Andrew Pickering: When you're asking people for stuff, make sure the ask is remarkable.

Pete Gartland: When you're reaching for something big, you have to put in the effort for the ask as well.

Chris Do: What is up, everybody? I've had the pleasure of meeting our next guest I guess two years ago when due to unforeseen circumstances they had a last minute cancellation for the keynote speaker and lo and behold, here I am in Newcastle expecting very cold wintry weather. You know how they say, this is the North.

I went to the North with all these layers and I was just baking. Maybe it was because it was a really hot event, pardon the pun, [00:01:00] but Andrew and Pete, welcome to the show.

Andrew Pickering: Thank you so much for having us, Chris. Thank you everyone for listening. Excited to be here.

Chris Do: Wonderful. I know you guys just wrapped up another season of Atomic Con. Before we get into who you are and your story and what you want to share with us, tell us a little bit for people who don't know what the heck is Atomic Con.

Pete Gartland: Yes, so our brand is Atomic for the Small and Mighty Entrepreneur. Atomic Con is our Atomic Conference, so Atomic Con and it's for small business owners who wanna grow, make lots of money, and wanna live that life of freedom.

And essentially we bring in some of the best speakers from around the world including the wonderful Chris Do here, and we bring everyone together. It's such an amazing, amazing experience. It's become one of Europe's largest events for sales and marketing for small business owners. It's just growing and growing and growing and getting bigger and bigger and better and better. More and more fun every year. So, yes, and it is a hot event. It's, uh, [00:02:00] usually in the summer that helps.

Andrew Pickering: It was crazily hot, though, the one that you spoke of. Very, very hot.

Chris Do: How was it this time? How was the weather?

Andrew Pickering: Not as warm, which I don't know. As a speaker on stage under all of those lights, I was quite thankful for, but it was, it was still nice. Yeah.

Chris Do: Wonderful. I just want to say something briefly before we get into the meat of our conversation today that I go to speak on many conferences, mostly as a speaker, sometimes and as attendee, and I say that you guys have a very special formula for running events. There's the pre party, the pre pre party, and then the party, and then the post party.

There's a lot of networking. There's a lot of networking and people feel really welcome. And I noticed this about conferences that are kind of off the major cities where the community really comes together. And they're super appreciative of you guys doing what you do. And I have to say, there's an expression, the fish rots from the head.

So I think what happens is you guys attract a certain type of people that [00:03:00] want to share, to be open, and are super friendly. I remember walking into the bar thinking to myself, I'm in the right place. And you guys are like, hey, how's it going? Good to see you. And that was kind of the tone of the entire event. So talk to us a little bit about that DNA that you have that makes it so inviting for people to feel so at home there.

Andrew Pickering: Yeah, so the beauty of the event is that it grew from a community. So we had the online community for two or three years before we actually launched the conference and in our mind the difference between an audience and a community from day one has always been this can't be just about me and Pete, it can't just be about people coming to this event to see us, especially if we want to grow this and scale this.

So very intentionally from day one, we have tried as much as possible to connect our members together online. So when it comes to the big event, it's Atomic Con, people are just as excited to see each other as they are to see us. And like, at the very, very first [00:04:00] Atomic Con, we knew we had nailed it because somebody came into the bar, just like you did, and they acted all, they saw us, and they acted all excited, and then they ran right past us to someone that was behind us.

And I gave that person a big hug and they were like, Andrew, I'm going to say hello in a sec, but like, I've been speaking to this person for like two years now. And like, this is the first time we've met in person. Like that story is just the tone of the conference and the tone of Atomic.

Pete Gartland: So when people come now to the event, people fly in from all over the world. It's not just a local event. And we want that same welcoming community spirit to also affect everyone that comes. So when people come, we want them to have already got to know people in the online events building up to it. We do a lot of pre networking. And then they get to the event and there's all these little mini events first.

And then the main event. And by the time people get to the main day, they are buzzing. Like, they've met loads of great people. Like, they've met their new [00:05:00] best friends, business best friends and collaborators and potential referrers or potential clients and the vibe on the day then is just so much more magical and everyone comments on it, aren't they?

So it's yeah, it's really special. So thank you for picking up on that It's not something that we're there to go hey, our event's amazing and it's way better because of this and this but we do put a lot of effort into it So someone like yourself mentions that then we really appreciate that.

Chris Do: Well, I have to mention it, because as an introvert, the scariest thing for me is to go to a new city, to a new event, and not know anyone. It reminds me of junior high all over again, and those are not fond memories, let me just tell you. So the fact that you make everyone feel welcome, and I remember the year that I went, and I It was like, it had like a carnival vibe to it. Like the activations you had in the lobby. So if you know, if your brain is fried, you can just hang out and do silly things with people.

And then there was the mirrored man walking around doing his moves. [00:06:00] And it's just, it's like, that's the whole ethos. And I think it's so wonderful. So I had to share that just a, a note to event organizers who might be listening to this, like take some notes here, everybody. It's not just speaker after speaker.

It's the community that you build, the vibe that you put out there and to make people who are a little bit weird, maybe introverts and just socially awkward feel welcome and safe. And I definitely think you guys do that.

Pete Gartland: It's one of those things where we have, we actually have like the quiet spaces for introverts, but then we also have like cycle and machines and like wave, like surfboard, mechanical surfboard machines and things like that. So I love lots of fun.

Chris Do: Well, now I have to ask you this other question is I've struggled with working with someone. I don't play well with others. I have a way of moving in the world and I just, I just found out that I'm just not a good collaborator. I'm a good leader, I think. And I've had many failed partnerships.

What has been the secret to you guys? I know you met in school and you've been doing this for quite some time. How do you guys keep this together? Are there moments when you [00:07:00] disagree and how do you resolve those kinds of conflicts?

Pete Gartland: I think our key to success is being friends first, which is always good. Typically speaking, most partnerships that we see don't end up going very well. They always end up splitting and for some reason or there's conflict. So it's not something that we always necessarily recommend. And a lot of people say to us, It's so much easier because there's two of you. But it doesn't necessarily mean things are easier.

