Andrew Morello - Winner of 'the apprentice' at business blueprint

>> Brought to you by businessblueprint.com.au >> [Music by Business Blueprint] >> Andrew Morello: The first time being in business by myself, I put in 1,038 pays. Not including all the girls that are leaving through the backdoor that I was trying to impress. >> [audience laugh] >> Not including all my mates that I thought you know, I wanted to show how cool I was, I had to cater to the backdoor to let all of them in, A thousand and thirty eight pays, the walls and roof was sweating right? Sweating! But these kids loved it! And my first night in business as a 14 year old kid, I made $20,000 cash. Cash. >> [audience claps] >> I showed them this money and my mate said something very profound here, and I want you to hear the whole story here before you pass judgment. You shouldn't pass judgment every anyway but practice non-judgment but, if you will all going to judge, hear this story out. I open this shoe box full of cash with 5 cents and 20 dollar notes, now keep in mind all I grow up in Moonee Ponds. Moonee Ponds is famous for 3 things. Number one is, the race courses is one of them, yet number four, number one is, Time and every from Moonie ponds right? There's a street that's named after it, every street, it's a character from Moonee Ponds, number 2 it's famous for.. No that's number 3, the more or less it's famous for. But number 2 it's famous for? No.. robbery.. No, No—robbery.. is—who perform the robberies? "Drugs" Drugs, but who perform the drugs? Underbelly, Underbelly series 1, Underbelly series 1 was all based around Moonie ponds, right? so we grew up with Carl Williams and Jason Moran and Tony Mokbel, all in Moonee Ponds, most, my dad went to school with half the guys in the second series right? he grew up with him, I'm not joking but when my dad and brother they're the most legitimate people in Moonee Ponds it's actually ridiculous how legitimate they are but, my mate turns around he says something profound he said to me, and if you don't know what this is, guys I'll play it at the end but .. man, you look like a doob dealer. Right doob is marijuana for everyone right? So, show them the money and instead of my mate applauding me, he goes to me, "you look like a doob dealer." ‘Cause see, when you started your business a lot of people probably look at you and say, "you can't do that!" didn't they? Or maybe even, so if you're husband and wife, with you but, maybe even your husband and wife, they said you can't do that! My mates turn around and as a joke they said, "you look like a doob dealer" right? ‘Cause the only way in Australia that someone young could be driving a Ferrari or driving a nice car or doing something expensive is either he's a drug dealer or dad paid for it. Well, I can promise you, my dad didn't pay for anything and I didn't sell drugs, so, my mate says "you look like a doob dealer, a marijuana dealer," and I turn around and said something profound at 14 years old and the photos are on Facebook of me wearing a suit at 14 years old,. If you look at my passes, on the back of my passes, what used to be on it and you can—I can get you a copy of these if you like, is, it says, Parent Hotline, and my phone number that is still my phone number today from when I was 14 years old. I used to put my self as Parent Hotline right? Because this is what happened, when my mates said to me, "you look like a doob dealer," I turn around and say, "I'm not a doob dealer and I'm a night club proprietor" >> [audience laugh] >> that's what I said, and they all started laughing at me right? But, I want to give you a concept here and write these down, which is ‘Act as If'. See, I said I was a night club proprietor because, I used to put on the back of my passes Parent Hotline 040139567. Parents would ring me between you know, 9 and 3 o'clock, 3 o'clock I would come I would listen to my voice mails, after I finish school I would ring up and I get, Mrs. Jones, thank you for considering sending your daughters here to our lovely event, we're going to have one security, 2 security for the first 100, one security guard for every 100 hour for that we've got police patrols at 6, 9 and 11, and also we got a parent pick up zone allocated. You might know my father John Morelli can get tickets from our service station if you like, or feel free to go to a couple other retail shops that is available. >> My dad was my number one promoter, dead serious he was my number one promoter because all the families knew him, and all the kids parents knew him, they go to him my dad would say, "look my son's running this event, why don't you buy ticket for you kids?" So at the time those parents, they didn't want their kids going to these events, they'd go because it was