 40 retail stores in America. About 200 mobile units, 140 retail stores, worldwide and 600 mobile units cleaning pools in backyards.  

Commercial outlets and serving people, ever retail counter I’m chairman of the would have that business and have an active interest in that business because we are continually looking at mergers and acquisitions and companies to convert into that business. So that’s probably the one that I’m the most active in right now, because it’s got the most growth ahead of it in the next two or three years in the journey that all take with it.  

You know, one of our first guests on this show? Um, well he, he had an exit and we wanted to find something new to work on and he too chose the pull path and he would pick up routes and scallop and then, and then sell those routes out and go do another. And I swear he was in. He was in your Florida area maybe to have crossed paths, I’ll chat with you offline about it.  

Yeah, absolutely. Look, it’s, it’s a great sector for us to be in as good industry. It’s been disorganized for many, many years. And so when we come in with a franchise model to organize it, it creates a great opportunity, I think. And I’m excited about what we can do with that in the next few years. And that’s probably where my focus will lie.  

And if anyone’s got any interest in talking about. Um, you know, joining or being a part of it, or even a business I’d like to sell, I’m happy to have that chat and see if we can help them through that journey. Cool. Well, your latest book is future proofing your business. Tell me more about that. So it was a combination of a number of things I’ve learned over the years that I felt would help either a young entrepreneur.  

As an emerging entrepreneur or someone who’d maybe even lost their way in a decent business. Uh, I have had over the years, a lot of pressure to write books. I hate writing books to be Frank. I filed English at school, so I literally did filing leash at school. I was such, such a bad student. So to write a book is really, really hard, but this one was a little bit easier because I just went back over 27, something on use of the companies we’ve had.  

And I thought, well, what would I want in my, in my younger self, what would have helped me not make that mistake? Or what would help me future prove my business. I never found myself in that position again. And all it is is this collection of case studies and stories from the companies I’ve owned and the things that we learned in a very simple format that I’m hoping young entrepreneurs or emerging entrepreneurs can take away and apply to some of the things that they’re dealing with right now.  

And hopefully it might save them a bit of heartache or a bit of money. Yeah, it’s cool. And you can look back like that because you can get a very clear perspective on what works, what doesn’t work or what you could have done differently. So that’s. Yeah, that’s much more factual. So did, um, so is, is it like a case study based book or are there some stories in there to kind of keep the entertainment value?  

It’s a bit about us. I mean, from our conversation today, as you can tell a lot, I like telling the story. I think the story is something that engages people a little better. Cause they want to hear how you made a wino, how you made a Lawson, you know, so I’ll tell a story about having lost a million dollars in a week.  

Uh, I’m equally as happy to tell a story about how we bought and sold a business and did very well over two or three years, but I’m also, um, really keen to be very open and factual with these stories and case studies of the businesses were beating. Yeah, because the only way to bring is learned is whenever were entrepreneurs who prepared decide, that’s how we screwed it up.  

If everything’s blue sky and unicorns, not only learns from that, but when you can put your hand on your heart and say, nah, we really got that wrong. And here’s why then the aha comes from that from the student where they can learn from others and they can actually walk away and go, I got something out of that.  

I’ll make a note of that for the future. Yeah, I love the stories on, on both sides of the coin. You know, nobody likes to hear success stories, but there’s enough of them out there. And like you said, I think we learn more from the mistakes and, and I honestly just appreciate. Those people better. Anyway, there’s a better sense of trust that comes with that transparency.  

There is, there is an, and from the reality comes the real lesson because until you dive into the reality, it’s just a, it’s a surface story that says, yeah, we’ve got that wrong. We’ll all. Wow. Tell me, tell me the five things that you did that helped you to understand that it was wrong or that that helped you get out of it after you realized that you’ve made a mistake because without those simple steps, it’s really easy to miss a step and still find yourself in the same position.  

Yeah, for sure. Well, Troy, as we get close to wrapping up here, um, Troy hazard.com is your website. I want to give you the floor and give you opportunity to put out any of their contact information or, uh, anything else you want to share. Troyhazard.com is the easiest place to find me. There is a, on the back of that, a contact form.  

Uh, my guys make sure I get all those so that I can, can at least have a look and see who wants to have a chat or all of the questions they might have. And we do our very best to make sure I get back to everybody. So if anyone’s looking to contact me, that’s the easiest way we’re on Facebook. We’re on Twitter.  

I post things regularly. I’ve got a fairly extensive Vimeo channel was about 300 videos on it. Have different things that I’ve talked about on stage or, or different interviews with different television or radio stations that I’ve been on shows like this. So there’s a lot of content there. It’s all, frankly, we’ve got a great business model.  

We don’t sell anything. We give it away. Um, so there’s plenty of content there. If anyone’s interested. Uh, it’s on the side, it’s on online and on a number of platforms, just Snoop around with my name and you’ll find it. Troy hazard, Troyhazard.com. Thanks so much, Troy. Thanks for having me.