We've got like twice the amount of people to please, and decision making becomes maybe harder, and we have to make twice as much income, and you know, all this sort of stuff. We don't get twice as much time as everyone. What it does do is it allows us to be very creative and cheer each other on. And I think that's crazy important in business.

I think knowing each other's strengths and working through things has been great. Like we've done a lot of like profiling and things like this to assimilate what [00:08:00] style of communication we both respond more to.

Andrew Pickering: It's really interesting because we are very different people. So Pete is a extrovert that is very detail orientated, and I'm an introvert that's very big picture thinking. So it's like those two opposites of like the same coin, it can cause and definitely cause more friction, especially in the early years as we were like working out how to best communicate because we were like 21 when we started this we were like kids essentially like we had no idea how to communicate with like adults like alone i was self putting ourselves in this really stressful situation but just doing like a lot of self work like working out how we were communicating if i wanted to explain something to Pete he was going to need the details.

If he was going to explain something to me he would need to give me like top level first for me to grasp it if he was going to like kill me with like all the details. And like just getting through that but [00:09:00] also just recognizing those strengths in each other. And like, knowing it was much stronger because we had those strengths.

At like, networking events, for example, like, I would be in the corner talking to the people I already know and like, deepening those relationships and I would send Pete off to meet all the new people. At the end of the night, we would like, come back together and he would say, right, I've met this person, I've met this person, I've met this person. I'm like, great, I've set up this collaboration with so and so who we've already like, met a few times, you know?

Chris Do: Well, it's kind of interesting because you guys started this when, when you're really, really young at 21. And I think if I'm reflecting back on my own life, I'm not sure who I am when I'm 21.

There's still a bit of an ego in there that's trying to figure itself out. So if I were to partner with someone, thoughts in my head would be like, what are you doing? I feel like I'm doing all the work, or why'd you just undo that? And it just becomes really difficult. Especially because both of you share the stage and you speak and you co author books together.

Does it ever become a thing when it's like, like with No Doubt the band, [00:10:00] Gwen Stefani gets all the attention and literally they make music videos about this and the rest of the band mates kind of get shoved in the background. Does that happen and how do you reconcile that?

Pete Gartland: That's funny, that's one of Andrew's favourite bands.

Andrew Pickering: Oh, it was funny. She was all over my bedroom wall as a kid. Does that happen? I feel like because we both, we were both, had the exact same dream. Like, we both knew what we wanted to do. Like, we've never really been on separate pages where it comes to the end goal.

Pete Gartland: No, and we, we do tend to do a lot of things together publicly, like we'll do, like, podcasts together, for example. But then, behind the scenes, we will brainstorm and strategize together but we might go away and work on separate things together. So, for example, I will do, like, sales calls, or like, sales emails or things like this, or processes or production, I will do a lot more of the [00:11:00] team management stuff. Um, Andrew will take care of

Andrew Pickering: like the bigger picture thinking stuff, all the plumbing, the Atomic Con lineup stuff, like that kind of thing.

Pete Gartland: So we've worked it out. It's a smooth machine now.

Chris Do: And if you are interviewed and you both can't be in the same spot, do you make a point to make sure to mention the other person or talk about them in ways so that the other person doesn't feel slighted? How do you work that part out?

Pete Gartland: We never do anything like this apart. Although in future we, yeah, we might do more in the future just to save time, I guess. But typically, We'll always do it together. Yeah.

Andrew Pickering: Yeah. I like Pete is a bit of a digital nomad, so he'll like go and travel. And we just like every morning we'll just boot up Zoom. Like we work together and I don't know, it just works, doesn't it? I feel like we know each other so well now. We just like know.

Pete Gartland: Yeah.

Andrew Pickering: We even know like who would be best to answer what [00:12:00] questions.

Pete Gartland: You're asking this. You're asking questions and And we already know who's going to answer the question, like, intuitively. I think the really good thing about having a partner is the accountability. Like, we hop on Zoom every day, 9am, and we work together on Zoom, like, all day. We can work on different things, but we've always got each other in the little window in the corner. So we can never play hockey. What's the word?

Andrew Pickering: Hooky.

Pete Gartland: Play hooky and just skive off for the day. We're like, we have to work and we can encourage each other and help each other if we get stuck and that's magical because how many times have you come to do something that's important and then procrastinate it just because it's tough. It's scary. It's hard It's it's daunting.

So you just put it off, right? But if you've got someone with you then you can [00:13:00] cheer each other on and say, all right, I know that's tough I believe in you like what's the first step? Okay, let's do this in the next hour. I'll help you with this bit and then you can get on from that.

Andrew Pickering: And like, especially in the beginning, just having each other, just having that camaraderie, you know, like egging each other on in the beginning, pushing ourselves to go for bigger things, pushing ourselves to go for bigger podcasts or bigger speaking gigs, or just like raise our goals, like that was gold dust. And I feel like that was worth it. Disagreements at times whilst we worked out how each of the communicates

Chris Do: So here's my summary on how you could possibly work together not kill one another. Number one be friends first develop a deep lifelong friendship and know that you're compatible in that way before venturing into business I think that's a critical step that most people skip number two is the way you avoid the conflict is do everything together There's no like it's it's not It's somebody getting more of the limelight than the other.

And number three is know your strengths and [00:14:00] where they complement with the other person and be sure you acknowledge each other's strengths. Thanks for sharing that with me. Now I have one more kind of nerdy conference question. As an attendee and as a speaker, I often will make notes about what has worked and what could be better. I know you've done the conference many years now. What was the biggest lesson coming out of 2024? What would you move forward into 2025?

Pete Gartland: The thing for us in terms of selling tickets, we have moved from a model of always trying to sell tickets to just doing two or three big launches. So we used to absolutely kill ourselves and promote the conference constantly.