my dad, they told them all that it was me running the event, but see the concept of ‘Act as If' was the fact that of the matter was that I have to act as if because I, you know, I wasn't a businessman, I wasn't yet, but I acted as if I wasn't and I later on in my life, sold that business later on and made a quite substantial amount of money selling that business. Sold the data base, I sold the revenue stream I sold the events that we had locked in, I sold the promoter base, I sold all the contracts that we had and I made quite a substantial amount of money. We renovate and to make sure our night club the QVH which is going to be the second tallest, is anyone know the QVH building in Melbourne? Across from the road from the casino? It's just got approved, the second highest residential building in the Southern Hemisphere is going to be there. But we used to run events there, 3,000 kids, we helped run an event called Kid's fest which was at the exhibitions and which as at the Dockland and it had 7,000 8,000 kids come along to it. I was at 15 16 17 18 year old businessmen, So I was that my whole life, then by the time I ended up moving into you know, what I would call practical business, like doing the real estate, it's people trusted me. >> See, one of the hardest things in business is actually earning the trust of people. Now if you've actually been there and you've gone through the ups and downs of business you've actually been there and you can empathize with actually the things that other people had gone through if there's more business owners or if they own a property and so forth. As soon as you can start to do that, you can all the other things can become naturally. As soon as you can install that confidence now I remember walking with the Listings, all these things where these were 2, 3-million dollar homes in Williamstown. They're now in Williamstown they're in Melbourne, it was like a ... I don't want to leave them there once upon a time there ‘coz you know there's water— you need 5 million dollars to buy waterfront right? And I used to sell these houses and I would walk into me in Listings and Mr. and Mrs. Smith would look at me.. and very ... area as well, I was the only ethnic real state agent right? And I would knock on their door knocking, and people in my office, what did you do, And I went door knocking, they go didn't people shut the door, and I said no, invited me for a coffee, ‘coz see you're often your own worst enemy, now you often think people are going to shut the door at you but they don't, and I remember walking into these two million dollar listings and they would look at me and they say, ok, well we like you we like your energy but why should we go with you? And I say Mr. and Mrs. Jones, or Mr. and Mrs. Smith, I said there is a competitor that was there, Mr. Williams, he owns Williams real estate, still there today, he sold the business. Mr. Williams was a very talented very experienced businessman and real estate agent. And I said Mr. and Mrs. Jones or Mr. and Mrs. Smith and I said listen, would you go with your friend Mr. Williams, who your kids went to school together at you know, whatever school.. whatever it is and now you got to the Southern Club in the weekends with him, if you want to go with him, no problem I never badmouth a competitor, but the only difference between me and him, is that when my phone rings at 5:30 or 6 o'clock or 7 o'clock on a Friday night, I said I'm going to be ringing you telling you to get the hell out of the house, go to Tukiyaki, on Ferguson street where I'll share you some sushi, I'll go take these people through the house, and we've got the open for inspection on the Saturday and I'll be sitting down with the buyers at 8:30, 9 o'clock on a Friday night and I'll be saying Mr. and Mrs. Buyer, obviously my vendors are serious to get out of the house on a Friday night, they will do that enjoying some Saki around the corner at Tukiyaki but I said, obviously they're serious, you obviously are serious to be here 8 o'clock on a Friday night, tomorrow morning we are going to have an open for inspection with 30 groups are going to come through. We're quoting 2 to 2.2 million, how about you give me some pop in the range and I'll do my business and take you to my vendors and say, we can make it a happy Friday night for everyone. Mr. and Mrs. Smith joins look at me on the other end and they say, I said I can look at you with conviction and with authenticity and absolutely from the bottom of my heart I promise you that's my work ethic. ‘Coz I grew up pumping picture, I grew up acting "As If." And I know I'm going to treat every opportunity I get with the credibility, the empathy and the appreciation that it deserves. >> Brought to you by businessblueprint.com.au