Meet Ryan Caswell, the founder of successful Australian lead generation agency, b2bleads.com. Ryan has an impressive entrepreneurial journey, from opening a bed and breakfast in the remote mountains of South Brazil to building a thriving business that helps other small businesses overcome their client acquisition challenges. In this interview, Ryan shares his insights and experiences on what it takes to become a successful entrepreneur, the challenges he faced, and the tricks he’s discovered to stay focused and productive.
Q. What inspired you to become an entrepreneur?
Ryan: In a word… Freedom. As an engineer working in the mines I was constantly away from family working night shifts and rosters that didn’t line up with my life. Though it took some time to get going, and the beginning was tough, once I took the first step doing my own thing, I never looked back!
Q. What was your biggest startup challenge and how did you overcome it?
Ryan: Getting clients reliably. Before starting a business I had no idea about sales and marketing and thought a good product alone would sell itself. It’s why I ended up building a business in lead generation! Once I worked out how to solve the problem of client acquisition and found out how many other small businesses faced the same issues I decided this was where I wanted to help.
Q. What are your top 3 favourite online apps, tools or resources and what do you love about them?
Ryan: Any tool that makes me, my team, my clients more efficient.
Textexpander.com (automates frequently used text and copy)
Make.com (automates just about everything and you don’t need to know any coding)
Google Sheets (Call me an old school nerd but you can’t beat a good old fashion spreadsheet)
Q. What entrepreneurial tricks have you discovered to keep you focused and productive in your day-to-day busy schedule?
Ryan: Solid routine (up at 4am each day, Jiu Jitsu and Gym each day, good diet).
I find thinking about and planning the future helps to keep me motivated through times of grind.
Q. In one sentence, what’s the best advice you’d give to someone just starting out on their entrepreneurial journey?
Ryan: Think very carefully about what you want your life to look like in 5 years and reverse engineer it (you will quickly identify bottlenecks).
Q. What’s one thing in your routine that you do consistently that has made a huge difference in your personal or business life?
Ryan: Waking up every morning at 4am and keeping fit and healthy.
Q. Who are your mentors and inspiration? and what knowledge or insight did they give to you that was valuable?
Ryan: I draw a lot of inspiration from other internet entrepreneurs like Alex Hermozi and Sam Ovens. They share a lot of information that just isn’t intuitive when you start out but super important.
Q. What does your perfect day look like?
Ryan: Wake up at 4am, work on the business (Not in it) until lunch time.
Train Jiu Jitsu or rock climbing until I pick up my son from school then hang out with him until a nice homemade dinner with the family.
Q. What has been your most satisfying moment in business?
Ryan: Finally hitting $100k/m. A target I set years prior when I was completely broke and drowning in debt.
Q. What have been your biggest failures or challenges?
How did this failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success?
Ryan: My businesses before starting b2bleads.com all failed as I had no idea what was involved to build a reliable client/customer pipeline. As a result I had to learn everything from scratch and built really effective processes I could then use to help others.
Q. If someone was to create a TV show about you, what would it be about and what would it be called?
Ryan: If it was based on me today it would probably be pretty boring to watch from an outside perspective haha. It would be the same episode day after day. The truth is when everything is working well, no drama, things appear pretty boring.
In the past it may have been more exciting. Maybe called “Ryan’s Wacky Adventures”. Between working in the underground coal mines, travelling the world in a van rock climbing, buying a farm in the remote mountains of Brazil, going broke, starting a family, starting a business and clawing my way out of debt you would probably have something interesting to watch.
To learn more from Ryan Caswell, visit his YouTube channel, or to work with the b2bleads.com team, book a discovery call today.
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