And what we found was after some analytics was that 80 percent of our sales came from two launches and the 20 percent of sales came from reaching out to communities and doing a little [00:15:00] like project here and doing a webinar there and like little bitty things. Whereas what we've done this year and for the last year is we've just, streamline everything into like two or three big launches and then not sweating the rest of it and a few ticket sales will trickle in here and there and we can set up automations to help with that but essentially if we put more of our time and energy into that then we can get more ticket sales in those launches and we don't have to have the hard work in between which means that then we can focus that time on other things to sell.

So we've got like 80 percent of our time back on that promotion throughout the whole year, which is a lot of time and therefore we've been able to utilize that for other launches and other sales to make more money.

Andrew Pickering: And the first launch is the most important launch. So, we've sold 1, 100 [00:16:00] tickets already for 2025.

Pete Gartland: Within the first week.

Andrew Pickering: Within the first week of the conference tickets going on sale. And when we go through the conferences, some do it really well, but most conferences we go to, like, don't capitalize on the hype. And we've tried like promoting other things after the conference. The best thing we found in our experience to sell is just a ticket to the next year.

If you've like showed everyone a really great experience, like they don't want it to end, like give people a really good deal at the end of the day with a bit of a deadline. And if you've done a good job, people will buy to come back.

Chris Do: What was your rebook percentage from the attendees from this year?

Andrew Pickering: I think we've got about 50-60 percent of people will come back, which we used to think was low. Until we started talking to other conference organisers, they were like, what? And we were like, well, why aren't the other 50 percent coming back?

Pete Gartland: [00:17:00] The other events are like 5-10 percent and we're like, what?

Andrew Pickering: Yeah, it's like people want to come back. Like if you build a community, if you build an event that does actually connect people and that actually has a great time, people will come back year after year after year and fly back.

Chris Do: Okay, let's say I know nothing about Atomic Con. Give us your two sentence pitch for why you should show up.

Pete Gartland: If you want to create an avalanche of sales in your business and be able to scale that, beyond your capacity, that's why you should come to Atomic Con. You'll get the inspiration and motivation to like, go, hell yeah, let's bloody do this.

You'll get the practical advice and steps to get there in terms of strategy. And then you'll also meet the connections that will help you to get there. People that come to the event meet people that they'll collaborate with, they'll do podcast interviews with, people make loads of money just from that alone, [00:18:00] and that's not even, like, tapping into, like, the learning and the inspiration and all that kind of stuff after. So, yeah, Yeah, if you want an avalanche of sales, come.

Andrew Pickering: That was two sentences just with lots of commas.

Chris Do: Maybe a couple of run on sentences there. Okay, very good. Well, what's interesting to me is your big insight is like the Pareto principle in practice, there are a lot of P's where 80 percent of your sales come from 20 percent of your efforts and realizing where those things are, are part of being a prudent business owner and being a true entrepreneur.

So wonderful there. And then putting your energies towards people rebooking means like you kind of have to be really good at designing the user experience, because if you think that they're going to rebook a year in advance, not knowing where they're going to be, you have to deliver something special.

And that goes beyond, I think, just the programming. It's all the little things that most people don't pay attention to that create the overall experience. And you're absolutely right. Collaborations, [00:19:00] partnerships, friendships, like your best business partner friend that you're going to meet. I think those are very important selling points.

Well, I want to transition then from this idea of avalanche of sales, maybe into something that you've been talking about this kind of like, is it, you call it the big domino effect or the small domino effect?

Pete Gartland: Yes, the big domino effect. So I think a lot of people have heard of the domino effect, and they think that taking a series of small actions is going to get them to this place that they want to be eventually.

And yes, that kind of worked, but it takes a long time. And small dominoes don't knock over big dominoes. And what we want to do, what with me and Andrew have been absolutely obsessed with our whole life is get into that end point, get into that dream goal quicker. So why would we do something and have it take us 10 years when it could take us six months?

[00:20:00] Okay, or two years, let's say. So, this is something that we've applied in our life to pretty much everything. Now, this works for goals, it works for projects, etc. So, we can give you a demonstration. So, we wanted to become really well paid international keynote speakers. And to get to that point, what most people do is they will spend years and years and years of their life building up to that point.

So they'll do some local events first, then maybe they'll get some, like, slightly bigger gigs in their country and then they'll build up and maybe one day they'll get to do, like, a keynote talk rather than a breakout talk. Maybe, if they're lucky, they'll get paid to do that. Maybe one day they'll, like, do some international ones and get paid, like, expenses for that.

Maybe if they're really, really good, then they'll get, like, a [00:21:00] keynote abroad and they might get paid for it, they might not. And the time in between this takes time. You have to prep, you have to own your skill, all of this stuff, right? And the bigger your audience, the better the speaking gigs will come, let's say.

But if you don't have a big audience, growing your audience takes years, okay? So what if that 10 year goal could be reduced to like two years? Right, or even less. So that's what we became obsessed with. So we thought what is the best way to get to that point? Right, and the best way to get to that point is to do something, do a big enough gig that everyone wants you.

So we set our sights on a really big marketing conference in America. It was one of the biggest social media marketing events in the world. 5, 000 people attending. And we were like, holy smokes. If we can be on that, if we can be on that [00:22:00] stage, that would be amazing. Like everyone else would want us because we've been on that stage.

That is like the leading event. If we can go to other events and say, we've been on that stage, do you want us? Would it have a much, much better chance? So we set our sights on that. Now, at this point we had not a lot of money. This is like a couple of years into our business. We started from scratch. We were in our early twenties. We had no money, no investment, nothing like this. Right. So we looked at each other and were like, hmm, how can we even get to this event? Nevermind speak at it. And Andrew turned to me and he said maybe next year, right? We'll save up, we'll go next year. So I was like, no. So I stayed up all night planning and finding out how to get to this event.

I managed to get like a two for one deal by emailing them. I managed to get cheap flight. I also [00:23:00] managed to find like some grant funding to help us flyers over there and pay for the flights. I stayed up all night. I found the cheapest hotel in California, like way away from the venue. And I came back the next day.

I was like, look, we are going to go. We're going to go to this bloody event. So we went, it was incredible. We had a great time. We got to find out who we needed to meet and all this kind of stuff. And. We found out how to speak at the event. Now, to speak at the event, you need to be known by their community.

You needed to have wrote a book, you needed to have a YouTube channel or a podcast, and you need to have a niche, essentially.

Andrew Pickering: Of which we had none.

Pete Gartland: We had none of these things. Okay. So, We're like, right, this is our big domino. If we speak at this event, hopefully it'll help us knock on some other big dominoes.

Okay. We don't want to build up for 10 years. So what did we do over the next six months, Chris? We wrote [00:24:00] a book. We niched down our business. We got into the community and did a masterclass for their community. And we wrote blogs for them. And we also launched a YouTube channel. That we were religiously posting videos to, and we did this and we reached back out to them and said, hey, we're awesome now, like, do you want us to speak?

And they said, no. So we went back to the event the year after we went back to the event. We got to know some more of the team, by the way, if you want to speak at events, a great hack is to get to know the team because the hosts of the conference are always busy and inundated with people and nobody pays any attention to the rest of the staff or team.

Whereas when they get back after, it's those team members that are going to sing your praises. So that is a good little tip, by the way. So we did that. We reached out to some of the speakers. We did [00:25:00] collaborations with them. And we got the speakers in return for those collaborations to write us a little video to say, hey, Andrew and Pete will be really good as speakers. You should get them. So people that they knew recommending us, then we reached back out after that event. Hey, do you want us to speak? They said, no.

Chris Do: The plan is going great.

Pete Gartland: It's going great. And then. They said yes. Okay.

Andrew Pickering: They changed their mind on, they changed their mind.

Chris Do: Oh, they changed their mind. Okay. There's good point here. Okay, hold on. , what happened between no and yes? I don't.

Andrew Pickering: We dunno. We dunno. We got a no. And then a few weeks later, we got a yes,

Pete Gartland: We got a yes.

Andrew Pickering: We were like, okay.

Pete Gartland: Woo.

Andrew Pickering: Great. so,

Pete Gartland: So 18 months after we heard about this event, we were invited to speak at this event. Okay? So we went and spoke. We were the breakout speakers at this event. So we [00:26:00] spoke at the event, we recorded it, we made a huge song and dance about it online, like look at us, we're speaking at this international event, it's the biggest event in our industry. So much kudos came from that, it was amazing.

Andrew Pickering: That was the first conference that we had ever did.

Pete Gartland: Yeah, we'd never spoke at another conference before. And to go from nothing to like, the world's biggest stage, like, with a huge audience is, is phenomenal. So then, once we'd done that, we then basically went to a ton of other conferences and said, hey, we spoke at this event, do you want us?

And then we got to keynote all the events in the UK. We got paid international speaking gigs in like places like Bulgaria, Prague, Germany, like all these cool places. San Diego, Columbia, all these amazing places. We got paid speaking gigs and we've got international keynote speaking gigs, like straight away.

We even got a gig that was like 17 and a half [00:27:00] thousand pounds. And to go from zero to being paid 17 and a half thousand pounds is a pretty huge leap. Now, some people never get to that stage. And this is what we mean by a big domino. What is something that you can put 110 percent effort into, now, that will knock over all of those big dream dominoes in the future? So much quicker than you could ever have imagined?

Andrew Pickering: And it doesn't need to be an event. It could be maybe a dream client or getting on a dream podcast or winning a dream award. Like what is the big thing that you really want that you've maybe got on like your tenure plan and what would it take to do that sooner? What would it take to try to achieve that now?

Pete Gartland: For example, we wanted for our conference, we wanted some of the world's best speakers. And we knew that if we reached out to speakers, they would [00:28:00] not want to speak at our conference because it's never been done before. There's no previous history of it.

Why would they come and speak at our conference? And also may I add, we wanted them to come and speak for free. Right? It's our first year. We needed to like save a lot of costs, right? So how do we get amazing people to come speak at our event? What is the big domino? So the big domino was to get a celebrity speaker.

So, if we can pay, let's say, 30, 000 or 20, 000 for a celebrity, and then go to all the other speakers and say, Do you want to speak at our stage? We've got this celebrity speaking. They all say yes. So now all of a sudden we've got a free lineup, which is amazing, and they're going to promote it because they're going to be next to a celebrity, yeah?

So we've got loads and loads of examples of this, but it's something that you think is potentially a little bit out of your league, out of your grasp, but something that if you [00:29:00] put 110 percent effort into, you can not just knock over that. But knock over your dream goals, like, so much faster. Like, you are saving ten years of your life.

Andrew Pickering: And it's very intentional. So, people take small steps, thinking, hopefully one day, I am going to achieve that big thing. So, to speak at the marketing conference, there was lots of small steps that we needed to take. We needed to like map out what the book would be. We needed to work out how to self publish.

We needed to work out YouTube. Like there was lots of small steps, but there were small steps with this greater short term goal of knocking over this big domino faster. And like, that's the biggest thing that frustrates us. Like when we're working with our clients now, their dreams aren't big enough in the short term.

They all have great dreams. Longer term that they want to get to. But like we think it's going to take them like twice as long to get [00:30:00] there with that kind of mentality and like we were remember when we were doing this we were in our early 20s. We had nothing to lose We weren't jaded. We were just like hungry And we were like going for it and like that kind of youthful, nothing to lose kind of energy is something that we never, like now we're in our mid 30s and like we're still trying to channel like early 20s Andrew and Pete with every single project that we're doing.

Pete Gartland: Because the alternative is to take lots of small steps, also gives you an excuse to procrastinate on all the things that are important and impactful. Because it's like, you believe that right now, you don't need to be doing those big things. You don't need to be behaving as if you are that person. So it gives people like this escape goal to kind of, you know, not do those big impactful things because that's what happens in the future, but why not do it [00:31:00] now?

That's our mission. I really really want people to believe in themselves so much more. People hold themselves back so much. Even when people pitch to speak at Atomic Con, they'll put themselves down. And I'm like, why are you putting yourselves down in this pitch? People need to believe in themselves and reach for something that's just slightly beyond what you think they're capable of, because you were all capable of more.

The Futur: It's time for a quick break, but we'll be right back.

Chris Do: Are you committed to making 2024 your best year in business? We want to help you make it happen with expert guidance, a supportive community, and exclusive trainings. The Futur Pro Membership was created to give you everything you need to take your business to the next level. Go to thefutur.com/pro to learn more and join us inside. Okay, back to the conversation.[00:32:00]

The Futur: And we're back. Welcome back to our conversation.

Chris Do: Why was it important for you guys to be a big international keynote speaker? Before we get into the components of like achieving that result, what is it in the mind of a 20 year old who wakes up one day and says, hey, hey buddy, I know you're an introvert, but let's go for this big thing. This thing that's super scary. Why would you even want to do that in the first place?

Andrew Pickering: It's really interesting actually because now we are not trying to grow the speaking part of our business and we do very little speaking gigs. I think for us, well for me, this may be slightly different for the both actually, for me like the speaking was almost a means to the end.

Like I knew I wanted to grow Atomic, I knew I wanted to grow like our own conferences and our own personal brands and I knew that would be one of the quickest ways to quickly put ourselves on a pedestal as young people.

Pete Gartland: I think there's definitely an ego [00:33:00] thing when we're younger and we wanted to prove ourselves. When we walk into a, a networking room, people think that they've brought the kids and we're like, no, no, we're not someone's kids. Like we're acting like we were in our own business promise. Like it's, and it's really good. Like we make more money than you trust us. Nobody would trust us because we were young or that was at least in our, the story we told ourselves in our head.

So we had to overcompensate with being on the stages. That's kind of how it was. Over the years, we've kind of matured and sort of gone, well, actually, we don't need to do that anymore. And we could probably make more money just sat in our office, being focused rather than spending time traveling and rehearsing talks and stuff like that.

We could probably just make more money like this. And we have, like every year, since we've stopped speaking, we've made a lot more money. However, we don't regret doing it [00:34:00] because it did help us build a lot of credibility and kudos and grow our audience.

Chris Do: Well, just for context here, because you guys talk about how young you were then, you still look really young now. How old are you guys? Let's talk truth here. How old are you guys?

Andrew Pickering: Well, uh, 12.

Chris Do: Have you cracked 30 yet? Do you have like hair downstairs is what I'm asking.

Andrew Pickering: Oh, it's that type of podcast. I'm not sure where Pete's hair is to be honest. Um, but we are 34, 34.

Pete Gartland: Yeah. Just 10, 34. Yeah.

Chris Do: Okay, so to combat this perception of you being really young and not being taken seriously, you thought, what is the fastest way we can counter that? And you pursued this thing. There's a lot of questions come up. Usually when somebody does something and becomes really successful, there's always an eyebrow like, why would you stop doing that thing? Like if you got on this international stage and spoke and got you a lot of credibility and [00:35:00] social proof, why stop doing it? I mean, it seems counterintuitive, right? Most people, you have success, do more of it, not less.

Pete Gartland: So, we have this thing called the 90-10 rule, which is, you should focus 90 percent of your efforts doing one thing remarkably well, and 10 percent of your efforts doing experiment with other things and you can only move on to the next thing when that one thing that you've done remarkably well is 100 percent delegated and processed.

So, this is the same with all content channels, like everyone that we've ever, anyone that's ever had a success story with content, they always started on one platform first and then eventually they moved out. And it's the same with offerings and things like this. So me and Andrew, we looked at our income streams and we had nine different income streams.

There was failure income. There was speaking gig income. There was our membership. There was one to one coaching and there was group [00:36:00] programs and there's all these things and Atomic Con, the event. So we looked at all these things and we thought, well, what if we just cut it all down to one? So we thought, okay, well, that'd be brave.

We extrapolated the income projected income of all the income streams over the next five to 10 years. And our course and membership and the event had the biggest potential for scalability and making the most amount of money in the future. Then what we did was we looked at where our customers were coming from.

And a lot of it was from our YouTube channel and email list and fourth on the list was speaking gigs where people first came across us. Okay. Now I'm not going to deny that it didn't have any impact, but it was fourth on the list. So what we did was we literally stopped all everything that we did. In fact, we even combined at that point, the membership on the event, [00:37:00] we had to uncouple it after the pandemic because no one wanted to buy a course attached to an event, but let's not go into that.

So we essentially cut everything down into one offering that we did remarkably well, and we made so much more money doing that. Now, it was tough because we had to fire like our clients, like a one to one client who literally fired them, which was the hardest thing we've ever done in our lives. And to stop all the other income streams suddenly was kind of daunting.

We had to say no to paid speaking gigs, and it was very, very scary. But the moment that we just focused on one thing everything improved for us. Like our, our mental health improved, our profits improved, our revenue improved, our audience improved, like just everything grew so much quicker. And I think that's a really valuable lesson for people as well. Just do one thing remarkably well, for at least [00:38:00] 90%.

Chris Do: Some quick housekeeping things in terms of just keeping up with the story here. What is the name of this international event that you spoke at that was like the leading thing?

Andrew Pickering: It was Social Media Marketing World, which happens in San Diego.

Chris Do: Are they still going on today?

Andrew Pickering: They're still going. Yeah, we still actually go back. We go back as attendees. Now every year because we have so many friends out there and we just, you know, love San Diego.

Pete Gartland: We ended up actually keynoting that whole event as well in front of 5, 000 people, which was awesome.

Chris Do: Very good. And then next thing is you said, well, when you put on your event, you needed a draw speaker, a celebrity speaker. Who was the first speaker that you had in that year one?

Pete Gartland: The big celebrity speaker that we got was Debra Meaden. She was a panelist on Dragon's Den, which is like a TV show in the UK. And the equivalent in America is Shark's Tank. So you may have heard of that. What was this person's name again? [00:39:00] Debra Meaden.

She's Debra Meaden. So she's a dragon on Dragon's Den. So she's made you know, multiple hundreds of millions and

Andrew Pickering: Very well known,

Pete Gartland: Very well known. And then she goes on to the show and she invests in other businesses that pitch. Well, I'm very familiar with Dragon's Den. I think Shark Tank is a direct ripoff of Dragon's Den as many American shows are. We seem to be pretty good at seeing what works and then just replicating the same thing again, making it hit after hit.

Andrew Pickering: I did some drama and for this day,

Chris Do: A little bit more drama, but I now see also that the Dragon's Den has been slightly influenced by Shark Tank and they've upped the drama factor too. Right. So it's kind of interesting how they push each other. Okay. Super. I want to just quickly summarize some of the things that you talked about in this idea. I think the biggest idea that you mentioned is intentionality is to make sure you know where you're going to be and then mapping all of your decisions towards that and aiming really high.

A wise piece of advice that a friend gave me is [00:40:00] whoever you want to work with just go to the top of the industry and work with them and everyone else follows suit because of massive social proof. Now, we like to think we're really independent, free spirited, free will thinking human beings, but we're all just really sheeple.

So when you're like, well, we have this speaker, everybody's like, oh my god. You got that person well you're legit. I will sign up right now. And so we've had the same thing. If you want to work with clients in the sporting industry, just we'll work with Nike or Adidas and everyone else will just work with you because of massive social proof.

And so I think the failure that a lot of people have is they think too small, they play small and they win at the small stakes game, they're not willing to have a big bet. And that is a lot to you guys and your confidence and your self belief, your determination. Even if it's overcome some kind of imposter syndrome. You took the antidote to that, which is to play big and you win big. And I'm super happy for you guys. Now there's a story here. I wanted to share with you that Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, having come to Hollywood had tried to [00:41:00] get into movies and failed miserably. And they came to the conclusion that the entire Hollywood structure is broken.

So what they did was they broke it one more time to say, you know what, we will write our own script called Goodwill Hunting, and we are attached to the to be the key actors in it, and they got Gus Van Zandt to do it. And as they say, the rest is history. It's a very similar move. It's like when you want something, you figure out a way you work around the system.

Otherwise, you wind up becoming a victim to the system. Okay, beautiful there. And I love the little things that you said about how you were able to hack your way into being an international keynote speaker. Quickly to summarize. Get known by the community, get known by the team, grow your social following, especially on podcasting and YouTube, understand and focus in on your niche, and then do everything you can to become known, writing books, blogs, running masterclasses, and get people that they know to recommend you. I think I got that right?

Andrew Pickering: Yes, and do you know like what's nuanced in all of that as well when you're asking people for stuff [00:42:00] make sure the ask is remarkable. So we got like really good at working out how to get people's attention. So for example that first year we were going to Social Media Marketing World and we were spending all this money we looked at the lineup, we thought, who are the key players in this?

We created them a landing page online to invite them to a coffee. So it was a landing page bespokely created for them, and we tweeted them a link. We interacted with them for a bit actually before like two weeks before we interacted with them on twitter so they would get used to seeing our avatar and then we tweeted them a link and we set up like four or five coffee meetings at that first conference just to get to know people so like we've done it for when we've wanted to get on big podcasts when we've wanted to invite people onto our podcast like we've used some of the same strategies like we'll do something remarkable to get their attention.

Pete Gartland: Like for example We wanted to speak at this one event and [00:43:00] we really wanted to get to know the owner. So we created a landing page and a podcast, like a capsule podcast, so just a small series. And we invited, we put on this page 10 people who we thought this person would respect. And we basically invited them to the podcast and we said, hey, it's going to be a great podcast. We're going to invite all these other people to it.

So you're in great company, like, do you want to be on it? They said yes. We invited the other people. They said yes because he said yes, which is a really good way to get people on your podcast, by the way. And then we got to know him on the podcast. And then after the podcast, we asked him, how do we speak on your stage?

Like, can you help us with the pitch? And he goes, yeah, you guys are great. Like, here you go. Here's the advice. and we pitched and we got that gig, like, and it was so easy. And it wasn't easy in terms that we had to create [00:44:00] a whole podcast, but the podcast had lots of other benefits and we collaborated with some of the other people, right?

But It's just one of those things where people would typically go, I'm a nobody. Why would that person ever collaborate with me? Why would they come on my podcast? And there's something about just being cheeky and asking them. And hopefully they'll say yes, but there's also this huge part about the big domino about the remarkable ask.

So doing the whole podcast thing first was remarkable. Sending them a landing page after replying to everything they ever tweeted for two weeks in a row, straight, is remarkable. Like, and what people don't get is, to make that leap, sometimes you need to do something a little bit more remarkable and out of the box.

You can't just ask them, just like you would ask, like, in a simple email. Sometimes it might work, sure, but majority of the time it's going [00:45:00] to get ignored. So when you're reaching for something big, you have to put in the effort for the ask as well.

Chris Do: Well, there's a couple of things I want to just to highlight. I like this idea of the remarkable ask. You remind me of a few entrepreneurs who remind us if you, if you want conventional results, do conventional things. But if you want unconventional results, do unconventional things. And there's something about us, I think that's hardwired to kind of play within the rules to say like, oh, you can't do that.

You're not supposed to do that. And then you guys just say, forget that F that we'll just do whatever we need to do to get the results that we want. And so I want to make sure the audience is listening to this part. And there's a story. Jesse Itzler tells a story and it's a beautiful story. If I may, I'm going to repeat the story in case you don't, do you know who Jesse Itzler is?

Okay, wonderful. Just Google him after this and you'll check him out. He's an amazing speaker and he tells this story about how he had this private jet company where you can, I guess, book flights on his private jet. And he had a hard time getting customers. So he [00:46:00] thought, you know, where should I go? I should go to a TED conference and try to bring some of those people in to becoming my clients.

Pete Gartland: Oh, I have heard this story. It's amazing. Yeah. I say go on, go on. It's awesome.

Andrew Pickering: I haven't heard that.

Chris Do: You've heard that story. Okay, so I'll tell you the story. Okay, so he's trying to get into TED and he can't because the thing is sold out. So he goes to the nearby cafe and he's sitting there kind of thinking about conspiring about how he can get in and meet all These people and you notice that during break everyone leaves the conference and goes in here and has a coffee And a muffin, a coffee and a muffin.

Then one after the other, he's like, okay. So the next day he shows up again, when they open up, he goes up to the cashier and says, you know what? I want to buy all of your muffins. So he cleans them all out of muffins. There's no more muffins. And he puts them all underneath the table and he just waits there.

So sure enough, the first customer comes in and says, I'd like to get a coffee and a muffin. And the person behind the counter says we're out of muffins and they're like, what do you mean? You guys just opened. He goes, well, they're all [00:47:00] gone. And then Jesse gets up from his table and says, excuse me, I couldn't help it to overhear that you're looking for muffins.

He goes, yes. He goes, well, come over here. He brings it back over to the table. He pulls back to the tablecloth and shows them all the muffins he has. How many would you like? They sit down, they talk. And that person wound up using his service. And then ultimately later on buying the company from him for like 800 million.

And it's the power of remarkable thinking, the remarkable ask, doing something wild and extraordinary. And when I hear stories like what you guys do, and Jesse, it reminds me, man, I think I'm a big thinker. I think I'm not playing it safe. But it reminds me, like, maybe I am still playing it a little bit safe.

Pete Gartland: I think it's okay to take it in turns. So me and Andrew have this where we do a big push for something and then we have a moment of like, yeah, processes, like let's build on those like infrastructure and [00:48:00] foundations, outsource things, process things, and then let's have another period of big growth. And I think that's kind of the way we think about it.

Another end of the story of the big domino effect in order is, um, We wanted to grow our email list, and that's really, really important to us. And we had like a tiny email list, like a few hundred people. So what we thought was we'll put on a big online conference. So we were like, okay, let's do this big online conference.

And what most people do with their online conference is they invite speakers and then tell the speakers that they need to promote it. Now, when this first came about years and years and years ago, that was kind of popular, but then now speakers are like, Ugh, like, I'm not promoting another online conference either.

I'm not doing that, right? Why would I just give you all my audience? So, and we knew that we weren't able to get big names [00:49:00] onto our online conference if we were to approach like that. Especially because we had an email list of like 300 people or something, right? So, we're like, okay, what do we do? So, we went and had a meeting with, we bought this guy lunch, someone who we thought had a big email list, and another person, and another person.

And what we did was, we said to them, we will give you free sponsorship on this event. These are the types of people that we are wanting to invite. All you have to do is just promote this conference to your email list three times, sell this email, and you get free sponsorship. So they said yes, and they had an email list of 100, 000 people.

And then we did the same thing with another couple of sponsors, and by the end it was like 150 or 200, 000 people. that this was going to be promoted to. So then we could go to all these big name speakers and go, hey, do you want to speak at this event? We've got an email list of 200, 000 [00:50:00] people that we'll promote this to.

And they're going to say, yes, of course they're going to say yes. Now in that lineup, we also had a big domino. Like the first speaker was like the biggest name we could think of. And he was so big. In fact, that the other people on the that we invited were like, have you really got him speaking? Because he'll never do this sort of thing.

How have you got them? But we showed them proof and they were like, okay, I'm in. So again, like this big domino is everywhere. But what we ended up doing after that conference is growing our email list by like a ton, like thousands and thousands of people. And that took us three months from start to scratch.

Now, how many people are going from like 300 to like, let's say 3000 subscribers in three months. Like nobody's doing that. That's like five years. Some people never even get that. So again, what do you want to do? What aligns with your goal and then find a way to leapfrog that with something more [00:51:00] remarkable.

Chris Do: I get the feeling that in another life, if you were born in LA, you too would have been amazing Hollywood agents, leveraging and brokering things. Oh, you want this star? You're going to have to give us the cover to this magazine. And because we have this cover to this magazine, we're going to produce this movie and we're going to sign the 100 million deal.

Andrew Pickering: Hey, we're only 34. This could be, this could be this life.

Chris Do: This is just chapter one. Okay, I get it. I love it. And I think maybe I'm going to challenge you guys to think even bigger than that, whatever that might be. Yeah. Okay.

Pete Gartland: Please do.

Chris Do: Okay, now I have to ask a slightly selfish question here. I started the conversation by saying, I was the last minute replacement speaker because somebody had a family emergency. I was grateful for the opportunity, stressed out of my mind, but whatever. I'm just curious, how is it that I became one of your keynote speakers and if there's more story to that.

Andrew Pickering: You were on our list for a long time. I remember seeing your video where you are in a conference room and some guys [00:52:00] like challenging you on the price of his logo and like you like clap back and we were like doing we when we first got started we were doing like web designing logos so like you were on our list for a long time yeah

Pete Gartland: Like 10 years like we've known about you like looked up to you and thought oh this person is so awesome

Andrew Pickering: Yeah so when that very last keynote I have to like picking the original lineup is like so hard so we like go back and forth and then when that keynote dropped out We were like if we're going to replace this keynote like it needs to be with the biggest domino we can find. So we went to that person's agent and we were like, this is our list It was like a list of like three or four people that we wanted to just go to our attendees and say look this person has dropped out however like isn't this even cooler and you were on that list with a few other people and thankfully the stars aligned and we could make that work and like that was [00:53:00] really good that was really good for us actually it gave us like another reason to promote it like two weeks before the event or whatever it yeah.

Chris Do: Yeah, so what had happened was it was in my inbox, but I was traveling through Europe and coming back to America. I'm like, I don't have time to read these emails. And so I sat on it for a few days. My business manager said, hey, Chris, do you want to do this thing? Like, Oh, I got to tell my wife had just got home, but I'm going to be here for three days. I'm getting on another plane back out. So I was sitting there thinking, is this worth it?

Should I do this? And I'm like, you know, when am I going to be in Newcastle? Let's go. And I said, yes. And I'm, I'm so grateful for the opportunity to do this with you guys. And I mean, this from the bottom of my heart, guys, if you are remotely thinking about a business conference that it has equal parts, community, fun, lots of parties, did we mention lots of parties, inspirational and practical? Things that you can learn from keynote speakers. I highly recommend you guys check out Atomic Con. They have apparently already sold over a thousand seats. What is the capacity for you guys?

Andrew Pickering: It's [00:54:00] sixteen hundred and forty two. We know that number off by heart.

Chris Do: And it's a really cool venue too. What's the name of the venue?

Andrew Pickering: It's in such a cool venue. It's called, it's actually changed names since you spoke. So now it is called the Glass House and it is, it is a glass house, isn't it? It's like a beautiful, it's like a music venue. So they do lots of conferences there, which means all the rooms are super cool. Really nice. Perfect. It's on the Newcastle Quay side. So some great views as well.

Chris Do: Beautiful. And what's next for you guys?

Pete Gartland: The next thing for us is we are going to go on a big audience growth push. So we have our offers in place. We have processes to sell them ourselves. Doing amazing. We've got a sales team in place. And over the next year, we're going to do a massive World Genes growth push. So we are going to big domino that as we do it. And yeah, it's going to be really, really exciting.

Chris Do: Wonderful. [00:55:00] There's a question I have for you, which I forgot to ask earlier, is you said you wound up doing the keynote for Social Media Marketing World. What was the topic and what did you guys talk about?

Andrew Pickering: Oh, it's actually a great story on that as well. So we, the topic was the 90-10 rule, which we talked about earlier. So it was how to get how you should 90-10, your content strategy and do one thing remarkably well. We actually created that talk because we saw, do you know a guy called Drew Davis or Andrew Davis?

He's a speaker that we saw. He blew our socks off at a conference and we were like, we need to get. that good at speaking. So we thought, right, big domino, if someone can teach us to be that good at speaking, he can. So we bumped into him and we went up to him and we said like, Drew, like, how do we get that good?

Like, you blew our minds. And he showed us exactly his process. He like said, send me your recording. I'll critique it. I'll tell you what to do. And he kind of took us under his [00:56:00] wing. And he was harsh in a very fair way about the type of talk we were doing, and how to up our game out of like the expertville talk to more of a visionary changing the way people are thinking about a certain topic kind of talk.

And we had a conference coming up, didn't we? I think it was like two or three months after we met Drew. And he said, the talk that you've pitched for that conference, we're not going to do it. We're going to do this new one. So it was like two months of hard work. We just absolutely put our all into creating the keynote talk that was going to get us the keynote gig at Social Media Marketing World.

Pete Gartland: Every, every day we sent him a recording of what it was going to be, what it was like the first five minutes. And he would be like, no, do it again. Like, this is what you need to treat. It's not hitting it. Do it again. And like every day we spent like two hours a day, sometimes like six hours, redoing this talk, working it, reworking it, reworking it, and then finally.

Andrew Pickering: But we knew at [00:57:00] this conference, somebody that was really good friends with Mike Stelzner, who runs Social Media Marketing World, was going to be there. So we were like, this is our big domino, like, if we can nail this talk, we'll get that. And the guy came up to his Afro and he said, guys, that was like one of the best talks I've ever seen.

I've just text Mike Stelzner to tell him you should keynote Social Media Marketing World. And at that point we were like, oh my god, could this actually happen? So once we got the recording, we, emailed Mike and we were like, this is the talk, we'd be open to it, we'd love to do it, let us know.

Pete Gartland: So it was a lot of hard work.

Chris Do: Well, now I'm super curious. I need to see this, this talk. Is it available online?

Andrew Pickering: I can send you a link. It's not publicly available online, but I can definitely send you a link.

Chris Do: Okay, I need to see this thing. Okay, this is wonderful. Now I know the backstory. Well, I want to be respectful of your time. Thank you both, Andrew, Pete, for coming on the show. And once again, thank you for having me at your event. I know it's a great event, so I can support it wholeheartedly and encourage [00:58:00] folks to check it out. If people want to find out more about you guys and what you're doing, where should they go?

Andrew Pickering: They should check out wwwww.atomic.site all of our conference information is on there, all of our program information is on there, and links to our socials too. Instagram is probably our favorite social network, so if you are listening to this, do slide into the DMs, drop the follow, tell us you heard us on this show.

Pete Gartland: And if you want our very, very best advice, then join our email list. It's called The Revolution, and every week we send really, really helpful, tactical advice. And powerful stories to help you grow, scale your company faster.

Chris Do: Wonderful. And I think everybody does want an avalanche of sales or at least opportunities that go beyond their capacity. So we'll be checking that out. Can I assume that all of this will be linked somewhere in the atomic.site?

Andrew Pickering: Yes. If you go to atomic.site, you'll find all the links there.

Chris Do: Okay. Wonderful. Well, Andrew, Pete, it was a real pleasure chatting with you. Thank you very much for doing this.

Pete Gartland: Thanks Chris, you've been awesome and [00:59:00] everyone at Atomic Unlevered, by the way, you got amazing feedback. Just wanted to say that as well, make sure you knew that you're like an awesome speaker. Thanks Chris. Thanks everyone. Thanks everyone for listening. Bye. We are Andrew and Pete, and you're listening to The Futur.

The Futur: Thanks for joining us. If you haven't already, subscribe to our show on your favorite podcasting app and get new insightful episodes from us every week. The Futur Podcast is hosted by Chris Do and produced and edited by Rich Cardona Media. Thank you to Adam Sanborn for our intro music. If you enjoyed this episode, then do us a favor by reviewing and rating our show on Apple Podcasts.

It will help us grow the show and make future episodes that much better. If you'd like to support the show and invest in yourself while you're at it, visit the future.com and you'll find video [01:00:00] courses, digital products, and a bunch of helpful resources about design and the creative business. Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you next time.

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